Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(54)

“So what happens now?”

“Sponger spends the night in jail, probably gets released tomorrow. We put him under surveillance for a couple of days, just to make sure. Ah . . . let me make a couple of calls to let everybody know what the hell just happened.” Max pulled out his phone and growled into it as they cruised past Walker Art Center. Just off to the right, Afton could see two cross-country skiers gliding along, making fresh tracks in the snow as they rounded the pond in Loring Park. A picturesque scene set against the stark gray Minneapolis skyline.

Back at police headquarters, Don Jasper had called a hasty meeting to brief everyone on his second interview with Jilly Hudson. Afton stopped by her desk, hung up her coat, downed two Tylenol, and retrieved the yellow notepad she’d been using since the start of the investigation. To the outside eye, Max may have looked like the epitome of the tough-talking, running-on-gut-instinct-alone detective. Truth was, Max was detail-oriented to the point of being OCD. He kept painstaking notes that he pored over relentlessly. He’d made her take the same notes, even if their observations overlapped. It was Max’s firm belief that it was the small, obscure facts that often broke an investigation wide open.

Afton stepped into the conference room and saw that Max, Thacker, Don Jasper, Andy Farmer, and Keith Sunder were already there. She took a seat next to Max, as the third local FBI agent, Harvey Bagin, hurried in to join them.

“So I understand Mr. Sponger is over in booking?” Thacker said to Max.

“That’s right,” Max said. He’d done a little tap-dancing concerning their story, hadn’t told Thacker how much Afton had really been involved.

“But you don’t think there’s anything there?”

Max shook his head. “Doubtful.” He was barely hiding his disappointment. “Maybe something you can throw to the media.”

Thacker glanced at Farmer. “You take a run at him, too, okay?”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Farmer said.

“Then everybody write up their reports all nice and neat,” Thacker said. “The mayor’s office is starting to exert a ton of pressure.”

Max glanced over at Afton, who immediately began jotting notes.

“The media is keeping pressure on, too,” Bagin said. “They want to know if we’re any closer to finding the kidnapper.”

“Screw the media,” Thacker said. “When we know, they’ll know.”

“All right,” Jasper said, glancing around the table. “Let’s get to it. Bagin and I just did a second interview with Jilly Hudson.”

“How’d that go?” Thacker asked.

“This time she was lawyered up,” Jasper said. “We showed up at her parents’ house, a humongous Cape Cod overlooking a thousand feet of rip-rapped shoreline on Lake Minnetonka, and her lawyer was there to greet us.”

“Actually,” Bagin said, “it was her father’s lawyer. Her father is some big muckity-muck vice president with Randall Manufacturing.”

“Did she admit to the affair with Darden?” Max asked.

“Admit to it?” Jasper said. “The girl thinks they’re going to get married. She did everything but show us her trousseau. I don’t know if she’s delusional or . . .”

“In love?” Afton said. When they all turned to look at her, she said, “Face it, Darden led her on.” Jasper cleared his throat, a noise that may or may not have been meant as commentary, so she continued. “Look at the facts. She’s a young grad student who Darden hired as a nanny. He brought her into his home, flirted with her, and probably made all sorts of promises.”

“And he slept with her,” Max said.

“Exactly,” Afton said. She tapped her pen against the cover of her notepad. “Beside the fact that Jilly’s tearing pages out of Bride Magazine, what did she say about the baby? About Elizabeth Ann?”

“The thing I found most interesting,” Jasper said, “aside from the fact that Ms. Hudson was unapologetic about her affair, was that she seemed genuinely fond of the baby. In fact, she was horrified that someone was able to waltz in and kidnap the child.”

“And we still don’t see Hudson as having a hand in that?” Thacker asked.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Jasper said. “She’s still going to school, gets good grades, and lives with two other roommates over near the university.”

“And she has an alibi,” Bagin said. “She was with her parents the night the Darden baby was kidnapped.”

“The three of them were home alone?” Max asked.

“No,” Bagin said, “they were having dinner at Somerset’s out on Lake Minnetonka.” He sat back in his chair. “This is the second interview we did with Jilly Hudson and she still comes up a big fat zero.”

“And the first time was?” Thacker asked.

“Sunday afternoon, right after the Dardens gave us a list of all the people they’d been in contact with for the past six months.”

“But two days ago you didn’t know about the affair,” Afton said.

“No, we did not,” Bagin said. “Nor did we suspect it. Ms. Hudson expressed shock at the kidnapping but could offer no information at all.”

“What about her relationship with the baby?” Afton asked. “If she genuinely liked the child, she probably felt naturally protective of her.”