Before She Disappeared

by Lisa Gardner

  Guerline’s eyes widen. She clearly doesn’t know what to say. Beside her, Emmanuel appears equally shocked.

  “What does this Livia girl have to say for herself?” Guerline asks at last.

  “She also went missing. A few months later. Except her family never reported it, which is why the police didn’t make the connection. The family assumed the girl had run away.”

  “This girl is trouble?”

  “I don’t know. But her brother is a known drug dealer.”

  “My Angelique did not do drugs!”

  I hold up a placating hand. “No one is saying she did. For that matter, there’s no evidence Livia did drugs either. Like Angelique, Livia was a gifted student, except her talents were in computer design and 3D printing.”

  Guerline appears even more lost. Emmanuel recovers first.

  “LiLi was smart. And she could draw, but like freehand. I never saw her do anything on a computer.”

  “This girl, with the drug family,” says Guerline. “Could the fake money be hers? Because my Angelique . . . Children make mistakes, yes, but she is a good girl. That kind of money only comes from bad things. And LiLi is not that kind of bad.”

  Now it’s my turn to feel stupid. When we’d found the money, we hadn’t known about Livia yet. But in retrospect, it does seem more probable that the money came from Livia or her drug-dealing brother. Maybe Angelique was keeping it safe for her.

  Or as a safety net? That kind of money, thousands of dollars, would definitely be something Johnson—fine, J.J.—would want back. But more to the point, the fake hundreds . . . Had Angelique and Livia realized they were counterfeit? Two intelligent girls, both known for their attention to detail?

  Had Livia realized her brother had gotten himself into something much more dangerous than street-corner distribution? She could have stolen the money, asked her friend Angelique to hold it for her. Or . . .

  My mind is starting to spin. I feel like I suddenly have too much information to work with—except again, how to make sense of it all?

  I rest my elbows on the table, peering hard at Guerline and Emmanuel. “Anything else you might have heard or remember from the time leading up to Angelique’s disappearance? The smallest little thing that maybe didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but now, looking back? Snippets of conversation, e-mail? Hurried exchanges? Odd behavior?”

  “She was quiet,” Emmanuel volunteers at last. “I found her one day curled up on the sofa. Just sitting . . . No TV, phone. When I asked, she said she was tired. Another afternoon . . .”

  He hesitates, ducks his head.

  “Speak,” Guerline demands.

  “She was holding the picture of our mom. She’d taken it down and was staring at it. She looked . . . sad. Very sad. When she saw me, she put it back. Clearly, she’d been crying. I assumed she was feeling homesick. Sometimes, I am homesick, too, and I don’t even remember home anymore.”

  Aunt Guerline reaches over and takes her nephew’s hand.

  “When was this?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. We were back in school. Fall sometime.”

  I nod. I’d already inspected the framed photo during my first search of their apartment, seen the love letter tucked behind the faded picture. Neither child had seen their mother in nearly a decade, but clearly, they still yearned for her. Maybe enough that whatever was going on in Angelique’s life, she didn’t feel she could tell her aunt, so had sought comfort from her mother’s photo instead.

  I take a deep breath. “Two mornings ago, Angelique was spotted at a wireless store in Mattapan Square.”

  Guerline gasps, then appears outraged. Emmanuel as well. This little disclosure is going to get me into a truckload of trouble with Lotham, but I feel it’s necessary. “As she was walking away, she dropped a fake ID. They’re studying it now. I think you should look at it, too.” I point my chin at Emmanuel. “In case she used some kind of code again. You know her best.”

  Emmanuel nods immediately. Despite his young age, he’s serious, even solemn. In this moment, I see shades of the older sister he described to me. Problem solvers, doers. Life hasn’t always been kind to them, but it’s made them stronger, more determined. Opportunity isn’t given, it must be made.

  Which makes me wonder again what Angelique had been up to. Helping a friend made sense, and explained the stash of money as well as her deception, dressing up as Livia to head for some mysterious meeting that Friday. But what had happened next to keep Angelique away from home permanently, while still not being enough to save her friend, who’d disappeared three months later?

  I think back to what Charlie had said. If they were being held against their will, but still alive, then they must have value. But what kind of value did two fifteen-year-old girls have? Beyond the obvious, of course, in the sex trade. I felt like it had to have something to do with the counterfeit money, which was our other outlier. Maybe their captors knew the girls had fake hundreds, wanted them to fetch more? Make more? Except that was a pretty tall order given it took highly skilled experts to pull off quality bills.

  My mind spins through possibilities, but none of them make sense.

  Livia is the key to understanding what happened in the past, I decide now. She’s the missing girl no one even knew was missing, and yet was probably also the original target. Which leave us with Angelique, given her recent appearances, as the best hope for finding both girls in the future. Before time runs out.

  With that in mind, I finally organize some semblance of next steps.

  “I’m going to call Detective Lotham,” I announce, rising from the booth. “Ask him to bring over Angelique’s fake license. Emmanuel, you stay here to study it.”

  I hesitate, glance at Guerline.

  “I must make some calls,” she volunteers. “Return to work. I can come back . . .”

