Page 144 of Before She Disappeared

CHAPTER 37

I’m in the hospital for a matter of days. I don’t remember much. A blur of pain as I fight the doctor’s orders for morphine, screaming that I’m an addict. Lotham might be there. Or maybe it’s Charlie, Viv, Stoney. At one point, I’m convinced even Piper has paid a visit.

I don’t have insurance, which means once the bullet is removed from my left shoulder and the wound patched on my right arm, I’m back out the door. This time it’s Lotham who definitely does the honors of picking me up, driving me back to Stoney’s and leading me upstairs.

I sleep. I dream. Of Paul, of Angelique. Of Deke dying in my arms. Of Livia chasing me through a park: What about me, what about me?

When I wake up, I don’t have an answer, so I sleep again.

In one of my more lucid moments, I learn that Frédéric, Dutch, and some guy named Holden have all been arrested. Dutch survived my encounter with him. Holden is still in the hospital, recovering from broken ribs, a broken jaw, and a ruptured spleen. I’m told he’ll live. I think I’m grateful, but I can’t be sure.

Apparently, Frédéric had gotten into the drug business nearly twenty years ago. He’d used his position at the rec center to meet and recruit other lower-level dealers, before going upmarket with the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars in counterfeit currency.

He’d initially been amused by Deke’s idea to enter the fake license market. But once he’d realized Livia’s and Angelique’s full potential, he’d quickly gotten on board. Then Angelique’s fateful idea to set up a sham college for issuing real student visas... As I’d suspected, the revenue potential was too good to pass up. If he had to kidnap two girls, so be it.

He’d stashed the girls at an abandoned town house just around the corner from the rec center, with Deke, Holden, and Dutch serving as rotating guards. Livia and Angelique would work at night, and sleep during the day, lowering their profile.

Most of the time, the girls were confined to the town house, utilizing a couple of computers Frédéric had brought over for them. But every so often, they’d journey to the rec center after dark to print out new and improved versions of the driver’s licenses. Deke assisted with local sales, while Dutch handled online marketing. The license business hadn’t been bad but, given the not-quite-Grade-A quality of the forgeries, still limited. Merely a convenient cash flow vehicle while the girls worked toward the larger goal of perfecting a sham college.

Unfortunately, Livia had slowly but surely deteriorated under the constant pressure. Angelique’s initial kidnapping had stressed her out. By the time Deke grabbed her as well, under Frédéric’s orders but also because Deke genuinely thought he could control the situation better if he had the girls together, Livia was a constant bundle of nerves. Angelique had done her best to run interference and buy them time. Especially once she’d realized Deke had a soft spot for his sister.

Unfortunately, Frédéric wasn’t the sentimental type. Once Gleeson C was perfected and the first round of student visa paperwork issued, he considered the girl to be little more than a liability. He took care of Livia first. But as Angelique and Deke quickly realized, she wouldn’t be the last. Frédéric, ordering Holden to shoot J.J., kidnap Emmanuel, then kill Deke when he tried to intervene...

On and on until there was no one left.

Sixth day, or maybe seventh, I manage to get out of bed long enough to shower, force down some soup. Afterward I stare at my reflection in the mirror. My drawn face, my heavily bandaged shoulder. I look like shit. And I feel like...?

I can’t decide. I found Angelique Badeau. I brought home a missing girl. It’s not that I expected to feel like a superhero, but I did hope to maybe feel like a better person.

Mostly, I feel the same I always did.

I go back to bed. When I wake up again, Stoney is standing in my apartment.

“You really are a lousy employee.”

“Yep.”

Piper appears from beneath the bed, winds around Stoney’s ankles. Purrs. Traitorous bitch.

“But you’re not bad at the missing persons thing,” Stoney says.

I give him a weak thumbs-up.

“You got visitors.”

Then he’s gone, and Guerline is standing in my kitchen, Angelique to one side, Emmanuel to the other. My breath hitches. I feel a stab of pain in my shoulder, as I drag myself up to sitting, but I don’t wince. I don’t want to scare them away.

Emmanuel has dark bruises fading on the right side of his face, remnants of his kidnapping. He also has purple smudges beneath his dark eyes, remnants of recent nightmares. In comparison, Angelique appears relatively unscathed, just some scabbing along one cheek. She stands very still, however. A traumatized girl holding on tight. A survivor, alone in a crowded room.

I wonder which is worse for her, the painful memories or the unrelenting guilt? I want to tell her I know exactly how she feels, but I doubt she would believe me. She’s not there yet in her own healing. She’s merely the teenager who went missing, and I’m merely the woman who finally found her.

I have no idea how our relationship develops from here. It’s never come up before.

I offer a tentative smile.

“Thank you,” Guerline says.

“Emmanuel and Angelique deserve the credit. Without Angelique’s messages and Emmanuel’s determination, we wouldn’t be here.”

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