Before She Disappeared(67)
“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.
Lisa Gardner's Books
- When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)
- Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)
- Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)
- Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)
- Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)
- Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)
- Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)
- Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)
- Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)
- Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)