Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(5)

“On belay,” called Hazel, one of her team members from down below. Three hours earlier, their Women on the Ropes climbing club had driven up from the Twin Cities, picked out a likely climbing spot, and affixed a web of climbing and safety ropes. Now Hazel meted out some of that rope as Afton made her ascent.

Moving methodically but cautiously, Afton climbed to just around the midpoint without encountering any major obstacles. The only issue so far was the sharp wind. It froze her cheeks and stung her eyes, making them water.

Damn, she thought, ducking her chin farther down inside her anorak. It’s cold. Maybe having first crack at this hill isn’t so great after all.

Afton climbed on autopilot for another ten feet, then paused beneath a craggy overhang, what climbers called an ice mushroom. She studied it, chewed her lip, and tried to muster her bravado.

Okay, she told herself. Blow by this baby and it’s a quick ten-foot scramble to the top. Like they say in Nike-land, just do it.

But the ice was thinner up here, with patches of loose rock like cat litter. If she could find a decent toehold, Afton was confident she could muscle her way over this monster.

Afton took a deep breath, scanning the route. Something’s here, she told herself resolutely. Has to be. She had to trust her instincts and believe in her route. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, tried to slow her heart rate. Instantly, she felt calmer; now she could do it. Opening her eyes, she searched the route again. Then a plan materialized.

Afton would try for a small lip, maybe fifteen inches out from her right hip. It was high; it would be a stretch. She exhaled slowly, drove in her ax, swung her right leg up, and caught the toehold.

There you are. Gotcha, you bastard.

She clung to the wall, in an unnatural, contorted position, feeling a modicum of triumph. Now it was only a matter of jacking her other leg up. But as she hung there, trying to shift a little more weight onto her right foot, her shoulder muscles began to burn and her right hand had the stirrings of a cramp.

Shit.

“You okay?” Forty feet below, Hazel peered up at her, aware Afton was hanging in a fairly miserable position. The rest of the team was clustered below, watching, patiently waiting their turns.

“Terrific,” Afton yelled down. She gritted her teeth, trying to decide what to do. Her apprehension had distracted her, causing her to make a couple of tactical errors. Worst of all, her arms were blown and she felt like a stupid fruit bat hanging against this ice wall.

Push through the pain, she told herself. They were words that were fast becoming her everyday mantra. A messy divorce had turned her into a single mom again, and her job as community liaison officer for the Minneapolis Police Department meant she had to deal with people in the messy, tragic aftermath of their worst day ever.

If I were on a completely vertical frozen waterfall instead of this fifty-five-degree slope, I’d probably have fallen, she berated herself.

So what the hell was she doing here? A soccer mom trying to act like an eighteen-year-old kid at the X Games? She should be lazing around home with the kids watching The Real Housewives and snarfing a bag of Chips Ahoy. Or better yet . . .

“Hey!” one of the women called up to her, and then gave a slow-motion wave. “You got a phone call. Somebody named Thacker.”

Saved by the bell, Afton decided. As community liaison officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, she was part victim’s advocate, part social worker. The MPD sometimes phoned her on weekends to help with a case or finesse a referral. Or maybe her boss was just anxious again. In his job as deputy chief, Gerald Thacker was anxious a lot.

“I’m coming down,” Afton called, and everyone stepped back to give her room. She flipped herself around, snapped a SpiderJack descender onto the rope, and prepared for a fast descent. This was the easy part, the fun part. Exercising a glissade. Which, of course, was really just a fancy French term for scooting down the hill on the seat of your pants.

Once Afton reached the bottom of the cliff, she peeled off her gloves and grabbed the phone.

“It’s your boss,” one of the women said in a hoarse whisper. “Sounds important.”

“Hey,” Afton said into the phone as she rotated her left shoulder to unkink a knot. “What’s up?”

Gerald Thacker’s voice crackled in her ear. “We need you back here. Pronto.”

“Are you kidding?” She and the other women had driven up here to sample fine wines and local cheeses, do a little ice climbing, and enjoy a good gabfest in their rented chalet. Not necessarily in that order. A mini vacation away from the demands of bosses, kids, husbands, and household humdrum.

“Listen,” Thacker said. “There’s been an abduction. A bad one.”

Afton sucked in air. Bad had to mean a child. “A child?” she asked, and the women around her fell silent.

“A baby,” Thacker said.

“Dear Lord. How old?”

“Three months yesterday,” Thacker told her.

“Taken from . . .”

“Her home in Kenwood,” Thacker said. “Last night. Stolen right out of her crib.”

“Oh, jeez,” Afton said. She immediately thought of her own two daughters, Poppy and Tess.

“There’s a shit storm going on down here at city hall,” Thacker said. “And your presence is required. So what I want to know is . . . how soon can you be here?”