50 pages • 1 hour read
Lisa GardnerBefore She Disappeared
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 33-37Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 33 Summary
Frankie phones Lotham and tells him what she has learned about Deke, who was the skinny man watching Livia. She also tells him about Riddenscail working at the rec center and arranging for the 3D printer.
Lotham tells Frankie he knows what happened to Paul and asks Frankie what is really driving her. He knows it isn’t as simple as finding lost people and suggests she is trying to get herself killed. She doesn’t answer.
Lotham reports on his end of the investigation. There was a white van spotted at the park with a tall, skinny driver and a passenger wearing a ball cap. The description sounds like Deke, but Deke was watching Frankie’s window at the same time the van was seen at the park, which rules him out.
At Livia’s school, Frankie confronts Riddenscail about the grant and the 3D printer at the rec center. When she tells him Livia is dead, he looks shocked and grieved but not guilty. He claims to know nothing about how she got into trouble. Frankie shows him the pictures of Livia and Angelique at Gleeson College. The pictures of the college look familiar to Riddenscail. He finds the same pictures, this time from an older website for Lannister College. He concludes that the website for Gleeson College is fake.
Chapter 34 Summary
Emmanuel phones Frankie at Stoney’s. He has heard about the body found at the park. Frankie assures him it isn’t Angelique and asks him to investigate the Gleeson College website. She also asks if he knows anything about Deke. He doesn’t, but he has found another clue. The fake license dropped by Angelique contains several significant dates relating to their mother, so he checked their picture of their mother and found a receipt for an electronics store with a phone number. It must be the number of the burner phone Angelique has been using. Frankie tells him that Angelique has been sending him messages and he is the only one who can decipher them.
That night, Charlie comes into the bar. He remembers Deke from back in the day when he ran with a dangerous crowd. He suggests that the fake college website is being used to produce counterfeit student visas. Livia might have gotten Deke involved before the enterprise got out of hand. Charlie offers to go with her back to the rec center. As they are leaving the bar, Frankie receives a hysterical phone call from Emmanuel.
Chapter 35 Summary
Angelique has just called Emmanuel, screaming “No” and “Sorry.” Then he heard a boom and Angelique telling him she loved him. The number she called from was blocked. Frankie calls Lotham, and Lotham tells her JJ Samdi was just killed. Frankie realizes that with the college website finished, the counterfeiters could submit forged paperwork to apply for real student visas, and the gang doesn’t need Angelique anymore.
Frankie and Charlie arrive at the Badeau apartment too late. They hear sirens approaching, but Guerline screams that Emmanuel has been taken by a man in a white van. The description matches Livia’s brother Deke. Frankie flees out the back of the apartment to avoid being delayed by the police. Outside, she encounters Deke, covered in blood from a gunshot. He falls, whispering, “I’m sorry,” and that no one was supposed to get hurt.
Frankie has a flashback to Paul dying and telling her not to blame herself or start drinking again. He told her he was glad she called him. With his last breath, he speaks not to Frankie but to Amy, his wife, the love of his life, the one who healed him.
Frankie sits beside Deke and listens to him confess that he encouraged Livia and got her in too deep. Livia got scared, but Angelique met with Deke’s partners with the student visa scheme. They took her and used her to keep Livia in line, then took Livia when they thought she might break down and tell someone. Now they are cleaning house, getting rid of witnesses. Deke tried to intervene when they took Emmanuel, and they shot him. He dies, and Frankie realizes she knows where Emmanuel and Angelique are and that she has a chance to get it right this time.
Chapter 36 Summary
As she runs, Frankie calls Lotham and tells him she is on her way to the rec center. All evidence points to Frederic as the leader of the gang. She slips into the building and finds a baseball bat in a side room. She attracts the attention of the security guard, distracts him and hits him with the bat. She takes his gun and uses his unconscious body as a decoy to take out the second henchman.
She hears a girl’s voice and follows it to Angelique and Emmanuel. Emmanuel is unconscious. Frankie is tackled from behind by Frederic. Angelique attacks Frederic, but he throws her off. Emmanuel is awake and trying to get to his sister, still tied up. Frankie sees Frederic standing, holding a gun, trying to decide which to shoot first. Frankie begs him to shoot her first.
