Before She Disappeared(79)

“Not between Angel and him.”

“But between . . . ?”

Marjolie took a deep breath. “The last week of the summer program. I’m just leaving, when I see DommyJ at the street corner. So I slow down. Cuz . . . Cuz I’m stupid, that’s why. Then I see Livia, in her red baseball cap. She’s standing right in front of him, but she’s not the one yelling this time. He’s clearly pissed off, ranting away, and she’s like cowering, trying to just weather the storm. Then he grabs her arm. I’m startled. I’ve never seen him get physical with a girl before.

“Suddenly, she gets this look. She plants her feet and stares right at him. She says loudly, ‘You know who my brother is, don’t you?’

“He says he’s doesn’t give a flying fuck about J.J. Which makes her shake her head. ‘Not J.J.,’ she says. ‘My other brother.’”

“Her other brother?” Lotham asks sharply.

“Exactly. She glances across the street. That’s when I see him. Some super-tall dude in a blue tracksuit and gold chains. He didn’t look all that scary to me. But Dommy now, his reaction . . . DommyJ drops Livia’s arm, and backpedals so fast I thought he was gonna trip over his own damn feet.”

“He saw this guy across the street, and he ran away?” Me this time, because I’m suddenly remembering my first visit to the school, the guy I spotted watching me. And possibly spied standing outside the Samdi residence, before bullets started to fly.

“DommyJ looked like he was gonna shit his pants. I’ve never seen him look that scared.”

Lotham stares at Marjolie. “What did Livia do?”

“That’s the thing. Second Dom let her go, she scampered off. But not toward the dude. In the total opposite direction. I saw her face, right before she took off down the sidewalk. I swear, she looked just as scared as Dommy. I mean, if this guy is her brother, why is she so freakin’ anxious to get away from him?”





CHAPTER 27




Three p.m., we pull away from the curb and head once more into Mattapan. I’m going to be late for work, but with a little bit of traffic luck, hopefully not too late. I’m agitated. The thought of spending the next eight hours serving drinks and wiping down tables when I have so many questions regarding Angelique and Livia right now. When I feel we’re so close to learning the truth right now.

Alcoholics are notoriously obsessive. Particularly involving something as stimulating as right now.

“What do you make of Marjolie’s fake ID?” I ask Lotham, my fingertips thrumming restlessly on my knee.

“Definitely cheap. Surprised it got them into any kind of nightclub. Then again, some places, slip a little cash into the bouncer’s hand, and the deal is done. They just want plausible deniability if things go sideways.”

“Angelique’s ID is definitely better quality than the one Marjolie had.”

“Significant step up.”

I purse my lips, angling myself in the passenger seat to better face him. “Isn’t that kind of interesting? That she complains to this DommyJ about the quality of his work—”

“About the way he treated her friend.”

“And a year later, Angelique herself is running around with a superior fake.”

Lotham nods thoughtfully. We’ve come to a red light. He glances over at me, his face hard to read. “You think Angelique made that license? Or helped someone make it?”

“I think if Marjolie’s story is true, Livia Samdi knows a lot about fake IDs, while also having the skills to do better. Fifty dollars a pop . . . I mean, if DommyJ can unload hundreds of dollars’ worth of shitty IDs during a summer rec program, imagine how much Livia could make off quality merchandise?”

“Of all the counterfeiting we’ve discussed, a fake ID is the most feasible DIY project. With the right software, and a specialized printer, I could see two teenage girls pulling it off.” Lotham frowns. “Unfortunately.”

“Maybe the money in Angelique’s lamp came from their own business enterprise? Livia probably enjoyed the design challenge, while Angelique had personal incentive to run DommyJ out of business.”

“Why the counterfeit hundreds?” Lotham countered, making a hard right into a stalled stream of city traffic.

“Maybe someone paid them with fakes. Maybe they didn’t know they even had counterfeit bills.”

“So they’re smart enough to see the flaws in fake IDs but not forged bills?”

He raises a valid point. But damned if I can figure out how we get from Russian-printed Ben Franklins to locally manufactured fake driver’s licenses. I’m also curious that the executive director of the rec center, Frédéric Lagudu, never mentioned a huge confrontation between Angelique and Livia and this DommyJ. Unless he came upon it at the very end and had just enough time to break it up while writing it off as another day in paradise? Because surely once Angelique went missing, her screaming match with a wannabe hoodlum would be worth noting?

“Let’s say Livia Samdi knows something about production, given her design talents,” Lotham muses. “After the confrontation with DommyJ, she and her new bestie Angelique start scheming. They’ll make their own fake IDs. Superior quality that will drive dumbass Dommy out of business, while earning them extra cash.”