Lisa Gardner - Before She Disappeared

“When I saw my sister again, she was holding my mother’s hand. I don’t think my mother found my sister. I think LiLi went back for her. I think LiLi brought her out of our home, right before it collapsed.”

Six-year-old Angelique. It’s possible, I suppose, but I also wonder how much of this memory is clouded by a baby brother who idolizes his big sister.

“We had a father,” Emmanuel tells me. “I’ve never seen pictures of him. LiLi, my aunt, my mother, they never speak of him. I remember his voice. I remember his fists. And I remember LiLi did not lead him out of our house.”

This catches me off guard. I sit back, trying to understand what Emmanuel clearly believes. That six-year-old Angelique not only saved him and their mother during the earthquake, but she—deliberately?—left their abusive father behind.

“People say LiLi is shy. She’s not shy,” Emmanuel tells me fiercely. “She’s focused. She has her friends, but they’re foolish girls with foolish dreams. LiLi has a mission. Not just to save herself, but to save both of us.”

“She had a plan to protect you two against deportation?”

“She started taking classes online.” Emmanuel gestured to the laptop. “Two extra courses a semester. She said she could not count on her visa lasting three more years till graduation. But she could work harder to graduate earlier, so she could get into the college and have a student visa. Then she would be safe.”

“What about you and your aunt?”

“My aunt has a green card. She’s been here a long time. But she said if LiLi and I go, then she will return to Haiti as well. We have been together too long for her to want to be apart. We are hers, the children of her sister’s body and her heart.”

I imagine that sounds even more beautiful in Kreyòl. “So if Angelique had a student visa . . .”

“Then she and my aunt would be safe. Maybe then, they could petition for just me, or buy some time. LiLi told me not to worry. She always told me not to worry.”

“You don’t think she simply took off to avoid deportation?”

“Never.”

I point my chin at the laptop. “Did you and she share that?”

“Yes.”

“The police must’ve examined it.”

“They took it, kept it for months till Officer O’Shaughnessy asked for it back. He knew I needed it for my schoolwork.”

“They find anything?”

“No. But I knew they wouldn’t.”

I regard Emmanuel seriously. “Because you had the laptop for at least a full weekend before the police became serious about their efforts, and in that time . . . ?”

“I didn’t remove anything. There was nothing to remove.” Emmanuel touches the keyboard lightly. “My sister loves math and science. She would read codebreaking books and do endless number puzzles to wind down. She will become a doctor. None of us doubt her. But this is my superpower.” His fingers dance across the keyboard. “By midnight Friday, when LiLi still hadn’t come home, this is where I first started looking. I tore apart every gigabyte of data on the hard drive. Nothing. By the time the police requested it on Monday, what did I care? As usual, they were too late.”

“But your sister is very smart. And aren’t there a ton of apps designed solely to help teenagers avoid their parents’ spying eyes?”

Emmanuel merely shrugs. “LiLi might keep secrets from our aunt, but she wouldn’t keep secrets from me.”

“What about her phone?”

“We don’t have it. It was in her backpack, or I would’ve checked it, too.”

“You ever see a different cell phone around the house? Maybe something old-school, like a beat-up flip phone . . .” I let my voice drift off.

“An after-hours phone. Many kids have them.”

“Then you all know about them, including Angelique?”

“Yes.” Emmanuel hesitated. “Once, I noticed what I thought might be a phone, tucked underneath Angel’s school papers. But then it was gone, and I never saw it again.”

“When was this?”

“Over a year ago. September maybe, last year.”

“Two months before Angelique went missing?”

He nods.

“What about the rec center?”

“What about it?”

“I understand Angelique spent the summer before school started there.”

“They have a day program for teens.” Emmanuel nods. “We both attended.”

“With your friends from school?”

“Our friends from the neighborhood. Most of our classmates live too far away.”

“So, lots of new kids?”

“Yes.”

“Did you make new friends?”

“Yes.”

“And Angelique?”

A shrug. “No one she mentioned. She had Marjolie, of course. They walked over together each day.”

“What about a young man?’

Emmanuel flops back in the booth. “Now you sound like the stupid police.”

“Sorry.”

“My sister did not meet some boy. She would not leave me or my aunt or her dreams of medicine for some boy. ”

There is so much disdain in his voice, I wonder if Emmanuel is protesting too much. But what he says next catches me off guard.

“‘I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor and when I die, I expect to find him laughing,’” he suddenly quotes.

It takes me a moment. “Wait, isn’t that Depeche Mode? But what do my high school memories have to do with anything?”

“Eighties music is very popular,” Emmanuel states seriously.

“I still don’t get it.”

Emmanuel looks around, as if expecting the sudden appearance of eavesdroppers, then whispers quietly, “LiLi doesn’t believe in love. She doesn’t believe in God either. ‘No one will save us, ti fre .’ She told me that all the time. When I woke up with nightmares, when I first cried with homesickness: ‘No one will save us, ti fre , but it is okay, for we will save ourselves.’ That’s what my sister believes in. Her strength, her determination, her plan. She was not waiting for our aunt to magically secure our visas, or for some lawyers to sue on our behalf. LiLi believes in LiLi. We will be okay, because she will work hard enough to make it so.” A pause. “You cannot tell my aunt this. It would break her heart.”

I nod slowly, leaning back in silence. The sister he describes, a girl who at the tender age of six supposedly had the fortitude to save her own mother and brother, who was still actively in pursuit of a better future for them all . . .

I think I would’ve liked that girl very much. And I don’t want to believe she could’ve been derailed by something as fickle as male attention. Then again, fifteen is that age. And maybe the girl who didn’t get to act like a normal six-year-old wanted for one moment to be foolish and giddy. I couldn’t blame her for that.

“Are you continuing to update this site?” I ask Emmanuel.

“Yes. The police . . . They were too slow to start. And now, all this time without any progress . . . We do not see or hear from them so much anymore. Even at school . . . It’s a new year. The other kids, teachers, they move on. It’s not their home that is empty.”

“You’re hoping this might gather national interest. Maybe get your sister’s case on a major news program, re-ignite the investigation.”

“I send letters and e-mails every week. They don’t answer. But my sister . . .” His voice breaks slightly. “She’s worth it. The whole world should know her. The whole world should be looking. Why . . . Why aren’t they looking?”

Then he can’t talk. Emmanuel looks down at the table, blinking rapidly. I reach across, lightly fold my fingers over his hand. He doesn’t pull away, but we both know it’s not my comfort he wants.

“I’m not GMA ,” I say. “Or 48 Hours or any of those national shows.”