Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(21)

He started to leave, but Afton said, “I appreciate your trying to make me feel better. I felt like a bit of a screwup today, so thanks. You made me feel . . . well, normal again.”

“Why would you want to feel normal?” Max asked. “I’ve seen how you operate. You’re definitely not civilian-type normal. You’ve got fairly good instincts that can probably be honed a lot sharper, so you’re selling yourself short if you just want to be normal.”

Max gave an abrupt nod of his head and left. He seemed to have a knack for getting in the last word. But that last word had inspired Afton to keep working.


*

AT 3:09, Afton looked up blurry-eyed from her computer. Except for a quick trip to the break room for a granola bar and a Diet Coke, she’d been working steadily for well over six hours. And she’d still only come up with three names, the same three she’d given Max earlier today. All her fancy data mining had turned up a big fat zero. The rest of the people on her list appeared to be upstanding citizens, organ donors, and careful drivers. None had been arrested, declared bankruptcy, been foreclosed on, or landed on Homeland Security’s watch list. Heck, maybe they were all eligible for sainthood.

Afton pushed back in her chair, trying to stretch out the kinks. Her back felt knotted and sore—a result of hunching over her computer terminal since early this morning. Or maybe it was from that crappy ice booger she’d tried to skitter around yesterday.

Had it really been just yesterday that this entire scenario kicked off?

Yes, it had. Even though she felt like she’d been working this case for a week.

Groaning, she raised both arms over her head and stretched carefully. Sighing deeply, she relaxed into the stretch. And felt instantly better.

She’d just finished checking the last half dozen names on the list—again nothing—when Max once again ghosted in. Seems he was going to be her only real visitor today.

“You still hard at it?” he asked nonchalantly. He’d tugged on a bulky, army green snorkel parka over his equally bulky sweater and slacks.

“Almost finished,” Afton said.

“How about a field trip?” He twisted a pair of suede gloves, what folks in the Midwest called choppers, in his hands.

Afton’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh? Sure. What’s up?” He was clearly going somewhere. Somewhere important?

“I’m heading over to Novamed, Darden’s old employer. See if they’re in the mood to dish a little dirt on him. Anyway, long story short, Dillon’s not feeling up to snuff. I suspect it was the tamales du jour that he wolfed down for lunch at Taste of Salvador. That place is always high on the health inspector’s naughty list, but Dillon keeps hoping for the best.”

“I’d like to go,” Afton said, buoyed by the fact that he’d actually invited her along. “But I’ve been grounded by Uncle Thacker.”

“That’s old news, because I just cleared it with him,” Max said. When she started to say something, he said, “Hey, cheer up. Your sentence has been commuted. You’ve paid the price for your heinous crime.”





11


MAX insisted they take his car, since he’d just been out driving and the car’s engine and heater were still tepidly warm. So Afton found herself scrunched into the passenger seat of his Hyundai Sonata, amid a clutter of Red Bull cans, McDonald’s wrappers, and assorted tube socks. A hockey puck was half wedged between her seat and the seat back, so she dug it out and tossed it behind her, where it clunked against a trio of hockey sticks.

“Hockey season,” Max said as he shot past the new Vikings stadium and slid down an icy freeway ramp. He punched his defroster button, which had the reverse effect of clouding the interior of his windows with a thin skim of ice.

Afton grabbed a plastic ice scraper and attacked the windows, as Max, a notorious speeder, hurtled north on 35W at seventy-five miles an hour. He passed traffic and wove in and out of lanes like he was lounging at home in his sweatpants playing Grand Theft Auto. Afton felt a different kind of worry creeping up on her. The kind where you feared you might end up in a ditch waiting six hours for a tow truck to arrive.

“If you’re going to survive in Minnesota,” Max said as he hammered down on the accelerator. “You have to have seat warmers. In fact, you have to have—at a minimum—front-wheel drive and seat warmers.”

The car exited 35, looped around an on-ramp, and swerved onto 694 West. When they finally slowed behind a line of cars that were clogging the left lane, Afton let out her breath slowly. A thermometer on a sign read 15 below.

“Legally, the guys at Novamed may not be able to say much,” Max said. “Even if Darden really did steal their company secrets and jump ship.”

“Do we know that for a fact?” Afton asked as tiny ice pellets began to beat fiercely against the windshield.

Max turned on the wipers, swore when the entire windshield smeared horribly, and then cut over into the right lane. His defrosters sputtered and the interior was starting to ice up again. “Scrape off that gunk right in front of me, will you?”

Afton scraped.

“Good,” Max said as ice chips flew. “Thanks. Anyway, Darden as traitor. That’s been the party line so far at Novamed.” He shrugged, the shoulders of his parka rising and making a swishing sound. “We’ll see if they’ve changed their tune.”