Before She Disappeared

by Lisa Gardner

  I focus my attention back on the screen. I try to think past the image, to the Angelique I now know. A smart, serious student. A caretaker for her brother, her aunt, and her mom back home. In her brother’s words, not a dreamer but a planner.

  What I notice now is how she walks. Straight, direct, not a trace of uncertainty. Angelique didn’t wander down the side of the building to whatever would happen next. She strode purposefully forward. A girl on a mission.

  “What the hell are you doing, Angelique?” I mutter.

  Lotham nods slightly. He’s asked the same question a million times.

  He hits stop. “I can already tell you how this video ends: without any more sign of Angelique. Which brings us to half a dozen more cameras, including traffic cams at each major intersection, none of which show her either.”

  “From what I can tell, neither of Angelique’s friends reentered the school after her. It appears that Kyra heads off to the left, while Marjolie spends more time in the little grocer.”

  “Actually, in a matter of minutes, Marjolie heads down the block in the opposite direction of the school, to the bus stop Angelique normally uses. I traced her route back home utilizing various video feeds. Kyra, as well. Both go from here to various buses to their individual residences.”

  I nod, impressed. That must’ve taken no shortage of time to sort out, given all the cameras involved. But it’s also good info to have. Whatever happened next didn’t involve Angelique’s best friends.

  Which leaves us with? “All right. So we know where Angelique goes—down the side of the school. We know where Kyra and Marjolie head—home. Which brings us to new friend . . . associate . . . something, Livia Samdi. What about her?”

  Lotham obediently rewinds the deli-mart footage. Once again students pour down the front steps into the broad city street. This time, I keep my eyes out for a red hat. I don’t know Livia’s features much more than that.

  Lotham rewinds six more times. We devise a system. I stare at the upper left quadrant while he does lower right. We work our way toward each other. The end result: No red baseball cap. No Livia Samdi.

  I sip more water, rub my eyes. Lotham closes out that video, loads up the next.

  “This is from the traffic cam on the intersection to the west of the school.”

  I nod, grateful I don’t have work tonight, as apparently, there’s enough footage here to last at least a week.

  “How did you go through this the first time?” I mutter.

  “Painfully. Our video tech also ran facial recognition software against it, though given the number of kids and how few gaze directly at the camera, that was a low-probability play.”

  “Leave no stone unturned,” I murmur.

  He agrees.

  The traffic surveillance starts a minute before the end-of-day exodus. I watch a couple of cars pass through the intersection. Then there’s a sense of movement at the edge of the camera: the students, descending. Then, individual shapes become clear as dozens of students trudge toward the intersection, headed for bus stops, whatever. None are Angelique or her friends, which makes sense as we already know they’re at the grocery across the street.

  I study the faces anyway, looking not just for Livia Samdi but anyone who might suddenly strike a spark of inspiration or magically answer our millions of questions. Nothing.

  We watch this video for a solid fifteen minutes. Until the last of the kids have disappeared and only cars zoom into the camera’s field of view.

  I yawn, cracking my jaw, as if that will get my eyes to focus again. Honestly, this is tedious work.

  “Next camera?” Lotham asks.

  “Next camera.”

  Repeat and repeat. I earn new respect for Boston detectives. This is draining work and I still can’t be sure I’m not missing something. With so much to see on a busy city street, it’s hard to know where to look, let alone to sustain focus.

  Lotham switches up videos; he must’ve downloaded all these feeds to his computer months ago. Where he could watch them again and again, deep into the night, searching, searching, searching.

  We break the screen into quadrants again, as that seems the most scientific approach. We study, stare, grunt, groan. No luck.

  An hour later, we both shove back our chairs and rub our eyes.

  “This is pissing me off,” I say.

  “Welcome to my world.”

  “I was so sure Livia was the missing link. Knowing about her involvement now, you’d load up these videos, we’d spy her hat, her face, something and kapow! All the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place.”

  “Kapow?”

  “I like a little drama in my narrative.” I rub the bridge of my nose. My stomach growls. I’m starving. Lotham must be as well, but I can tell from his face he’s not ready to take a break any more than I am. We want something to show for all this effort. It’s human nature.

  “Let’s talk it through,” he says. “What do we know from the footage?”

  “Angelique definitely heads down the side of the school to the emergency exit and hidden bolt-hole. Marjolie and Kyra don’t.”

  Lotham nods, laces his fingers behind his head, and stretches out his shoulders. “Our assumption has been that Angelique reenters the school via the side exit. So, if Marjolie and Kyra are headed home, as we know they did, who opens the door?”

  I sigh heavily. “I asked about it being left propped open. Apparently, the school is wise to that trick and monitors the door. So the kids use an inside man. Only person I can think of is Livia Samdi. Angelique’s brother goes to the middle school, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “So it can’t be him.”

  Lotham swivels his chair to face me. “Livia isn’t a student. So how would she get into the school?”

  “After hours,” I begin.

  “Can’t. Front doors are locked and monitored. Students have to show their ID if they want to reenter. Welcome to today’s school security.”

