Ali Cross

“‘I know this is usually a prayer for kids everywhere, but if it’s okay, I’d like to pray for just one kid tonight,’ I said. ‘A lot of you know Gabriel Qualls. He’s in my grade at Washington Latin. He doesn’t really come to church, but the point is, he’s been missing for three days.’”

Ali is honored with a request to deliver a prayer at a Christmas Eve church service, but his concern over Gabe’s disappearance distracts him. He resolves the dilemma at the last minute by changing what he has carefully written out so that it asks for prayers on Gabe’s behalf. His sincerity, along with his ability to make quick alterations on the fly, mark him both as a boy with a good heart and a smart kid who perhaps will one day follow in his famous father’s footsteps.

“I couldn’t stop turning it all over in my mind. That’s just the way my brain works, like a generator in a blackout, never stopping, always running, always going.”

Ali worries about his missing friend, and he thinks about it constantly. His mind won’t rest until Gabe is found. Already, he exhibits the dogged determination that marks his best efforts.

“I wanted to be a detective so I couldn’t get enough of anything with a mystery or a crime. I also like books by Walter Mosley, Blue Balliett, Trenton Lee Stewart, Varian Johnson, Agatha Christie, and a bunch of others.”

Ali trains himself to think and act like a detective. Observing his investigator-parents, watching police procedural shows, and reading detective stories, Ali builds an informal background of knowledge on how to go about collecting evidence. His mind then works on whatever details he can pick up from his folks and other police professionals. The burglary and vandalism of his family home is a serious problem, but Ali is serious about wanting to help.

“For better or worse, Ali’s mind was always running, always firing on every cylinder. He was an intelligent, creative kid, but he also tended to fixate on whatever was in front of him, at which point he was more pit bull than wise old owl. That came with a tendency to make overconfident and sometimes rash Alex Cross knows his son is exceptional, but the kid’s still young and prone to act rashly. Considering the dangers the Cross family faces, it’s a worrisome time for the father and a risky time for Ali, whose bulldog approach may get him into serious difficulties. decisions, which was the part that worried Alex the most.”

Alex Cross knows his son is exceptional, but the kid’s still young and prone to act rashly. Considering the dangers the Cross family faces, it’s a worrisome time for the father and a risky time for Ali, whose bulldog approach may get him into serious difficulties.

“Every day Gabe stayed missing, the trail was going to get a little colder. Maybe I wasn’t going to get all the answers I was hoping for from Detective Sutter, but that didn’t mean I was out of questions. Just the opposite. I still had about a million of them. And as far as I was concerned, I was going to keep on looking for some answers of my own.”

Ali can’t let go of the need to find his good friend. The police don’t seem to share his intense desire to bring Gabe home, and they’re not going to help him run his own investigation parallel to theirs, which could result in two boys in trouble instead of just one. Ali is on his own, but he won’t stop until Gabe comes home. As the book’s chief protagonist, this is his great need, and it drives the plot.

“Gabe was like this quiet kid who only ever showed off when he was inside this game and hiding behind an avatar. In a weird way, it made sense. He may have been shy, and maybe even kind of weird, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have mad skills. In other words, Gabe Qualls was a stealth genius. I just hoped that wherever he was, all those skills might translate into the real world when he really needed them.”

Gabe’s Outpost buddies try to obtain clues about his disappearance by raiding his game station. In the process, Ali begins to form a theory of Gabe’s personality. Ali is profiling a missing person the way his dad might profile a victim or perpetrator.

“Jannie can be a pain in the butt as my older sister. But when she’s on the track, I’m always proud of her. I only wish I could run like that. Other than with my brain, I mean.”

Siblings can get into spats, and, for many, this can define their relationship. Ali’s family, though, practices a deep commitment to its members; their essential love and support for one another overcome any problems. Ali envies his sister’s athletic ability, but he also knows he has his own strengths and doesn’t need to resent her successes. They all can share in each other’s victories.

“It’s better to care too much than too little. Every single time.”

