Before She Disappeared

CHAPTER 11

Detective Lotham is not happy to hear from me. The news that I’m with Emmanuel and the teen has something to share doesn’t improve his mood.

“What, you talked to him for four minutes this morning and now he’s bared his soul?”

“Actually, he came to me. First thing. No four minutes required.”

The detective growled. I have that kind of effect on law enforcement.

“Why?”

I treat the question as rhetorical. The answer, that Emmanuel brought his discovery to me because I’m not a cop, is hardly going to improve Lotham’s mood.

“Stay,” the detective orders. “I’ll call up the crime scene techs and be right there.”

“You don’t need crime scene techs.”

“You said he found something on the computer—”

“The internet. His computer is just the access point. And if you seize—for the second time—the laptop he needs for his schoolwork,then he’s definitely not sharing anything with either of us ever again. Bring yourself, Detective. That’ll be enough.”

More grumbling, but surprisingly enough, twenty minutes later Detective Lotham knocks on the front door all by his lonesome. I’ve taken the time to brew another pot of coffee and make two giant plates of French fries. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and you can never go wrong with fries. Given how quickly Emmanuel inhales the first batch, he agrees.

“This is cozy,” Lotham mutters to me as he stalks in, inhaling the scent of coffee and grease.

“Which would you like first: caffeine or sarcasm?”

“Caffeine.”

“At least you have some common sense.” I leave the wide-eyed detective to sort himself out while I pour a third mug. Emmanuel is already regarding Lotham warily. If I didn’t know any better, I would say the teen looks hurt.

Had he been grateful when the detective finally arrived at his apartment? The presence of so many officers, forensic experts? A kid who’d grown up watching American crime shows, he must’ve assumed the next scene would include his sister’s tearful return.

Except eleven months later, Detective Lotham hadn’t brought home his sister.

I don’t expect this conversation to be fun for anyone. I eye the wall of booze with longing. Feel your feels, as the saying goes. Except so many feelings are hard to take.

While waiting for Detective Lotham, I’d convinced Emmanuel to call his aunt. She couldn’t answer her phone at work, he told me, so he left a message explaining where he was and what he was doing. Odds are she’d listen to the recording during her lunch break. Which gave us maybe an hour before she came barreling through the door as well. Stoney’s bar is one happening place.

“French fries?” I ask the detective, pushing the second plate in his direction as he slides into the booth across from Emmanuel. This morning he’s wearing a dark blue blazer over a light blue shirt and a patterned indigo tie. Sharp dresser, I think, but I still prefer his broken nose and tattered ear. If clothes are camouflage, then scars are exclamation points of honesty.

Lotham lifts his coffee mug, gives me a look, then picks up a fry.

I offer ketchup. Emmanuel and Lotham reach for it at the same time. And we’re off and running.

“Start at the beginning,” I tell Emmanuel. So he does. Lotham, to his credit, doesn’t interrupt or make any more scowly faces. He drinks his coffee, scarfs more fries, and listens, face intent.

When Emmanuel’s done, Lotham produces a little spiral notebook and his cell phone. With his phone, he takes a photo of the laptop screen, with the web address of Angelique’s school site clearly visible. Then he pushes his notebook across the table and has Emmanuel jot down Angelique’s username and password.

“So Angelique registered at this GED Now site to take online courses?”

Emmanuel nods.

“In order to graduate high school early?”

A fresh nod.

“And this U.S. history class was what she’d started before she disappeared?”

“She’d been taking it over the summer.”

“Who knew this?”

Emmanuel shrugs. “My aunt and me, of course. I don’t know how much she talked schoolwork with her friends.”

Lotham is staring at the computer screen. “I don’t remember this from our original conversations or having seen anything in the reports on the forensic exam of the computer.”

“You wouldn’t. An online class is an online class. The computer doesn’t matter, the codes to access the class do.”

Lotham picks up his notebook. Angelique’s username is a basic Gmail account, which makes sense. Her password, however, looks like a string of random numbers followed by an exclamation mark. Lotham shares it with me. I glance up at Emmanuel.

“You can remember this?” I ask him.

“It’s a code,” he murmurs. “The numbers stand for letters, from a cypher LiLi made up when we were younger. It reads Doc2Be!”

“As in doctor-to-be?”

“Exactly.”

Lotham makes another note. “This her primary password? The one she uses most of the time?”

“I don’t know. I understand her cipher. We’d send each other coded notes using it. But we share this laptop, and I’ve watched her log in enough times. She knew I knew. What did it matter?”

“Can you see when she logged into the class?” Lotham asks. “Or how many times?”

Emmanuel takes the computer back. “Normally you would check browser history, but given she didn’t log in from this computer to complete the coursework . . .” He chews his lower lip, dark eyes narrowed in thought. “Ah. Here. When I first logged on last night, it told me the last time I’d accessed the course.” Emmanuel taps the screen, showing a record of date and time.

Lotham makes more notes while I peer closer. “Two weeks ago,” I say. “Three-oh-three p.m.” I glance at Emmanuel. “Does that mean anything to you? The date significant? The time of day? You said your sister likes codes.”

Emmanuel’s fingers fly over the keyboard, but then he shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Walk me through how this works,” Lotham requests, attention back on us. “Angelique logs in to get assignments off the site, then what—completes them in some virtual classrooms, or uploads them from her own computer for her teacher to review?”

“Written essays she completes on her own, then uploads, yes. Tests are more complicated, with additional codes that must be entered by an adult, like my aunt, as protection against cheating.”

“So for this class to be completed, the final must’ve been some kind of written work?”

