Before She Disappeared(73)

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.