Frederic grabs Angelique. To get Frederic’s attention away from Angelique, Frankie throws herself at Frederic, right into his line of fire. As she does, she remembers the night Paul died. Frankie was in a liquor store, having called Paul to come and stop her from drinking. A young man was holding up the store. Paul tried to intervene, but the young man pulled the trigger, hitting Paul.
In the present, a startled Frederic pulls the trigger and lets go of Angelique as Frankie crashes into him and falls to the floor. Frankie hears Lotham bellowing for Frederic to drop the gun. Angelique grabs the bat Frankie dropped and swings at Frederic’s head, hitting him but not hard enough. He turns toward Angelique, and Lotham shoots him. He takes Frankie in his arms and tells her she saved Angelique and Emmanuel, and he’s got her.
Chapter 37 Summary
When Frankie has recovered enough to take stock of events, she can’t decide how she feels about them. She thought when she finally brought home one of her missing persons alive, she would feel healed somehow. Instead, she feels the same as always.
Angelique, Emmanuel, and Guerline visit her, and Frankie recognizes her own guilt in Angelique. Angelique asks to speak to Frankie privately. When they are alone, Frankie assures Angelique that she isn’t responsible for the deaths. She can’t go back and change the past, but she can do something to make the world better in future. That’s what her friends would have wanted.
Later, Frankie wakes to find Lotham getting into bed with her, just to hold her. They make love, and afterward, when he is gone, Frankie packs up her few belongings and moves on.
Chapters 33-37 Analysis
The full story of Frankie’s history with Paul finally comes together, revealing the original instigating event in the novel’s contemplation of Guilt, Atonement, and Redemption. Frankie blames herself for Paul’s death because it was her weakness that brought him out that night. For the last nine years, Frankie has been trying to atone by taking up Paul’s mantle as a rescuer. She does so in her own way, using her strengths as an investigator.
Each time Frankie is too late to save one of the lost is another failure to redeem herself. With Livia’s death, Frankie has failed again, but Angelique is still alive; Frankie has one last chance to redeem herself by saving Angelique, although time is running out.
Frankie takes the time to stay with Deke after he is shot trying to help Angelique and Emmanuel. The scene illustrates again the complexity of human nature. Deke intended to help his sister succeed in life, but his choices were tainted by his experience as a criminal. He lacked the moral perspective to push her toward legal pursuits and put her in peril instead, believing he could protect her.
In spite of his risky choices, Deke longs for family connection. His approach to Livia is motivated by that longing. Frankie’s sitting with him illustrate her understanding of human weakness. She understands from her own experience that everyone is weak sometimes and everyone has human decency. Deke is capable of love and sacrifice; in a classical hardboiled detective novel, a character like Deke would be presented as a two-dimensional villain. Holding Deke as he dies, Frankie associates him with Paul throwing himself in front of a bullet to save someone else.
At the end of the story, Frankie makes the same sacrifice, throwing herself directly in the line of fire to give Angelique a chance to save herself and Emmanuel. By sacrificing herself, Frankie finally atones for Paul’s death. She has yet to feel redemption, but she feels she has healed something in herself. This rounds out her arc of Guilt, Atonement, and Redemption in the novel. Because it’s a series, she will continue to struggle to resolve this issue. She has proved to herself that she is more than her addictions. In this novel, she gave her life for someone else, and that has set her on the right path.
Frankie’s transformation is represented by a symbolic death and resurrection. She fully expects to die yet gives herself without reservation. She survives and recovers to find herself not transformed but more whole and more worthy than she once believed.
Frankie’s at least partial healing is expressed in her words to Angelique, representing the better angel of Franke’s identity. Frankie tells Angelique/herself that she can let go of guilt for the past and do what she can to make the world better.
Frankie still doesn’t feel she has fully atoned for her mistakes in the past. She eschews the opportunity to stay with Lotham in Boston, which would mean starting a new relationship. She chooses to put her personal feelings aside and continue her mission to advocate for those who have been forgotten.