“Yes.”

“Which she had to upload from a computer,” Lotham muses, “which would give us an IP address. Now that’s something.”

He has his phone to his ear in the next instant, talking to someone about the website, user codes, and issuing a subpoena for additional records. Emmanuel nods along with the conversation, so apparently the technical mumble jumble makes sense to him.

I have a different question. “When Angelique disappeared, did you or your aunt contact this site, tell her teachers she had vanished?”

“My aunt gets e-mails from the site, keeping her notified of Angel’s progress. The courses cost money, so the school wants guardians to be informed. When assignments stopped being turned in, she would’ve been notified. But of all the things for my aunt to answer, worry about . . .”

“What did Angelique post?” Lotham is off the phone, looking at us again. “Can you pull up the essay?”

Emmanuel shakes his head. “The class is closed out. I can’t enter the course to look at past work.”

“Could you contact the course instructor?” I ask. “I mean, you have your sister’s e-mail and password. Can’t you just . . . be her and fire off an e-mail asking for a copy of the final assignment back? Your computer crashed right after sending, a virus ate your hard drive, something?”

Both Emmanuel and Lotham appear impressed, so apparently my basic internet skills have some merit.

Emmanuel works the keyboard again. “I can Instachat,” he declares after a moment. “The class professor is listed as being available. Hang on.”

I sip my coffee. It’s almost noon now. I wonder when Stoney is going to arrive and realize I’ve turned his bar into some kind of investigative headquarters. And what he might do or say about that. This may be the shortest job I’ve ever had.

Well, there was that place I was employed at for all of twenty minutes. Probably the fact I’d showed up totally loaded and crying hysterically hadn’t helped. Then that restaurant where I’d caught my hair on fire during the first shift . . .

Emmanuel frowns at the screen. “The teacher is Dr. Cappa. She says she thought she might hear from me.”

Lotham and I exchange glances.

“While the essay doesn’t reflect the quality of my previous work,” Emmanuel reads out loud, “there’s no need for a redo given my passing grade.”

“Get the damn assignment,” Lotham growls.

Emmanuel types more furiously. I have no idea what he’s saying to the teacher, if he’s still pretending to be Angelique or now explaining the situation, but minute rolls into minute, Lotham shifting restlessly beside me. Then:

“She sent it. I had to open the messenger system. Okay, here we go. The file was uploaded when Angelique last accessed the site. From . . . from an internet café.” Emmanuel pushes the laptop across the table to Lotham, who snaps a photo of the file’s information, and once again starts working his phone.

“You can tell all that from the upload?” I ask Emmanuel.

“Cybercafés have certain string codes,” he murmurs, already back to work. “Hang on. Here it is. The essay. Except it’s not a .doc file. It’s a PDF—a scanned image.”

The laptop screen fills with an image. It takes me a few moments to digest.

It appears to be a copy of torn pieces of yellow legal pad paper. It was scanned in color, revealing fold marks and smudges in the background. Western Expansion is written across the top in a small, neat script, followed by the body of the essay.

“Is that her?” I ask.

“It’s LiLi’s penmanship,” Emmanuel confirms, still scanning the screen. “But she would not handwrite school work.”

We all resume studying. I can’t tell what Detective Lotham thinks, but I’m confused. Everyone has described Angelique as a gifted student. This essay, on the other hand, not only looks clunky and awkward as it unspools down two sheets of paper, but reads that way as well.

I don’t understand. Eleven months after disappearing, this is what Angelique cares about? Finding a way to crudely complete and post an essay for high school credit? Which assumed she had at least some access to the outside world. Yet hadn’t returned home?

I’ve encountered some strange behavior in my line of work, but this has me stumped.

“Did she sign up for additional courses?” I start to ask, just as Emmanuel bolts upright and slaps the table.

“It’s code! I knew it. She sent a code! My sister sent us a message!”

“What code?” Lotham is already pulling the laptop closer, trying to decipher the riddle.

“The capitalized words at the beginning of each line on the page. Look at them.” Emmanuel starts circling words on the screen with his finger. I follow along, reading out loud.

“Never. Going. To. Give. You.” I stop. Glance at Lotham. “Isn’t that a song—”

“‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley, 1987, yes, yes,” Emmanuel says quickly. He’s grabbed the detective’s spiral notebook without asking and is already jotting down the first word of each line on the page. Lotham doesn’t stop him.

“Rickrolling,” Emmanuel informs us in answer to our unasked question, still writing furiously. “It was an internet meme prank years ago. People would embed the link to the music video in various websites or news clips. It was really funny.” He waves his hand. “I told you the eighties are big.”

Lotham looks at me. I shrug, confirming we are both that old.

“LiLi didn’t care about the memes. She got excited about the paper.”

“The paper?” Lotham takes the bait.

“A quantum physics essay written by a student. It perfectly incorporated the lyrics from the entire song. LiLi loved it—the idea of a brilliantly written paper also being a joke. How clever, you know? And she liked the song, used to sing it while getting ready in the morning.”

Emmanuel’s writing suddenly falters. He glances up, his expression stark.

“These capitalized words are from the song, right?” He shows us the list of lyrics he’s scrawled down. “If you were to pay attention, knew what to look for, the message is funny. Some stupid things kids do.”

He said it, not us.

“But two words don’t belong. They’re capitalized, but they’re much further down in the essay, and they’re not part of the lyrics. She tucked them in. Hoped whoever was watching wouldn’t notice.” Emmanuel’s voice drops to a whisper as his gaze rises to meet ours. “Help Us. My sister wrote Help Us. That’s the message. Except who is us?”