Before She Disappeared

As Frankie and Lotham return to Mattapan, they speculate as to whether Angelique made the superior fake she dropped outside the phone store. Livia appears to have known a lot about fake IDs. They guess it is possible but can’t connect the IDs with the counterfeit money Angelique was hiding. They also think it is strange that the rec director didn’t mention the altercation when they asked him about Angelique.

They speculate that after the confrontation with Dommy, Angelique and Livia concocted a scheme to make and sell their own fake IDs, but it seems strange that they didn’t start by selling them to Angelique’s friends. They may have been selling online via Angelique’s alter-ego, Tamara Levesque.

Lotham plans to scour the internet for Tamara Levesque, but the question remains as to why Angelique went missing first. They guess she was taken while posing as Livia, and the kidnappers kept her as leverage to control Livia. Then Livia was taken as a hostage to force Angelique to run errands and not run away.

At work, Frankie asks Stoney what he thinks of the local market for fake IDs. He replies that Boston is a college town, so there is a big market, but he thinks there are more valuable products to produce and sell. One of the bar patrons suggests green cards or work visas. That would be a huge market, worth kidnapping the two girls.

After her shift, Frankie paces her room, unable to sleep. Looking out the window, she sees the tall, skinny man she saw twice before, the one who is probably Livia’s “other” brother. She drops into an uneasy sleep and wakes the sound of the phone. She answers, and Lotham tells her the police have found a body. Frankie realizes she has failed again.

Downstairs in the bar, Lotham tells her the body is that of Livia Samdi. She was strangled and dumped in the park. They wonder what the girls could have been involved in that could be worth killing over. Whatever it is, the project must be nearing completion if Angelique is desperate enough to try to make contact and Livia has been killed.

Detective Lotham is exhausted. He falls asleep in Frankie’s apartment, and she searches the internet for Tamara Levesque. She finds a reference to a Tamara Levesque who attends Gleeson College. She spots a picture of Angelique in the college promotional pictures. Livia appears in another photo.

Frankie contacts Charlie and asks him to convince Livia’s mother to talk to her again. He warns her to be careful; her questions are

Lotham wakes up. As he gets ready to go back to work, he asks Frankie who Paul is. Reluctantly, she tells him. Paul was an ex-lover, who left her when she got too obsessed with playing detective. He is dead now; that is all she is willing to tell Lotham.

Frankie goes to the park where Livia’s body was found. The location is beautiful and private, suggesting that the body was left by someone who cared about her. Frankie wonders if it was Livia’s other brother or Angelique—possibly Angelique was forced to participate in the murder as another way to break her spirit and control her. Frankie feels weighed down by her failure once again to bring her subject home alive.

Frankie returns to the rec center and explores the building. There are plenty of places for couples to sneak off for privacy or to sell drugs and fake IDs. At the executive officer’s office, she startles Frederic. She tells him she has made the connection between Angelique and Livia and Livia was found dead that morning. He ask why she thinks Livia’s death is related to Angelique’s disappearance and if she is sure the girls met at the rec center.

Frankie confirms that they definitely met in the summer program and asks what he knows about DommyJ. He is visible uncomfortable with the question. On being pressured, he admits to the confrontation between Dommy and Angelique. He doesn’t know how much criminal activity goes on at the rec center. If he’d caught Dommy selling fake IDs, he would have been kicked out. He remembers Livia working with one of the trade school teachers who helped out with summer programs—Mr. Riddenscail, the teacher Frankie and Lotham spoke to about Livia. Riddenscail had written the grant that paid for the rec center to buy computers and a 3D printer.

Leaving Frederic’s office, Frankie runs into JJ Samdi, who threatens to kill her.

JJ is clearly high as well as grieving for his sister. Frankie gets him off balance by asking first if the safety is on his gun, which is stuck into his belt; if not, he is at risk of giving himself a serious injury. When she has him distracted, she asks if he is the one who shot at her when she interviewed his mother. She guesses by his reaction that he wasn’t, so she asks about his half-brother, Deke, who recently got out of prison. JJ says Deke is a loser imprisoned for armed robbery. Livia was the only one of the family who had a chance to get out, and JJ blames Frankie for her death. He draws his gun.

Frankie faces him down, telling him about Angelique’s attempts to help Livia with whatever trouble she was in. She asks JJ why Livia might keep her friendship with Angelique a secret. She asks if he can hold himself together long enough to avenge Livia’s death, how Livia knew so much about fake IDs, and if Deke could have killed her—she knows Deke was watching Livia from a distance before she disappeared.

JJ tells her Deke and his friends wanted to be big crime bosses getting into fakes and forgeries. After Deke was arrested, JJ found a stash of money in the house and started spending it until he found out it was counterfeit. Frankie surmises that Livia might have found a similar stash and smuggled it to Angelique to hide. Next, Frankie asks about Mr. Riddenscail at the rec center, but JJ doesn’t know anything about him.

Frankie talks JJ into helping her find out who killed Livia. Livia loved Angelique, and Angelique is in trouble because she tried to help Livia. JJ owes it to Livia to help find Angelique as well. The first step is to find Deke.