  “It’s not a problem. Emmanuel will contact you when we’re done.” I imagine she doesn’t get many vacation days, and after the events of the past year, she probably can’t afford to take any more.

  Guerline climbs out of the booth and heads for the door.

  I step away from the table to call Lotham. I update him on the morning’s developments, then hold my phone far from my ear as the yelling begins.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lotham seems over the worst of his tantrum by the time he arrives at Stoney’s. He skewers me with a single glare when I let him in, then stalks over to the booth where Emmanuel remains seated.

  I’ve made a second pot of coffee. Wordlessly, I pour out a mug for Lotham. I take a seat next to Emmanuel, while Lotham slides in across from us.

  Lotham removes a clear plastic bag from the inside of his charcoal gray sports jacket. A thick stripe of red tape screams EVIDENCE across the top. Lotham doesn’t open the bag, but sets it on the table.

  I scan the bag’s contents—a single Massachusetts driver’s license. I remember Emmanuel and me studying the black-and-white photocopy of this same license, used by Angelique at the cybercafé, days ago. The real thing is much more distinct, and will hopefully provide better details.

  “No opening the bag, no touching the license, no removing it from my sight,” Lotham states. The rules of engagement, which are important for preserving the chain of custody.

  Emmanuel nods. His young face is once again deadly serious as he picks up the bag, peers at the front of the ID, then flips it over to study the back.

  The picture is of a young African American female, black hair scraped back from her face in a tight ponytail. Dark brows, dark eyes, full face, much more heavily made up than I would’ve imagined, while huge beaded earrings provide further distraction. Mostly, I notice her eyes. They don’t gaze ahead with the deer-in-headlights stare of so many official IDs but seem to peer straight into the viewer. They radiate intelligence.

  “This is my sister,” Emmanuel confirm
s. “But . . . I’ve never seen her with this jewelry. And . . . LiLi hardly ever wore makeup. It’s her, but different.”

  “We see that often in fakes,” Lotham says. “Tricks for making the subject appear older, or to obscure her real features. On this license, Angelique is supposed to be Tamara Levesque, age twenty-one.”

  Emmanuel cocks his head to the side. “She used this license to post her class essay. But why Tamara Levesque? That name means nothing to me.”

  “Do you know how to check an ID to tell if it’s fake?” Lotham asks him presently.

  “No, sir.”

  “This is modeled after the current Massachusetts driver’s license, which involves a fairly sophisticated design. Not as high-tech as the Real IDs now required for airport security, but still, no joke. So here’s what to look for. First off, feel the weight of it. Genuine licenses are high quality, decent weight, nearly impossible to bend. Try it.”

  Emmanuel fingers the license through the plastic bag. Experimentally, he squeezes the ends together. Nothing.

  “In other words,” Lotham continues, “the initial structure is solid. That’s some skill right there. Now run your finger along the printing. Should be slightly raised. It’s a specialized laser technique.”

  Emmanuel frowns. “I can’t feel it well enough through the bag.”

  “Then trust me to tell you, they got that right, too. Which brings us to the more difficult elements. You see the watermark of the golden dome from the State House? Then we get to the embedded image of the state bird and state flower.”

  Peering from across the table, I interject. “Wait, is that the brown blob in the middle? I thought that was a dragon.”

  “It’s a chickadee.”

  “Huh.”

  Lotham gives me a look. “The hologram is off, not a true hologram if you hold it up to the light. Instead, they’ve created a visual illusion done with particularly bright inks. I’ve seen this approach before. Also, under blue light, several things should appear on a real license. But the producers substituted reflective dyes for the proper UV ink in this model. All in all, I’d consider this a drinking-class license, so to speak, not flying-class.”

  Emmanuel nods.

  “Now this is the part that’s interesting. Final significant feature, the bar code. Upon scanning, it should verify the info already shown on the licenses. Plenty of fakes show a bar code, but it’s nothing but garbage. This bar code is genuine. Which is a decent accomplishment. Whoever made this put a lot of care and technology into it. A few more iterations, and maybe flying-class would be within reach.”

  Emmanuel nods. I’m desperate to get my hands on the piece, but Emmanuel’s still clutching the ID in a way that speaks of more than an academic interest. This is the last thing his sister touched. One more tiny link to her. He’s not going to set it down anytime soon.

  “Which brings us to the information on the ID itself,” Lotham states. “Name, address, date of birth. Best practice is to keep the user’s day and month of birth, just change the year. That way, when a suspicious bouncer asks questions, the holder can rattle off the correct answer off the top of his or her head. Knowing your sister’s info, I can already tell you that’s not true. Look. Does the date of birth mean anything to you? Code? Another cry for help? Something.”

  Emmanuel’s eyes widen. “That is our mother’s birthday!” he blurts out. “But . . . why? As you say, just changing the year would be easier.”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  But Emmanuel doesn’t have an answer.

  “Okay, next few lines. Height, weight, eye color. Anything jump out at you?”

  “The address,” Emmanuel speaks up shortly, his voice excited again. “P.O. Box eighteen-oh-four.”

  “That’s too short to be a valid box number around here,” Lotham provides.

  “It is an important date for us in Haiti. The year of our independence.”

