It’s a disconcerting feeling. A girl. There—with her friends and favorite scarf and school bag—then gone. Until she reappears at a cybercafé eleven months later.
I want to reach out and touch her image on the screen. I wonder if her family still does the same. Strokes the framed photo of her smiling cheek before heading to bed each night. Places two fingers against her matte lips upon waking again each morning. How can a person go from being so present, so alive, to vanished without a trace?
I focus my attention back on the screen. I try to think past the image, to the Angelique I now know. A smart, serious student. A caretaker for her brother, her aunt, and her mom back home. In her brother’s words, not a dreamer but a planner.
What I notice now is how she walks. Straight, direct, not a trace of uncertainty. Angelique didn’t wander down the side of the building to whatever would happen next. She strode purposefully forward. A girl on a mission.
“What the hell are you doing, Angelique?” I mutter.
Lotham nods slightly. He’s asked the same question a million times.
He hits stop. “I can already tell you how this video ends: without any more sign of Angelique. Which brings us to half a dozen more cameras, including traffic cams at each major intersection, none of which show her either.”
“From what I can tell, neither of Angelique’s friends reentered the school after her. It appears that Kyra heads off to the left, while Marjolie spends more time in the little grocer.”
“Actually, in a matter of minutes, Marjolie heads down the block in the opposite direction of the school, to the bus stop Angelique normally uses. I traced her route back home utilizing various video feeds. Kyra, as well. Both go from here to various buses to their individual residences.”
I nod, impressed. That must’ve taken no shortage of time to sort out, given all the cameras involved. But it’s also good info to have. Whatever happened next didn’t involve Angelique’s best friends.
Which leaves us with? “All right. So we know where Angelique goes—down the side of the school. We know where Kyra and Marjolie head—home. Which brings us to new friend . . . associate . . . something, Livia Samdi. What about her?”
Lotham obediently rewinds the deli-mart footage. Once again students pour down the front steps into the broad city street. This time, I keep my eyes out for a red hat. I don’t know Livia’s features much more than that.
Lotham rewinds six more times. We devise a system. I stare at the upper left quadrant while he does lower right. We work our way toward each other. The end result: No red baseball cap. No Livia Samdi.
I sip more water, rub my eyes. Lotham closes out that video, loads up the next.
“This is from the traffic cam on the intersection to the west of the school.”
I nod, grateful I don’t have work tonight, as apparently, there’s enough footage here to last at least a week.
“How did you go through this the first time?” I mutter.
“Painfully. Our video tech also ran facial recognition software against it, though given the number of kids and how few gaze directly at the camera, that was a low-probability play.”
“Leave no stone unturned,” I murmur.
He agrees.
The traffic surveillance starts a minute before the end-of-day exodus. I watch a couple of cars pass through the intersection. Then there’s a sense of movement at the edge of the camera: the students, descending. Then, individual shapes become clear as dozens of students trudge toward the intersection, headed for bus stops, whatever. None are Angelique or her friends, which makes sense as we already know they’re at the grocery across the street.
I study the faces anyway, looking not just for Livia Samdi but anyone who might suddenly strike a spark of inspiration or magically answer our millions of questions. Nothing.
We watch this video for a solid fifteen minutes. Until the last of the kids have disappeared and only cars zoom into the camera’s field of view.
I yawn, cracking my jaw, as if that will get my eyes to focus again. Honestly, this is tedious work.
“Next camera?” Lotham asks.
“Next camera.”
Repeat and repeat. I earn new respect for Boston detectives. This is draining work and I still can’t be sure I’m not missing something. With so much to see on a busy city street, it’s hard to know where to look, let alone to sustain focus.
Lotham switches up videos; he must’ve downloaded all these feeds to his computer months ago. Where he could watch them again and again, deep into the night, searching, searching, searching.
We break the screen into quadrants again, as that seems the most scientific approach. We study, stare, grunt, groan. No luck.
An hour later, we both shove back our chairs and rub our eyes.
“This is pissing me off,” I say.
“Welcome to my world.”
“I was so sure Livia was the missing link. Knowing about her involvement now, you’d load up these videos, we’d spy her hat, her face, something and kapow! All the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place.”
“Kapow?”
“I like a little drama in my narrative.” I rub the bridge of my nose. My stomach growls. I’m starving. Lotham must be as well, but I can tell from his face he’s not ready to take a break any more than I am. We want something to show for all this effort. It’s human nature.
“Let’s talk it through,” he says. “What do we know from the footage?”
“Angelique definitely heads down the side of the school to the emergency exit and hidden bolt-hole. Marjolie and Kyra don’t.”
Lotham nods, laces his fingers behind his head, and stretches out his shoulders. “Our assumption has been that Angelique reenters the school via the side exit. So, if Marjolie and Kyra are headed home, as we know they did, who opens the door?”
I sigh heavily. “I asked about it being left propped open. Apparently, the school is wise to that trick and monitors the door. So the kids use an inside man. Only person I can think of is Livia Samdi. Angelique’s brother goes to the middle school, right?”
“Yep.”
“So it can’t be him.”
Lotham swivels his chair to face me. “Livia isn’t a student. So how would she get into the school?”
“After hours,” I begin.
“Can’t. Front doors are locked and monitored. Students have to show their ID if they want to reenter. Welcome to today’s school security.”
I frown, chew on my bottom lip. “What about during school hours?” It hits me, what I’d witnessed myself without really noticing. “After lunch.” I speak up excitedly. “The mass exodus from the deli-mart back into the school. With all the kids headed inside at once, and rushing to make it before the final bell . . . Even the best security guards are probably looking more at backpacks and security screening than at individual faces. And Livia is a high schooler. It would be easy for her to blend in.”