  I frown, chew on my bottom lip. “What about during school hours?” It hits me, what I’d witnessed myself without really noticing. “After lunch.” I speak up excitedly. “The mass exodus from the deli-mart back into the school. With all the kids headed inside at once, and rushing to make it before the final bell . . . Even the best security guards are probably looking more at backpacks and security screening than at individual faces. And Livia is a high schooler. It would be easy for her to blend in.”

  Lotham lowers his arms, pulls his chair back up to the driver’s position in front of his monitor.

  “I have twenty-four hours of surveillance on this tape. Let’s check it out.”

  It takes a bit to find lunchtime, where again, the exodus of kids from school to sidewalk to across the street is eerily familiar. Thirty minutes pass. Then, just like that, kids appear again, clogging the street as they trudge back to school. I keep my eye out for Angelique and her friends. Sure enough. “There.”

  Lotham nods, having spotted her. Being only a few hours earlier in the day, she’s wearing the same sweater and scarf, walking between Marjolie and Kyra. They all appear to be chattering away, paying no particular attention to anything.

  But then, just as they hit the sidewalk in front of the school . . . Angelique pauses. Angelique looks back.

  And there, on the lower edge of the video. A red hat comes into view.

  We watch in total silence as Livia Samdi crosses the street, clad in ripped jeans and a gray hoodie. Angelique and her friends are already climbing up the stairs to the front door. Angelique doesn’t glance behind again, but I know she knows Livia is there. It’s in the rigid line of her posture. The way she keeps commanding her friends’ attention, keeping them focused ahead as well.

  Angelique, Kyra, and Marjolie disappear inside the glass school doors. Then a few minutes later, Livia follows behind them, a
blue pack slung over her shoulder that looks suspiciously close to Angelique’s.

  Lotham rocks back in his chair. “I’ll be damned.”

  “I think I know what happened,” I whisper.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Without another word, Lotham loads a fresh video, the traffic cam from the closest intersection. He finds the end-of-school-day flood. Then advances five, ten, fifteen minutes. Pauses. Glances at me. Hits play.

  It takes several more minutes. Then amid the now random pedestrian traffic, a new form appears from the side of the school. Walking straight toward the intersection, head down, red cap plainly visible. Ripped jeans. Gray hoodie. Blue backpack.

  But looking closer, I can see the hat now sits awkwardly. Because the mass of hair underneath is considerably bigger. Angelique’s curls, stuffed beneath the brim. Not to mention the distinct gait. Direct, purposeful, determined. Angelique’s.

  “Angelique changed clothes with Livia Samdi,” Lotham murmurs. His fingers dance across the keyboard. Other videos appear, disappear, but none improve our view.

  “That would explain why Angelique wasn’t missing any clothes. She put on Livia’s clothes. But why?”

  Lotham doesn’t answer. Instead, he returns to the corner grocer camera, except now twenty minutes after the end of the school day. Five minutes after Angelique—dressed as Livia—appears and disappears from the frame, a new female emerges from the side of the school. She moves totally differently than Angelique. Hesitant, self-conscious, almost skulking as she hugs the inside edge of the sidewalk.

  Livia Samdi, now dressed in black stretch pants and a navy flannel shirt. Her shorter hair is held back with clips and for the first time I can see her face. She appears younger than her fifteen years.

  A pause at the intersection, waiting for her turn to cross. She glances up. A single heartbeat, where she stares directly at the video camera.

  She looks terrified.

  * * *

  —

  Then she crosses the street and disappears from view.

  Lotham hits stop. He once again pushes back his chair. “Fuck me,” he states.

  For a change, I don’t go with the obvious retort. “Angelique took Livia’s place. The clothes, the hat. She’s not trying to hide herself. She’s trying to appear as Livia Samdi.”

  Lotham sighs, scrubs his face with his hand. “I’ve been working the wrong damn missing persons case.”

  I get it then, the full implication of Angelique’s deception, her and Livia’s plan. Serious, hardworking, caretaker Angelique. She didn’t engage in high-risk behavior or lifestyle choices, which had made her disappearance such a puzzle.

  Because she hadn’t been the one in danger.

  She hadn’t been the target.

  Livia Samdi had been.

  And now, she was gone, too. The girl with a gift for visualizing X-Y-Z planes. The girl who lived with a known drug dealer. The girl who clearly feared for her life.

  “What the hell were they up to?” I ask quietly.

  But neither one of us has the answer.

  CHAPTER 23

  I’m at my best when I’m busy. After leaving Detective Lotham, I head back to Stoney’s. The pub is up and running with the regulars. Tables half full. Noise half volume. It’s only been a matter of days, but it still feels strange not to take up position behind the bar. I drift up to my studio apartment, where I discover that Piper has abandoned me for the night. Given it’s my night off, I could catch up on sleep or finally tend to household tasks such as laundry and grocery shopping.

  Instead, I do the sensible thing: I attend a meeting. Given the earlier hour, I’m surprised, but not unhappy, to discover Charlie also there. I take the empty seat beside him, sipping on coffee as we run through introductions, then get down to business. This meeting is about the twelve steps, step nine in particular. Making amends. I’ve never gone through all twelve steps. It’s not the apologizing for the wrongs I’ve done—I get that completely. It’s cataloguing all my sins that has me hung up. For all my talk of honesty, there’s only so much scrutiny I can handle. Though asking for forgiveness is also an issue. How do you apologize to the dead?