  I frown at the revelation. Another inside joke on Angelique’s part? But to what end?

  “There’s a physical address as well,” Lotham says. “Check it out.”

  Emmanuel studies the print. “I don’t know this address.”

  “Because it’s not valid. At a real DMV, the system wouldn’t even accept it. That street doesn’t exist in all of Boston, let alone Mattapan.”

  “I . . . Can I show my aunt?”

  “For chain-of-custody purposes, this can’t leave my sight. But you could write down the info. Now, I need you to study the license number itself. Normally, the string of numbers communicates information to law enforcement; yet another point of verification. Trust when I say, this license number is nothing but a string of gibberish. Which doesn’t make sense. They get the bar code right, only to screw up the license number? Which makes me wonder . . . Could this be another code meant for you?”

  Emmanuel scrunches up his face. His lips move as he reads off the numbers to himself, then repeats several times. Slowly, he shakes his head. “This is not obvious to me. But LiLi had several ciphers. If I could compare these numbers with her notes in her codebreaking book, I might be able to figure it out.”

  “Add it to your address notes.” Lotham produces a scrap of paper, pushes it across the table.

  Emmanuel gets to work.

  “Emmanuel.” I speak up. “Is there something from Haiti that might be relevant? A reference to a belief, religion, custom. I don’t know. But the fact that Angelique chose your mother’s date of birth, as well as a mailing address that marks your country’s independence. Surely that’s not accidental.”

  Emmanuel smiles slightly. “You mean like pointing at a rainbow brings bad luck or eating the top of a watermelon will cause your mother to die? There are many superstitions in our culture, most of which my sister and I have heard from our aunt. But for us . . . LiLi believed in science. And I’ve lived my life here, not there. These are stories to us, nothing more.”

  “It’s not personal to Angelique,” I fill in. “At least, not personal enough.”

  Emmanuel nods. He fingers the evidence bag, then sets it down. “I can study the license number, the street address. For now, all I can say is that LiLi must be thinking of our mother.”

  Lotham exhales, tries not to look as frustrated as I’m sure he must feel. I turn to him.

  “You’re saying this is a decent-quality ID, possible to produce with a computer and printer, but requires some advanced skill. So how did Angelique get her hands on it?”

  “Probably bought it on the streets. This area has some known providers. Wouldn’t be too hard to ask around, make it happen.”

  “You think? Because this is a girl who takes extra high school courses in her free time. She’s not exactly lurking on street corners.”

  Emmanuel suddenly flushes.

  “Emmanuel?” Lotham’s voice holds a low growl of warning.

  “Other kids, in high school, the rec center, they speak of fake licenses.”

  “Purchased from the internet,” I say. At least that’s what I’d heard from Charlie.

  “Maybe some. But . . .” That awkward teen pause again.

  “Who, Emmanuel?” Lotham demands.

  The kid relents with a sigh. “Marjolie. Angelique’s best friend. She has a fake ID. I heard her talking about it one day with LiLi. She was bragging about getting into a club. When LiLi asked her how, Marjolie started giggling. I couldn’t hear her answer. But Marjolie has a fake license, and she definitely could’ve gotten one for my sister. Once, I would’ve said my sister didn’t have the money to waste on such things. But, after what you found in the lamp . . .”

  Emmanuel looks at me. “I must accept I didn’t know everything about my sister. I must wonder . . . Maybe I didn’t know her at all.”

  “You did, Emmanuel. You know her and she’s counting on that. The coded school essay, the particulars of
this license. Your sister is out there. And she’s talking to you. She’s counting on you.”

  But I can tell the kid doesn’t believe. And after all the cases I’ve been through, I can’t really argue.

  I clear the coffee mugs and carry them to the kitchen. I already know where we’re going next.

  CHAPTER 26

  Thirty minutes later, I stand across from Angelique’s high school, waiting for the bell to ring. Having spent hours yesterday staring at the same view through the corner grocer’s security camera, it feels like I’ve known this place forever instead of just a single afternoon.

  Lotham had wanted to march into Boston Academy, gold shield flashing, and drag Marjolie straight down to the station for questioning. Fortunately, cooler heads had prevailed.

  Now I have the honor of meeting up with Marjolie and coaxing her back to Lotham’s vehicle, parked several blocks away, where we can all chat privately. I’m due for work sooner versus later, so I need this to go quick and easy. No pressure.

  I hear the bell start its run. There’s a roughly five-minute delay, then the front doors of the academy heave open and the first wave of students pour out, hefting their packs and bolting to freedom.

  Couple of minutes later, Marjolie appears, head bent close to Kyra’s as they descend the front steps deep in conversation. Once again I’m struck by the contrast between the two. Kyra, tall and stunning even from this distance. While Marjolie walks with her shoulders hunched self-consciously. Pretty to Kyra’s drop-dead gorgeous. Softer to Kyra’s hard-edged attitude. One leader. One follower.

  I feel the first prickling of unease, just as Marjolie glances up and spots me. Across the street, rows of traffic and rivers of kids between us, she falters. So many expressions flicker across her face: shame, fear, regret. Guilt. A whole boatload of guilt.