Before She Disappeared(39)

“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.





CHAPTER 13




I finish setting up the bar, just in case that saves my job and maintains my lodging. Stoney, being Stoney, is hard to read. I tell him I should be back before things get too busy. He nods. I tell him no later than five. He nods again. I tell him I’m so sorry, but I have to do this.

He gives me a long look.

I decide that’s enough conversation for now and head out the door. I’m not surprised to find Detective Lotham waiting for me.

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching videos from outside Angelique’s cybercafé?” I ask him.

“Real police work takes longer than . . .” He waves his hand in my general direction.

I smile. “I’m growing on you, I can tell.”

He rolls his eyes.

We’ve arrived at his standard-issue detective’s vehicle, an unmarked Chevy. I shake my head. “What is it about police cars that even the unmarked ones can be made a mile away?”

“At least it’s not the ice cream truck.”

“The ice cream truck?”

“Department bought it a few years back. For Operation Hoodsie Cup.”

I can’t decide if he’s pulling my leg or not. “To break up some evil frozen custard cabal before they took over the world?”

“More like for cruising around Roxbury handing out free ice cream to kids. We can’t be arrogant, incompetent authority figures all the time.”

“I didn’t say you were incompetent. Now arrogant, on the other hand . . .”

He sighs, pops open the passenger-side door for me, but I shake my head.

“Beautiful day like this, I think I’ll walk.”

“Now you’re just being difficult.”

“So I’ve heard. Still, a pretty afternoon and given the rest of my evening will be spent in a dank bar . . .”

He concedes the point, leaving his vehicle to fall in step beside me. “We went through that entire apartment with a fine-toothed comb,” he warns me.

“I know.”

“Even brought in search dogs.” He emphasizes the word enough for me to understand he means drug-sniffing canines. Yet another detail he most likely never told the family. I think Angelique Badeau’s case still keeps him up at night, and this afternoon’s revelation didn’t help.

“What do you think of Angelique’s message?” I ask him. “Help us. Clearly, it implies there’s more than just her safety at stake. But as Angelique’s family pointed out, all of her friends are accounted for. So who is the us?”

Lotham doesn’t speak right away. His expression is troubled. “For the record, Angelique Badeau is our only active missing persons case at this time. So even looking beyond one teenage girl’s social circle . . .” He shrugs.

In other words, there’s not an immediate or obvious connection between Angelique and other possible victims. Interesting.

“Could be she’s being abducted and held with a group of runaways,” I brainstorm out loud. “Or, given the prevalence of human trafficking, other girls, immigrants who were smuggled into the country to be put to work. That’s an entire victim group that would never even cross investigative radar screens until it’s too late. Though how Angelique became part of such an operation, what exactly she stumbled into . . .” My voice trails off. This is all purely speculation. At the end of the day, Angelique’s ominous message changes everything—and nothing.

The investigation remains as it’s always been—stuck. Lacking a cohesive theory. A fifteen-year-old girl disappeared after school. How, why, where? The possibilities are endless. Mostly, we now have proof that Angelique is alive. Though if she was driven to risk delivering a coded message at this stage of the game, her fate—and those of the mysterious us—could very well be hanging by a thread.