the village and spelled Felicia Richardson. Stackhouse told Fellowes what he wanted, and asked if he could get it without alerting anyone. Fellowes said he could, but would need a few minutes.
“Make it a very few,” Stackhouse said. He hung up and used his box phone to call Rafe Pullman and John Walsh, his two security men who were standing by.
“Shouldn’t you get one of our pet cops to go down there to the trainyard instead?” Mrs. Sigsby asked when he finished the call. Two members of the Dennison River Bend Police were stringers for the Institute, which amounted to twenty per cent of the entire force. “Wouldn’t that be quicker?”
“Quicker but maybe not safer. I don’t want knowledge of this shit-show to go any further than it already has unless and until it becomes absolutely necessary.”
“But if he got on a train, he could be anywhere!”
“We don’t know that he was even there. The girl could have been bullshitting.”
“I don’t think she was.”
“You didn’t think Dixon was.”
It was true—and embarrassing—but she stayed on message. The situation was far too serious to do anything else. “Point taken, Trevor. But if he’d stayed in a town that small, he’d have been spotted hours ago!”
“Maybe not. He’s one smart kid. He might have gone to ground somewhere.”
“But a train is the most likely, and you know it.”
The phone rang again. They both went for it. Stackhouse won.
“Yes, Andy. You did? Good, give it to me.” He grabbed a notepad and jotted on it rapidly. She leaned over his shoulder to read.
4297 at 10 AM.
16 at 2:30 PM.
77 at 5 PM.
He circled 4297 at 10 AM, asked for its destination, then jotted Port, Ports, Stur. “What time was that train due into Sturbridge?”
He jotted 4–5 PM on the pad. Mrs. Sigsby looked at it with dismay. She knew what Trevor was thinking: the boy would have wanted to get as far away as possible before leaving the train—assuming he had been on it. That would be Sturbridge, and even if the train had pulled in late, it would have arrived at least five hours ago.
“Thanks, Andy,” Stackhouse said. “Sturbridge is in Western Mass, right?”
He listened, nodding.
“Okay, so it’s on the turnpike, but it’s still got to be a pretty small port of call. Maybe it’s a switching point. Can you find out if that train, or any part of it, goes on from there? Maybe with a different engine, or something?”
He listened.
“No, just a hunch. If he stowed away on that train, Sturbridge might not be far enough for him to feel comfortable. He might want to keep running. It’s what I’d do in his place. Check it out and get back to me ASAP.”
He hung up. “Andy got the info off the station website,” he said. “No problem. Isn’t that amazing? Everything’s on the Internet these days.”
“Not us,” she said.
“Not yet,” he countered.
“What now?”
“We wait for Rafe and John.”
They did so. The witching hour came and went. At just past twelve-thirty, the phone on her desk rang. Mrs. Sigsby beat him to it this time, barked her name, then listened, nodding along.
“All right. All understood. Now go on up to the train station . . . depot . . . yard . . . whatever they call it . . . and see if anyone is still . . . oh. All right. Thank you.”
She hung up and turned to Stackhouse.
“That was your security force.” This was delivered with some sarcasm, since Stackhouse’s security force tonight consisted of just two men in their fifties and neither in wonderful physical shape. “The Brown girl had it right. They found the stairs, they found shoe prints, they even found a couple of bloody fingermarks, about halfway up the stairs. Rafe theorizes that Ellis either stopped there to rest, or maybe to re-tie his shoes. They’re using flashlights, but John says they could probably find more signs once it’s daylight.” She paused. “And they checked the station. No one there, not even a night watchman.”
Although the room was air conditioned to a pleasant seventy-two degrees, Stackhouse armed sweat from his forehead. “This is bad, Julia, but we still might be able to contain it without using that.” He pointed to the bottom drawer of her desk, where the Zero Phone was waiting. “Of course if he went to the cops in Sturbridge, our situation becomes a lot shakier. And he’s had five hours to do it.”
“Even if he did get off there he might not’ve,”