  I get through the meeting, content to once again be in the company of like minds, even if the topic isn’t my favorite.

  I help Charlie clean up after the meeting, working in companionable silence. Then, almost in sync: “Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?”

  AA-speak for would you like to talk?

  We smile in unison. “Yes.”

  I follow him from the church basement into the fall-tinged night. He seems to know where he’s going, so I don’t worry about it as we weave from block to block. Finally, we arrive at a tiny little diner I never would’ve found on my own. When Charlie walks in, with his telltale bulk and army jacket, he’s clearly recognized and greeted as a friend. I earn a glance or two from the staff, but his welcome expands to include me. I smile openly, happy for friendly faces after my morning adventures.

  Charlie takes a seat near the back. He doesn’t even have to ask before a mug of rich, dark coffee is set before him. I nod I’ll take the same. I still haven’t eaten, so I ask for a menu. Charlie says he’s fine. After a brief contemplation, I go with the Greek salad, which makes me think of Lotham and other things I don’t want to consider.

  My salad arrives in a matter of minutes, given we’re the only two customers around. I dig in, munching happily on romaine lettuce and kalamata olives, while Charlie sips his coffee.

  “Thank you for yesterday,” I say finally. Charlie’s sighting of Angelique Badeau at the wireless store. His personal request for me at the scene. His tidbit on Livia Samdi also having disappeared.

  “Any news?” he asks.

  “Nothing tangible yet. I visited Mrs. Samdi this morning.” I hesitate, not sure what to say.

  “There by the grace of God go I,” Charlie intones.

  I nod vigorously and we lapse into a silence, weighted by the shared horror of that one single drink that can undo our hours, months, years of hard work. There’s no judgment in AA; only mutual fear.

  “I tried to get her to leave with me,” I venture at last. “Join me in attending a meeting.”

  “Can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”

  I nod, chewing slowly. “Her house, her son . . . I don’t know if I could do it in those conditions.”

  “For the longest time,” Charlie says, “I figured I couldn’t get clean, not living on the streets. But then, later . . . I wondered if homelessness wasn’t easier. Took all the responsibility, the agitation of daily life away. Mad, sad, or glad . . . We don’t need a reason to drink. It’s just easier to blame it on something else.”

  I nod. He’s right. Mrs. Samdi’s living conditions are deplorable, but not impossible. AA teaches us that our worst enemy lives not outside the gates but inside our souls. We need no excuses to drink. As long as we have air in our lungs, it will always be a temptation.

  And yet I’m sad for her in ways I can’t fully explain. She’s a prisoner of more than just her disease. Her family, poverty, lifestyle choices—the causes are endless.

  “You seem to be . . .” I’m not sure exactly how to state this, “. . . in touch with street life around here.”

  Charlie grins, a flash of white against his heavyset face. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is there a gang, criminal organization around here sophisticated enough for counterfeit currency?”

  This raises a brow. “U.S. dollars?”

  “Hundred-dollar bills to be exact.”

  The brow rises higher. “That’s some fine work. How high-quality are you talking?”

  “Very high end. Extremely well done.”

  Charlie takes another sip of his decaf coffee, appears to seriously contemplate the matter. “Aren’t you talk
ing special paper, metallic threads, watermarks, all sorts of crazy stuff?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then no. We got our fair share of crime, and some of these boys . . . Don’t let an appetite for violence fool you into thinking they aren’t smart. But that kind of technical know-how, specialized equipment . . . Nah. Not in a million years.”

  I nod, share with him what I learned about counterfeiting operations from Lotham: bills printed in Europe, then sold to middlemen for pennies on the dollar, eventually sold to end users for sixty-five cents on the dollar.

  “Thirty-five percent markup,” Charlie deduces, nodding. “Makes sense. Person who spends the money should get the highest percentage as they bear the greatest risk.” He sips more coffee. “End users . . . Now that I could see around here. Drugs and guns require cash. If some new player arrived and said I could sell you cheap money . . . Yeah, plenty of players would go for that.” He pauses. “And plenty of other players would kill their sorry asses once they realized they got paid in fake bills. Risky proposition all the way round.”

  “But given the demand . . .”

  “No pain, no gain, as the saying goes. I imagine at least a few would be willing to try it out.”

  I lean forward. “Any players in particular?”

  Charlie has to think about it. “Can’t say off the top of my head. But I can think of a few people to ask.”

  “If it doesn’t jam you up.”

  “I don’t mind. But I’d like to ask why.”

  Briefly, I explain to him the counterfeit money discovered in Angelique’s lamp, not to mention her friendship with Livia Samdi and Livia’s expertise with 3D printers, which may or may not have anything to do with anything. And that Angelique was dressed up as Livia when she disappeared.

  “You’re thinking Livia was the real target?”

  “Maybe. Possibly. When I’m arrogant enough to know what to think.”

  “But then Livia still went missing. And Angelique’s still alive.”

  “Yes.”