Before She Disappeared

CHAPTER 12

Lotham is back to his phone, a major detective working a major case. He paces the entire length of the tavern as he rips off strings of commands. I don’t have minions to order about or experts to call in, so I remain with Emmanuel. His face has shuttered. He stares at his laptop as if trying to see through it. Maybe he’s wishing he’d logged on sooner to find the note. Maybe he’s sorry he found it now.

I give him thirty seconds, then start stacking our used coffee mugs on the empty plates. “Come with me.”

“What?”

“Time to clean up.”

Emmanuel’s eyes widen. What kind of crazy person worries about dishes at a time like this? But I don’t make it a request, and he’s too well trained to defy direct orders. He follows me into the kitchen. I set him to work with the high-power spray and industrial-grade dishwashing detergent.

While he tends to the dishes, I go to work on the coffeepot, then clean up around the fryolator.

“Your sister sent that note for you,” I say.

Emmanuel pauses momentarily, then picks up the next coffee mug.

“She sent that note to you,” I continue. “She posted it, knowing you would see it. Who else would be logging into some virtual high school? Who else would think to look there, other than the younger brother who knew her that well?”

“I don’t understand. Where she went. What happened. Who she is with now. I don’t understand.”

“None of us do. But this is good, Emmanuel. It’s contact. If she did it once, maybe she’ll have a chance to do it again.”

“My sister has been kidnapped.” He says the words as if testing them out. “She made it to the internet café, but she must still be fearful if she couldn’t just ask for help. Why wouldn’t she be able to ask for help? Who is us?”

“This is good,” I repeat. “She’s alive.”

“LiLi’s not safe,” he says. “Help us, help us, help us.” His shock is wearing off. I know what comes next.

I move to the sink. I shut off the spray, taking the mug from his now shaking hand and setting it down.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” I tell him, my fingers holding his, as his breath starts to hitch and his shoulders tremble. “She’s thinking, Emmanuel. As you said, your sister doesn’t dream, she makes plans. Disguising a plea for help as a history essay, then waiting for the right moment to upload it to the internet for her brother to discover—that’s brilliant. Your sister found a way to reach out to you. And you were there, Emmanuel. Whatever happens next, you got the message. You were there for her.”

His eyes well. He wants to cry. He doesn’t want to appear weak. He’s nearly broken with fear. He’s desperate to remain strong.

Then, noises from the dining room behind us. Guerline appears in the kitchen doorway, coat still on, bearing still imposing. She doesn’t so much as glance at me but sweeps through the tight space and enfolds her nephew into her arms.

Emmanuel’s shoulders shake harder, though no sound comes out. His aunt strokes his hair and murmurs soft words. A family unit of two that used to be three.

I leave them to their shared grief as I go to find Detective Lotham and figure out what I should do next.

An hour later, Guerline and Emmanuel are ensconced in the booth, heads bowed together, while Detective Lotham stands in the opposite corner in deep conversation with Officer O’Shaughnessy. They keep their voices low, but the intensity of the discussion has me and Angelique’s family straining our ears.

Finally both cops pause, mutter something I can’t quite catch, then break from their police huddle and make their way over to them. I’m behind the bar, pretending to stack glasses and clean already scoured surfaces simply to give myself something to do. The French fries have settled queasily in my stomach, or maybe it’s the growing implications of what Angelique’s hidden help message must mean.

“Does the name Tamara Levesque mean anything to you?” Detective Lotham asks Aunt Guerline and Emmanuel.

Both shake their heads as Officer O’Shaughnessy slides into the booth opposite them. He clasps the aunt’s hand, and she lets him.

“All right, this is what we know.” Lotham doesn’t take a seat but remains standing. I’ve already noticed that about him. He’s one of those people who do their best thinking while moving. He’s restless and, especially under stress, radiates a certain raw presence.

“Two weeks ago, a Black female entered an internet café in Roxbury. She produced this driver’s license.” Lotham reveals a black-and-white photocopy of the license. From this distance, I can just make out the name as Tamara Levesque. The picture is too small for me to see how much it resembles Angelique, but judging from everyone’s expression, it must be damn close.

