Lisa Gardner - Before She Disappeared

“No,” he states bitterly. Nothing like a teen to give it to you straight.

“But I can promise you,” I continue, “that I do care, and I am looking, and I won’t leave till your sister comes home.”

“She’s not your family.”

“I choose her anyway. According to you, she’s worth it. That’s good enough for me.”

He glances up, his eyes damp with tears. “She did not run away.”

“I believe you.”

“She did not leave us for some boy.”

“Okay.”

“But something has changed.”

“Clearly.”

“No, I mean recently. The past few weeks. Before, when she first disappeared, I monitored the internet for signs of activity all the time. But . . . It’s been a while.”

I nod.

“I’d stopped paying attention. But then you came, and you asked questions and last night . . .”

“What happened last night, Emmanuel?”

“I logged into one of her classes,” Emmanuel murmurs. “I just wanted to picture her leaning over the computer, tapping away. I wanted to feel close to her again. But I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t log in, or you couldn’t . . . feel any hint of your sister?”

“The course was closed.”

“Like you said, it’s been eleven months.”

“No, not suspended or canceled. Closed. As in the work completed, so the class is no more. Sometime in the past month, my sister logged in. She submitted the homework. She passed the test.”

Emmanuel stares at me. “Last week, my missing sister . . . I don’t understand . . . I can’t explain . . . but of all things, LiLi completed her online class. She’s out there, somewhere, still doing her schoolwork. But not coming home to us. Why? Of all things . . . Why?”

Detective Lotham is not happy to hear from me. The news that I’m with Emmanuel and the teen has something to share doesn’t improve his mood.

“What, you talked to him for four minutes this morning and now he’s bared his soul?”

“Actually, he came to me. First thing. No four minutes required.”

The detective growled. I have that kind of effect on law enforcement.

“Why?”

I treat the question as rhetorical. The answer, that Emmanuel brought his discovery to me because I’m not a cop, is hardly going to improve Lotham’s mood.

“Stay,” the detective orders. “I’ll call up the crime scene techs and be right there.”

“You don’t need crime scene techs.”

“You said he found something on the computer—”

“The internet. His computer is just the access point. And if you seize—for the second time—the laptop he needs for his schoolwork,then he’s definitely not sharing anything with either of us ever again. Bring yourself, Detective. That’ll be enough.”

More grumbling, but surprisingly enough, twenty minutes later Detective Lotham knocks on the front door all by his lonesome. I’ve taken the time to brew another pot of coffee and make two giant plates of French fries. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and you can never go wrong with fries. Given how quickly Emmanuel inhales the first batch, he agrees.

“This is cozy,” Lotham mutters to me as he stalks in, inhaling the scent of coffee and grease.

“Which would you like first: caffeine or sarcasm?”

“Caffeine.”

“At least you have some common sense.” I leave the wide-eyed detective to sort himself out while I pour a third mug. Emmanuel is already regarding Lotham warily. If I didn’t know any better, I would say the teen looks hurt.

Had he been grateful when the detective finally arrived at his apartment? The presence of so many officers, forensic experts? A kid who’d grown up watching American crime shows, he must’ve assumed the next scene would include his sister’s tearful return.

Except eleven months later, Detective Lotham hadn’t brought home his sister.

I don’t expect this conversation to be fun for anyone. I eye the wall of booze with longing. Feel your feels, as the saying goes. Except so many feelings are hard to take.

While waiting for Detective Lotham, I’d convinced Emmanuel to call his aunt. She couldn’t answer her phone at work, he told me, so he left a message explaining where he was and what he was doing. Odds are she’d listen to the recording during her lunch break. Which gave us maybe an hour before she came barreling through the door as well. Stoney’s bar is one happening place.

“French fries?” I ask the detective, pushing the second plate in his direction as he slides into the booth across from Emmanuel. This morning he’s wearing a dark blue blazer over a light blue shirt and a patterned indigo tie. Sharp dresser, I think, but I still prefer his broken nose and tattered ear. If clothes are camouflage, then scars are exclamation points of honesty.

Lotham lifts his coffee mug, gives me a look, then picks up a fry.

I offer ketchup. Emmanuel and Lotham reach for it at the same time. And we’re off and running.

“Start at the beginning,” I tell Emmanuel. So he does. Lotham, to his credit, doesn’t interrupt or make any more scowly faces. He drinks his coffee, scarfs more fries, and listens, face intent.

When Emmanuel’s done, Lotham produces a little spiral notebook and his cell phone. With his phone, he takes a photo of the laptop screen, with the web address of Angelique’s school site clearly visible. Then he pushes his notebook across the table and has Emmanuel jot down Angelique’s username and password.

“So Angelique registered at this GED Now site to take online courses?”

Emmanuel nods.

“In order to graduate high school early?”

A fresh nod.

“And this U.S. history class was what she’d started before she disappeared?”

“She’d been taking it over the summer.”

“Who knew this?”

Emmanuel shrugs. “My aunt and me, of course. I don’t know how much she talked schoolwork with her friends.”

Lotham is staring at the computer screen. “I don’t remember this from our original conversations or having seen anything in the reports on the forensic exam of the computer.”

“You wouldn’t. An online class is an online class. The computer doesn’t matter, the codes to access the class do.”

Lotham picks up his notebook. Angelique’s username is a basic Gmail account, which makes sense. Her password, however, looks like a string of random numbers followed by an exclamation mark. Lotham shares it with me. I glance up at Emmanuel.

“You can remember this?” I ask him.

“It’s a code,” he murmurs. “The numbers stand for letters, from a cypher LiLi made up when we were younger. It reads Doc2Be! ”

“As in doctor-to-be?”

“Exactly.”

Lotham makes another note. “This her primary password? The one she uses most of the time?”

“I don’t know. I understand her cipher. We’d send each other coded notes using it. But we share this laptop, and I’ve watched her log in enough times. She knew I knew. What did it matter?”

“Can you see when she logged into the class?” Lotham asks. “Or how many times?”

Emmanuel takes the computer back. “Normally you would check browser history, but given she didn’t log in from this computer to complete the coursework . . .” He chews his lower lip, dark eyes narrowed in thought. “Ah. Here. When I first logged on last night, it told me the last time I’d accessed the course.” Emmanuel taps the screen, showing a record of date and time.

Lotham makes more notes while I peer closer. “Two weeks ago,” I say. “Three-oh-three p.m.” I glance at Emmanuel. “Does that mean anything to you? The date significant? The time of day? You said your sister likes codes.”