Hope to Die (Alex Cross 22)

The size of the turnout seemed to both surprise and alarm Pelham. But the number of kids who were openly mourning my boy touched me deeply, and I was almost overwhelmed with emotion when a few of them rose and talked about the son I did and didn’t know.

“Damon was hilarious and smart and he’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it,” one boy said.

“He really listened to you,” an older girl said. “And when he said he just wanted to be friends, he was serious. He was your friend.”

A tall kid I figured played basketball said, “He wasn’t the best player, but he was always the hardest worker. Always, and he made you want to work harder. I’ll miss that.”

There were a lot of heads nodding when Pelham and I walked up the center aisle. I honestly don’t know how I made it. Pelham introduced me, and I saw the kids’ faces change from interest to sadness and pain.

Fighting the ball of grief in my throat, I got some semblance of control and said, “Damon loved this school, and he loved all his friends and classmates. This place made him happy, which meant you made him happy. I’m hoping you’ll honor his memory by helping me find whoever took him and killed him.”

A pretty brunette in the second row started weeping softly. The boy beside her, a chunky redheaded kid in a blue Patriots hoodie, hugged her.

I said, “He was supposed to ride the jitney to the train station the Friday before vacation began. The driver said someone told him Damon had gotten a ride, but he couldn’t remember who. Did any of you tell him that? Did any of you see my son that day?”

For several moments all I saw was confusion on the students’ faces. Then the kid in the blue hoodie raised his hand and said, “We did, sir. Sylvia and me.”

Sylvia went hysterical, and I went numb.

Ten minutes later, however, we were all in the headmaster’s office. Sylvia Mathers had calmed down and was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked up under her and her arms holding her knees. Looking lost and defeated, Porter Tate sat beside her.

The boy spoke first, in a voice so low I had to sit forward to hear him.

“It was that woman, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“What woman?” Pelham said.

“The one with the …”

“With what?” I asked.

“Dirty-blond hair and big tits,” he mumbled.

Sylvia Mathers sent him a withering look, said, “You can be such an asshole sometimes, Porter.”

“Hey, I didn’t—”

“You did,” she shot back. “It’s all you and Tommy talked about on the ride, how Damon was teed up for big tits, and now he’s dead.”

“Back up,” I said. “You saw Damon with a strange woman that morning?”

“Yes,” Sylvia said.

“No,” Porter said.

Now I was totally confused. “You saw her, Sylvia, and you didn’t, Porter?”

The boy said, “No, I saw her, but she wasn’t strange. I mean, I’d seen her before. I …” He looked at me bleakly, said, “Damon was my friend. I’m so sorry, sir. I wish I’d made him come with us. But it seemed chill. Damon was chill.”

In fits and starts, their story came out. On the morning of Good Friday, Sylvia and Porter had left their dorms and passed Damon with his luggage. He was speaking with a woman in her mid- to late twenties. She had dirty-blond hair, wore dark sunglasses, was of medium height, and had the aforementioned large breasts, which, according to Porter, were encased in the same tight white top she’d been wearing the first time he saw her.

“And when was that?” the headmaster asked.

“I dunno,” Porter said. “Like, ten days before that? She and Damon were across the street at Millie’s, having coffee. I was there too, with Tommy Grant and Roger Woods. I mean, not with Damon and the lady. We were in the corner, kind of, I don’t know, watching?”

“More like ogling, the way Tommy made it sound,” Sylvia said, disgusted.

Porter said the woman and Damon talked for nearly twenty minutes and then left. Porter and his friends found Damon studying in his room later.