All the emails from the folder, I printed, then arranged on her floor. I recognized most of them from earlier—before radio silence ensued—from when Angela first moved to Paris after New Year’s. Emails from when she was getting settled and when we fought over our parents’ house. I set those sad memories aside to focus on the new additions, the latest written only a week before her disappearance, it seems, and never sent. So many things don’t add up. While so many other things about this coil my guts.

Updates numbers three through seventeen are missing. I stared at update number eighteen, trying to comprehend for an hour. Summer Solstice. Colorblind. The confusion in the embassy employee’s voice this morning returned in sharp detail: no Jean-Luc in the citizen assistance department. Then I snapped to action, moving furniture against the door—the bed frame, the chest of drawers—moving quickly and quietly. I set the mattress in the corner, then took up my vigil.

Jean-Luc is above me. Jean-Luc held me. Jean-Luc abducted my sister.

Floorboards moan overhead. Shit, shit, shit. I draw my knees into my chest and resume rocking. How did I miss this? Footsteps descend from his apartment, the wood groaning with his weight. What badge did he show me the first day? I hold my breath, waiting for the sound to soften, for his feet to find the thick carpet of the hallway before my door. What kind of idiot believes the coincidence of him living just above?

The tempo continues with the curve of the railing. Step. Step. Step step. Step. Step. Step step. Silent tears rack my shoulders. This is all my fault. I had one job, one clear message from her. Trust no one. My eyes pull wide remembering the moments passed with him, the man my sister basically named as her attacker. How did no one else find this folder? Wasn’t her apartment searched a dozen times over? But Seb didn’t mention this folder. And she didn’t implicate Jean-Luc by name. Valentin took photocopies of everything. What is Jean-Luc’s last name? Filler? Fuller? The police seemed to have everything they want in that box marked PREUVES.

I dial Valentin’s number from his card via Skype. No answer. I try again with the same result. The chipper, bouncing ring is a frustrating contrast to my anxiety. Chewing the remainder of my thumbnail offers something to focus on. A terrible habit, and painful when you get down to the base where flesh meets the nail plate, as I have. A sharp sting jolts through me as teeth catch deeper than before. Blood pools beneath the translucent shell.