Alex tells his son that there are worse things than being too worried about others. Ali tends to act impulsively, butts in on adult activities, and noses around where he shouldn’t, but his heart is in the right place, and that counts for a great deal in Alex’s mind. People who care might make mistakes, but they’re aimed in the right direction, and having them on one’s side can be a great advantage.

“‘[…] Gabe’s from Southeast DC, he’s poor, and he’s black, which is enough for nobody to care. Gabe’s got no headlines on the news, no search parties, no nothing.’ ‘I hear that,’ Ruby said. ‘But you know what he does have?’ ‘What?’ I asked. I really wanted to know. ‘Us,’ Ruby said.”

One drawback to the kids’ search is that Gabe is from an impoverished, Black household, the kind that gets the least attention from society. Advantages include Ali’s folks, who work for MPD, and the kids themselves, who are smart, energetic, and care about what happens to Gabe.

“I wasn’t looking for trouble that morning. I really wasn’t. But sometimes trouble comes looking for you.”

It’s not the problems that matter but how people face them. Ali’s angry impatience is a weakness he must overcome, whether he attacks a problem or a problem attacks him. A second lesson is that to be a good detective, he must be prepared for anything and never blame the problem for his outcomes.

“‘You know how many people are talking trash about me these days?’

‘I know, but—’

‘And are you planning on throwing a punch at every single one of them?’”

Alex Cross explains to Ali why it’s absurd to try to change everyone’s opinion, even if those beliefs are unfair to Ali and his family. Besides, an angry defense of a reputation will itself taint that reputation. Sometimes people are defiantly wrong-headed, which can lead to problems, but it’s wisest simply to be aware of it, let it go, and move forward.

“I woke up thinking about Gabe every day now. Went to sleep thinking about him, too. Every hour that went by was another hour where I felt like I should have gotten more done. It was like an ache in my brain. And in my heart, too. I couldn’t focus on anything else.”

Gabe’s disappearance weighs on Ali, who’s smart enough, but not quite skilled enough, to make good progress on the search. He gets caught up in an endless cycle of worry, a largely fruitless exercise. On the off-chance that, somehow, he might nonetheless discover a way forward, Ali stays hooked and anxious.

“‘While I’m stuck here at home, he could be out there hurt, or hungry, or scared, or in a hundred different kinds of trouble—’ Nana cut me off. ‘That’s the blessing and the curse of a mind like yours,’ she said. ‘An active imagination is a wonderful thing. But it can also be a burden, if you focus too much on the dark side of the street.’”

Nana sees that Ali can’t stop worrying. While working relentlessly to solve the problem, his mind settles on the worst outcomes and frets uselessly about them. Instead of worrying, Nana wants him to focus on the investigational process and make progress on it instead of worrying that it might be impossible.

“Was I doing the right thing? Hard to say, since I was breaking someone’s trust no matter what I did—either by saying more than Gabe wanted me to say, or by not saying enough to the three friends who had been in this with me from the beginning. It wasn’t like there were any perfect choices, but I went with it.”

Ali wrestles with the moral dilemmas that his investigation presents. He promised Gabe he wouldn’t tell anyone about their online communication, which means he’s holding out on allies who trust him. If he tells them about it, he’ll betray Gabe, who wants them not to search and thereby put themselves in danger. These are the kinds of problems investigators sometimes face, and Ali’s informal study of detection has thrust upon him an advanced course in ethics.

“[…] I had a whole lot of explaining to do. A lot of coming clean, too. It was like everything I’d been building up all this time was about to come crashing down, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it anymore.”

Ali learns a deep lesson the hard way, as his secret investigative activities come back to haunt him. Had he told his dad at the outset that he was going to visit the Qualls, Dr. Cross probably would have forbidden it. Still, lies are complicated burdens to carry around, and ultimately it’s better to have his father’s trust than his permission.

“‘What are you doing here with your father?’ Dad put a hand on my shoulder. I knew what it meant, too. Just keep moving. But he didn’t have to worry about me this time. I’d learned my lesson the hard way, and I knew these people weren’t asking real questions. They just wanted something that would make people click on their stories or buy their papers.”

