Лиза Гарднер - Before She Disappeared

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.”

“I’m sorry you got shot,” Angelique states.

“Totally worth it.”

“Do you . . . Can I . . .” Angelique begins. She doesn’t seem to know quite what to say, but I think I understand.

“Can we have a moment?” I ask Guerline and Emmanuel.

Both hesitate. Having gotten Angelique back, they clearly don’t want her out of their sight. But after another second, Guerline concedes with a nod. Emmanuel follows her out.

Alone, Angelique appears even more uncomfortable. I finally pat the side of the bed. “Sit. It’s okay.”

She complies, but again, holds herself rigid.

“It will get better,” I tell her. “Not today, not tomorrow, but eventually.”

“It’s all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t. But I understand it feels that way. I lost someone I love. It’s been ten years. I still blame myself.”

She regards me solemnly. “I loved Livia. When she first came to me about the fake IDs, I told her it was too risky. But she wanted to make me happy. And she’d started meeting her older brother. Deke. I didn’t think he was good for her. But he was her brother, and family is family.” Angelique shrugs.

Given her closeness with her brother, Emmanuel, I could see her not wanting to take such an opportunity away from Livia.

“But Deke’s friends . . . They kept wanting more. So we would work harder. But nothing seemed enough. Deke tried to tell us it would be okay. Just do this, do that, it would all be fine. But I knew. I suspected . . .

“By the time Deke said his friend wanted to meet face to face with Livia, we were both nervous. Livia didn’t think she could do it. I told her I would go in her place. I thought I could protect her. I even had a plan—I had found online articles about groups that had set up fake universities for issuing student visas. They made millions and millions. Even ICE set up a fake university to trap foreign students looking for visas. I thought such a sophisticated operation would placate Frédéric. He would leave us to work on some mysterious website. We could forget about the fake licenses, which were much more difficult to perfect than we’d thought, and Livia could stop being so stressed out. I assumed I was doing something good. Instead, I made everything worse.”

I understand. The lure of so much money had caused Frédéric to become even more intense, leading to the eventual abduction of both girls.

“You can’t go backward,” I advise Angelique, “so consider this: If you can’t save the people you already lost, maybe you can save someone else instead. Become a doctor. Build a life. Livia, Deke, they would’ve wanted that for you.”

She looks down at her hands.

“I was with Deke when he died. He tried. For you and Livia. He loved his sister, and genuinely regretted what happened to you. In the end, this was more his fault than either of yours.”