Before She Disappeared(66)

It’s a fluid mass of teenage humanity. Almost all of it African American and clad in the same uniform of jeans, hoodies, flannel shirts. In the end, it’s not Angelique I spy first, but her curvy friend, Marjolie. Which leads to Kyra, and then, following shortly behind her, Angelique. The girl is wearing denim leggings with an oversized sweater in deep red. She has a bright-colored knit scarf wrapped tight around her neck, thin black gloves on her hands, and untied duck boots on her feet. Her navy blue backpack is slung over one shoulder. The weather is sunny but clearly cold.

Lotham taps the screen, in case I missed our target. I nod to let him know I see her. As we watch, she and her besties grow slightly larger, walking across the street toward the corner grocer. Then they disappear from view.

“After-school snack,” I mutter. Or drink, as it might have been in my case.

Lotham hits arrows. The video fast-forwards. Now we see all three girls reappear. There appears to be laughing, hugging. One dark head peels away. Taller, so I’m guessing Kyra. That leaves Marjolie and Angelique. Marjolie must return inside the store, as she simply disappears from the frame. But Angelique appears more fully, crossing the street toward her school. She doesn’t head for the front steps, however, but disappears, backpack slung over her shoulder as she strides down the long right side of the brick building, toward the infamous bolt-hole and side door, where she vanishes completely.

It’s a disconcerting feeling. A girl. There—with her friends and favorite scarf and school bag—then gone. Until she reappears at a cybercafé eleven months later.

I want to reach out and touch her image on the screen. I wonder if her family still does the same. Strokes the framed photo of her smiling cheek before heading to bed each night. Places two fingers against her matte lips upon waking again each morning. How can a person go from being so present, so alive, to vanished without a trace?

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.