Emmanuel shakes his head. “The class is closed out. I can’t enter the course to look at past work.”
“Could you contact the course instructor?” I ask. “I mean, you have your sister’s e-mail and password. Can’t you just . . . be her and fire off an e-mail asking for a copy of the final assignment back? Your computer crashed right after sending, a virus ate your hard drive, something?”
Both Emmanuel and Lotham appear impressed, so apparently my basic internet skills have some merit.
Emmanuel works the keyboard again. “I can Instachat,” he declares after a moment. “The class professor is listed as being available. Hang on.”
I sip my coffee. It’s almost noon now. I wonder when Stoney is going to arrive and realize I’ve turned his bar into some kind of investigative headquarters. And what he might do or say about that. This may be the shortest job I’ve ever had.
Well, there was that place I was employed at for all of twenty minutes. Probably the fact I’d showed up totally loaded and crying hysterically hadn’t helped. Then that restaurant where I’d caught my hair on fire during the first shift . . .
Emmanuel frowns at the screen. “The teacher is Dr. Cappa. She says she thought she might hear from me.”
Lotham and I exchange glances.
“While the essay doesn’t reflect the quality of my previous work,” Emmanuel reads out loud, “there’s no need for a redo given my passing grade.”
“Get the damn assignment,” Lotham growls.
Emmanuel types more furiously. I have no idea what he’s saying to the teacher, if he’s still pretending to be Angelique or now explaining the situation, but minute rolls into minute, Lotham shifting restlessly beside me. Then:
“She sent it. I had to open the messenger system. Okay, here we go. The file was uploaded when Angelique last accessed the site. From . . . from an internet café.” Emmanuel pushes the laptop across the table to Lotham, who snaps a photo of the file’s information, and once again starts working his phone.
“You can tell all that from the upload?” I ask Emmanuel.
“Cybercafés have certain string codes,” he murmurs, already back to work. “Hang on. Here it is. The essay. Except it’s not a .doc file. It’s a PDF—a scanned image.”
The laptop screen fills with an image. It takes me a few moments to digest.
It appears to be a copy of torn pieces of yellow legal pad paper. It was scanned in color, revealing fold marks and smudges in the background. Western Expansion is written across the top in a small, neat script, followed by the body of the essay.
“Is that her?” I ask.
“It’s LiLi’s penmanship,” Emmanuel confirms, still scanning the screen. “But she would not handwrite school work.”
We all resume studying. I can’t tell what Detective Lotham thinks, but I’m confused. Everyone has described Angelique as a gifted student. This essay, on the other hand, not only looks clunky and awkward as it unspools down two sheets of paper, but reads that way as well.
Never has a moment been as important in American history as the westward movement.
Going forward was the only option for settlers in search of land and a new government that needed
To expand resources. President Andrew Jackson refused to
Give up plans to eject Indians from lands west of the Mississippi even when
You would’ve thought otherwise . . .
I don’t understand. Eleven months after disappearing, this is what Angelique cares about? Finding a way to crudely complete and post an essay for high school credit? Which assumed she had at least some access to the outside world. Yet hadn’t returned home?
I’ve encountered some strange behavior in my line of work, but this has me stumped.
“Did she sign up for additional courses?” I start to ask, just as Emmanuel bolts upright and slaps the table.
“It’s code! I knew it. She sent a code! My sister sent us a message!”
“What code?” Lotham is already pulling the laptop closer, trying to decipher the riddle.
“The capitalized words at the beginning of each line on the page. Look at them.” Emmanuel starts circling words on the screen with his finger. I follow along, reading out loud.
“Never. Going. To. Give. You.” I stop. Glance at Lotham. “Isn’t that a song—”
“‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley, 1987, yes, yes,” Emmanuel says quickly. He’s grabbed the detective’s spiral notebook without asking and is already jotting down the first word of each line on the page. Lotham doesn’t stop him.
“Rickrolling,” Emmanuel informs us in answer to our unasked question, still writing furiously. “It was an internet meme prank years ago. People would embed the link to the music video in various websites or news clips. It was really funny.” He waves his hand. “I told you the eighties are big.”
Lotham looks at me. I shrug, confirming we are both that old.
“LiLi didn’t care about the memes. She got excited about the paper.”
“The paper?” Lotham takes the bait.
“A quantum physics essay written by a student. It perfectly incorporated the lyrics from the entire song. LiLi loved it—the idea of a brilliantly written paper also being a joke. How clever, you know? And she liked the song, used to sing it while getting ready in the morning.”
Emmanuel’s writing suddenly falters. He glances up, his expression stark.
“These capitalized words are from the song, right?” He shows us the list of lyrics he’s scrawled down. “If you were to pay attention, knew what to look for, the message is funny. Some stupid things kids do.”
He said it, not us.
“But two words don’t belong. They’re capitalized, but they’re much further down in the essay, and they’re not part of the lyrics. She tucked them in. Hoped whoever was watching wouldn’t notice.” Emmanuel’s voice drops to a whisper as his gaze rises to meet ours. “Help Us. My sister wrote Help Us. That’s the message. Except who is us?”
CHAPTER 12
Lotham is back to his phone, a major detective working a major case. He paces the entire length of the tavern as he rips off strings of commands. I don’t have minions to order about or experts to call in, so I remain with Emmanuel. His face has shuttered. He stares at his laptop as if trying to see through it. Maybe he’s wishing he’d logged on sooner to find the note. Maybe he’s sorry he found it now.
I give him thirty seconds, then start stacking our used coffee mugs on the empty plates. “Come with me.”