Page 130 of Before She Disappeared

“I’m good with websites. I should be able to learn more, especially if it’s new, and copied from other sites.”

“Thank you, Emmanuel. And just... keep an eye out. Okay? For your sister, for anything out of the ordinary.”

“I’m spending the afternoon at my friend’s.”

“Good. Sounds like a plan.”

Emmanuel ends the call, I remain standing on the corner, phone still in hand. I’m exhausted, I realize now. And overwhelmed, but also overstimulated. Hyperaware. Which makes me feel it. That itch between the shoulder blades. Someone is watching me. I turn in place, not caring if I’m being obvious. I have to know. I want to see him.

But I just spot random pedestrians walking down the street. One guy here. Two women there. It’s quiet this time of day. A little too late for lunch, a little too early to be headed home.

One last look, then I start walking to the larger boulevard. I’m going to have to flag down a taxi, burn through more precious dollars. But I’m running out of time.

Angelique’s running out of time.

I dial up Lotham and prepare for his next lecture.

—

I come flying into work right at three p.m., after having just enough time to dart upstairs, wash my hands and face, and clip back my hair. Perfectly ready. Not late at all. I hit the tables, grabbing chairs, flipping them to the floor. Spray, wipe, spray, wipe. Then behind the bar, drying trays of clean glasses, stacking them up. To the kitchen. Lemons, limes, and cutting board. Slice, peel, slice, peel. Garnish tray filled. Countertop sparkling. Peanut bowls filled, ketchup bottles topped off. Beer kegs properly pressurized.

Ten minutes left, I attack the shelves of booze, pulling down each bottle, furiously wiping everything, then lining the bottles back up in perfect order. I scrub down the edge of the shelves, touch up the mirrored backdrop.

When I turn around, Stoney is standing there, staring at me.

“Rough day?” he asks.

“My head hurts.”

“Heard they found a girl’s body.”

“Livia Samdi. The other missing girl.” I falter, my hands falling to the countertop. “She was murdered.”

Stoney waits.

“I’ve been trying so hard to figure out the missing pieces, to reconstruct the trail that will lead us to both Livia and Angelique. But I didn’t make it in time. Once again, I’m too late.” I hate the raw edge to my voice, but I can’t stop it. These cases shouldn’t be personal to me. But they are. That’s the thing I can’t help, and Paul couldn’t understand.

Stoney waits.

“I just... I want to get it right,” I confess in a rush. “I want to be the one who brings home the missing loved one. I want to be there for the parade of hugs and sheer relief. Fourteen cases later, I need to get it right.”

“Angelique Badeau is still alive,” Stoney states.

“As far as we know.”

“Then you still got a job to do.” Stoney holds up his key ring.

I get his drift. Working out there, working in here. Livia is gone. But Angelique still needs me. Charlie would approve of this strategy. Focus on the souls you can still save.

Not on the pieces of yourself you lost along the way.

I unlock the front door and get to it. Happy hour starts off too slow for my jangly nerves. I refill peanut bowls the second they’re down a nut, top off water glasses after the first sip. Given how many of my customers didn’t even ask for water, I earn plenty of strange looks. But I have to keep moving. To stand still is to think. To think is to descend once more into the abyss. Fake IDs, fake colleges, one dead girl. And one caring younger brother desperate to see his sister again.

Lotham hadn’t been in a chatty mood when I’d called him. He’d been as confused as I was to learn that Gleeson C wasn’t a real college. Intrigued by the possibilities of the Tracfone receipt and phone number Emmanuel had discovered. And definitely mum on the subject of Deke’s last name, which I was already guessing wasn’t Samdi.

Lotham had been denied the warrant for the rec center’s computer, he’d volunteered grumpily. Not enough probable cause that the computers were connected to Livia’s murder, given her body had been found nine months after she’d last visited the place. He should be able to get a warrant for Angelique’s missing Tracfone, however, and yeah, they could absolutely try pinging it, let alone the data dump of text messages, incoming calls, et cetera. At this point, we could use a lucky break.

I’d ended the call with Lotham with the same tension we’d had at the beginning. Maybe Livia’s murder had taken its toll on both of us. Maybe we had taken a toll on us.

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