“According to the attendant, he’d just logged her in and copied her license when her phone rang. She talked for a second, then abruptly handed over a note to the attendant along with twenty bucks. She said she had to go right now, but her class assignment had to be posted or she’d fail the course. Could he follow the instructions and do it for her? Please. Thank you. Then she was gone before he even had time to answer. Annoyed him, but twenty bucks for two minutes’ work? He went ahead and did it. Never saw the girl again.”

“My Angelique,” Guerline says.

Lotham squats down to match her seated height. “He couldn’t identify the girl as Angelique. She was wearing a red baseball cap, pulled low, and he wasn’t paying that much attention. But if you look at the photo on the fake ID . . .”

“My Angelique,” Guerline states again. She sighs, and there is a wealth of sorrow in that single exhale.

“Was she alone?” Emmanuel asks. Smart kid.

“The attendant doesn’t remember seeing anyone else. We’re grabbing video from inside the store, as well as the general area.” Lotham rises once more to standing, knees popping in the silence. He rubs one absently.

“So . . . She was walking around the street alone. She entered the store alone. She had a phone alone . . .” Emmanuel looks at the detective, his pain and confusion clearly evident.

“We are taking this very seriously.” O’Shaughnessy speaks up from the table. “We’re going to find her.”

“Emmanuel,” Detective Lotham says more quietly, “even if your sister was alone, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t under duress. If she’s feeling threatened enough to write a coded message, it may mean she knows eyes are on her at all times. It may mean she feels like she must do whatever it is she’s doing in order to keep others safe.”

“Help us?” Emmanuel asks. He looks too young for this conversation. I truly wish he were too young for this conversation.

“My niece has been kidnapped?” Guerline speaks up. “Somebody . . . took her? After school? And others? But her friends . . . We have seen her friends.”

“What’s important is that Angelique’s alive and has some level of autonomy,” Lotham states. He doesn’t address the issue of Angelique’s friends being accounted for, because sadly, there are too many other terrible possibilities. Human trafficking. Angelique being abducted with other pretty young girls. Or swept up in something beyond her control. Maybe she had met the wrong boy. Or made the wrong new friend. The help us message is an important break in the case. But it’s also an ominous development. That we are dealing with a situation far graver than a lone teenager having disappeared or run away.

“Have either of you seen this fake ID?” Lotham asks Emmanuel and Guerline. His gaze lingers on Emmanuel. But both shake their heads.

I bring over four glasses of water to the booth, passing them out in a show of hospitality that also allows me a closer look at the black-and-white photocopy of the fake ID.

At a glance, I can tell this ID is an old-fashioned Massachusetts license, versus the newer Real IDs that are required for airport security. The photocopy is of the front of the ID only and not a good-quality reproduction. Clearly, the attendant at the cybercafé had been purely going through the motions.

“Ahem,” Lotham says. I glance up to find him staring at me, my water delivery not having fooled him for a second.

“Does that cybercafé still have the original ID?” I ask. As long as I’m busted, I might as well go all in.

“No.”

“What about the essay, login instructions, other notes she handed over?”

“Attendant threw them away. They were scanned and uploaded. No reason to hang on to the hard copies.”

“Why Roxbury? Has she used that internet café before?”

Lotham doesn’t object to this question. Instead, both he and O’Shaughnessy glance at the family. Once again, Emmanuel does the answering.

“She never mentioned it to me. It’s not close to our apartment, or on the way home from school. Or”—he is a thoughtful young man—“near her friends.”

“What about her new friend?” Again, as long as I’ve joined the party. “The one she met at the rec center that summer?”

“I do not know that friend,” Emmanuel says.

Guerline speaks up. “What new friend?”

That I stay out of. Though it’s difficult given the glare I receive from Lotham. The police like to withhold as much information as possible, even from the families. I understand; nine times out of ten, the family is part of the problem, not the solution. But I’ve also worked cases where such communication gaps led to stalls in the investigation. If someone had just mentioned discovery A to family member B, then investigator C would’ve learned immediately about the impossibility of that claim.

Being an untrained, inexperienced civilian, as Detective Lotham likes to put it, I’m not bound by department policy. Instead, I get to follow my gut. Given the genuine shock, grief, and fear I see on Guerline’s and Emmanuel’s faces, I think they have no idea what happened to Angelique. Whatever mess she’d made or stumbled into or gotten tangled up in, they would like to know as much as anyone.