Ali is growing up quickly. Weeks earlier, he tried to defend his father’s honor before a crowd of reporters; now he knows their questions can be traps, and he won’t play their game. He’s beginning to recognize the dark underside of society’s endless hunger for sensational news, and he no longer wants to do anything that might entangle his family in the push-and-shove of public life.

“I knew my investigation wasn’t real compared to theirs, but the fact was, I’d learned a thing or two since I started, including a few things even they didn’t know until I told them.”

To his credit, Ali really has dug up important clues about the missing Gabe. His unapproved investigative activity, and the risks he’s taken as a boy detective, make him a potential problem for the police, not to mention his worried father. They don’t know whether to congratulate or punish him.

“‘You want to know something? I was so angry about how a case was going one time, I punched a mirror in the bathroom at work. I even cried that day.’ ‘You did?’ I asked. It was a lot easier for me to imagine Dad punching something than it was to imagine him crying. Not that he’s some super-tough Luke Cage kind of guy. But at the same time, he is pretty tough.”

Detective Cross isn’t bulletproof like fictional Black hero Luke Cage, but he’s resilient and very hard to defeat. If someone like that can cry, then Ali’s tears aren’t a weakness but an honest coming-to-terms with his own real frustrations. A police officer may be both tough and sensitive, but only the toughest ones can admit that they’re both.

“Flaming branches and pieces of lumber were falling past me already. ‘We need to ditch!’ Cedric said. ‘Guess I’ll have to rebuild that treehouse,’ Mateo said. Like that didn’t happen all the time. The whole point of the game wasn’t about staying in one place. It was about adapting.”

Ali loves playing Outpost, and he recognizes the essential goal of the battle game, but he only vaguely understands that the game is teaching him to think fast, make changes as needed, and not get too attached to any one way of doing things. These are precisely the skills he needs as a detective in a dangerous world. The “baddies” don’t want him to know their secrets, and they’ll go to great, sometimes lethal, lengths to stop him. To survive, he’ll need to feel comfortable adapting on the fly; the game has given him chances to practice that skill.

“[…] I just sat there, feeling as alone as I’d felt since this whole crazy, stupid situation started. I’d basically messed this up for myself by keeping secrets—from the police and my friends. Then, I’d messed it up even more by telling the truth. I seriously didn’t know where that left me, or what I was supposed to do about it now.”

Ali’s fibs come full circle; his betrayals strike him back. It was bad enough to lie to his teammates, and finally telling them the truth seems to make the problem even worse. It’s a painful, yet powerful, lesson in the importance of trust to a well-functioning group. Next time, Ali will think twice before leaving team members out of the loop.

“I wasn’t even sure what I was praying for anymore. I didn’t want to ask for something bad to happen to Gabe’s dad. I just wanted things to be okay for Gabe. Hopefully, God knew where I was coming from, even if I wasn’t using the right words.”

Already, Ali takes after his father in wishing well those who are hostile to him. His heart automatically points in the right direction, as when his mom says to go high when an opponent goes low. Despite the huge stresses on him, Ali still looks out for others. He’s what people hope for when they think about how others should behave, and, even better, he’s that way whether they know it or not.

“Gabe! His name was just about to come out of my mouth when something stopped me. The part of my brain that listened to Dad about being a good detective said, wait. Maybe it made more sense to see what he did, and where he went after that.”

Staying calm, being patient, and thinking carefully—hallmarks of good detection—are sinking at last into Ali’s mind. He’s beginning to approach the events in Gabe’s case like a real detective. The experiences he’s had, along with his father’s instructions, combine to form the foundations of a new, more effective mentality.

“‘Ramon’s in custody,’ Dad said. ‘He’ll be facing quite a few charges, I’m afraid.’ Gabe was pretty quiet. […] ‘I guess that means it’s just me and my mom again,’ he said. ‘That’s good. I guess.’ ‘Nah. Not just you and your mom […]. You got us, Gabe. You’ve always got us.’”

The whole time, Gabe had his friends—who moved mountains to find him—but he didn’t believe in them. Ali risked his life to show him they were there for him. For his part, Ali learns that, despite mistakes and setbacks, he had it in himself to solve the case and free his buddy. For both of them, though, their friends make a critical difference.