Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(20)

“Sir . . . I . . .” Afton stammered. Her heart was a pounding metronome.

Thacker held up a hand. “I said I’ve been fielding calls; I didn’t say I was taking them to heart. Most of the knee-jerk bureaucrats who made any kind of stink were chin deep in their down comforters last night and got the story secondhand. Hell, Richard Darden isn’t really mad at you. He’s mad at himself, his wife, the situation, the FBI, and most of all the kidnapper.”

Afton felt the wire that had been strung around her chest loosen a degree. “Where does that leave me, sir?”

“For one thing, you’re to have no more contact with the Dardens.”

“I understand.”

“And I’m putting you back on desk duty.”

Afton’s knuckles flashed white as her hands crimped into tight fists. She’d been afraid this would happen. It was a kind of punishment.

Thacker held up an index finger. “I want you to work backup for Max. We’re pathetically shorthanded so I need you to go through that list that you and Max—yes, I know you went to Hudson with him—got from that doll show organizer. What was her name?”

“Muriel Pink,” Afton said in a humbled tone. Did nothing get past Thacker?

“Right. Pink. We’ve got detectives and FBI agents out there interviewing a number of these so-called doll people, the ones who make the reborn dolls, as well as the Dardens’ friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. While they’re doing that, I want you to go through Pink’s list. Run it against DMV, arrest records, real estate, divorce, adoption, anything you can think of. See if you can find any sort of connection, no matter how tenuous. You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Afton said. “That’s it?”

“That’s it for now,” Thacker said.

Afton got up and started for the door. Then she paused and turned around. “Sir?”

Thacker was back staring at his computer screen. “Yes?”

“Thank you for sticking up for me.”

“You don’t have to thank me for doing the right thing,” Thacker said. He lifted a hand to shoo her. “It’s my job.”


*

BACK at her desk, Afton found that someone had removed the dog and the note. Either they were destroying evidence or had grown tired of the joke.

Afton wasn’t thrilled about being assigned to do research, but it was better than being flung down to the basement to work in the property room, amid a bunch of overweight, semiretired cops. Besides, Thacker had stuck his neck out for her and she didn’t want to disappoint him. Max had once told her that real detective work was done in the shadows. Answers were usually gutted out by staring at a flickering computer screen or poring over notes. That’s where she was now.

Two and a half hours later, the clock on her computer said 11:35. Afton could hear chairs squeaking and people filtering down the row of cubicles, heading toward the exits. The first lunch shift was under way, but there’d be no lunch break for her. She was only a quarter of the way through Muriel Pink’s list, and not much had turned up. Only two exhibitors on the list had an arrest record, and only one of the two was serious—a DWI. Another exhibitor ran a licensed day care center out of her home. She made note of these three, though none of them had been exhibitors at the Skylark Mall. They’d all exhibited at a place called Sundown Shopping Center over in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Still, Afton plugged ahead. She wanted some nugget of information to emerge from all this drudgery. There was a missing baby out there, a set of grieving parents, a teenage girl who’d been assaulted, and a community that was nearly rabid for answers.

She wondered again how a baby could be snatched from her parents’ home. And in Kenwood yet. Was careful planning involved, or was it just a spur-of-the-moment crime? Being a parent herself, she could feel the stab of paralyzing panic that was starting to creep through the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. A predator was out there, one who was bold and crazy enough to break into a private home and steal a baby. If Elizabeth Ann hadn’t been safe in her crib, then no one’s child was safe.

Knuckles wrapped on her outer wall.

Afton turned to find Max standing outside her cubicle. Most of her coworkers simply barged in unannounced and started barking orders at her. But Max carried himself in an old-fashioned, almost dignified manner.

“May I come in?” Max asked.

“Sure,” Afton said. As he eased himself in, she noted that his khakis didn’t have the razor-sharp pleat that Thacker’s dress slacks always had, and it was obvious that his shirts were machine washed and not dry-cleaned. Max was rumpled, but comfortable.

“I’ve been working on that list we got from Muriel Pink,” Afton said.

“Whatcha come up with?” Max asked.

“There are three names that might be worth checking out.” Afton handed him her notes and the partial list with three names highlighted in yellow. “One’s a DWI conviction from back in 2012, another was busted with some of those Occupy Wall Street protesters that camped out in Loring Park a few years ago, and the third one runs a day care center.”

“Day care,” Max said.

“I thought maybe her contact with kids . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I never considered that angle. But it’s good. Okay.”