I also like to think: They would love her anyway. But maybe that has more to do with my needs than theirs.

“Angelique’s friends claim she was different the fall she disappeared,” Lotham provides at last. “Distracted. Maybe by someone she’d met during the summer program at the rec center. Did you notice anything?”

Guerline doesn’t answer right away. On the table, O’Shaughnessy is still clasping her hand in his. Now, he gives her fingers a reassuring squeeze.

“My Angel, she was . . . quieter,” Guerline concedes at last. “On her computer more. I assumed it was school. Her classes are very demanding, yes, and she insists on taking even more, over the internet. She wants to get ahead. This is a good thing. I did not worry. I did not think to worry.”

Emmanuel leans his head against her shoulder.

“Did Angelique have her own money?” I ask now.

Guerline glances at me. “She babysat, had small jobs. Not a lot of money. But for her own spending.”

“Did you find that money after she left? In a handbag, stashed in a lockbox?”

“Angelique carried a small zippered wallet. It went missing with her. But . . .” Guerline is frowning.

So is Detective Lotham. “When we searched the apartment,” he provides, “we didn’t find any cash. Nor was the wallet in her backpack. Most likely, she had it on her when she disappeared.”

“How much in savings, Guerline? Hundreds? Thousands? I mean, if Angelique had been babysitting for a bit, and wasn’t one to spend money on frivolous things . . .”

But Guerline shakes her head. “Angelique spent her money on her extra classes. I did not like that. I would have liked to pay for them, let her keep her money for fun. But . . .” Guerline shrugs. “It is only me to buy our food, pay our rent, plus send money back home.”

I nod. So does O’Shaughnessy.

“Would a couple hundred dollars be out of the question?” I push now.

Guerline still seems uncertain, but Emmanuel nods. I turn my attention to Lotham.

“That’s a lotta cash for a person to be carrying around these streets,” I murmur. “For her to have all of that in her wallet the day she went missing . . .”

Lotham clearly doesn’t like this thought any more than I do. A girl as smart as Angelique definitely wouldn’t be roaming around with hundreds of dollars in cash as a matter of habit. And yet, if all the money was gone . . . She must’ve taken it out of its hiding spot for that Friday and brought it with her to school. For the something special she was planning to do afterward.

“I don’t understand—” Emmanuel begins.

“Could I come over to your apartment?” I ask Guerline. “Not today, I know you’re exhausted. But maybe tomorrow? Just . . . to glance around. Get a feel for Angelique. A fresh pair of eyes never hurts.”

“Wait a sec.” Lotham, using his unhappy voice.

“You and my Emmanuel, you find this note?” Guerline speaks over the detective. “This message for help from our Angel?”

Emmanuel did the heavy lifting, but I don’t hesitate to share the credit.

“Then you should come. Today. Now, please. This message was sent weeks ago. That is too long. My Angelique needs to come home now.”

The starkness behind her words nearly breaks my heart. I don’t know how I can blow off my second day of work already, but I also can’t deny her. Even the cops, twin faces of disapproval, don’t say a word.

I hear a distant rattle from the back. A second later, Stoney walks in from the side entrance, both hands on his light jacket. He stops when he sees the strange little grouping sitting in his closed tavern. His gaze goes from the police to the family to me.

I open my mouth, searching desperately for some kind of explanation. No words come out.

He waits.

“Your cat killed two,” I state finally.

He nods, as if this makes perfect sense.

“Then Emmanuel Badeau—do you know Emmanuel? One of your neighbors? He made a discovery on the laptop he shares with his sister, Angelique, the missing girl? So he came over, and I called Detective Lotham and then his aunt came, and Officer O’Shaughnessy, and, and . . .” I run out of steam.

Stoney nods again. He turns and heads toward his office.

“Do I still have a job?” I call after him. “Cuz if so, I’m gonna need a couple of hours off . . .”

No answer.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell Guerline and Emmanuel. “It’ll be fine,” I repeat to Detective Lotham.

Then I stop talking because no one believes me and we all have bigger problems anyway.