Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(56)

“Wow!” Poppy said. “Real FBI like on TV?”

“That’s right,” Afton said. She grabbed the big frying pan and pulled a pound of hamburger from the fridge. And the third reason, she thought to herself, is if anybody ever lays a hand on my kids, I’ll kill them. I’ll do a double tap right in the middle of their forehead. “Boom, boom,” she said out loud.

“Boom boom,” Poppy echoed from her spot at the table.


*

WHILE Afton sautéed onions and patted out burgers and the girls set the table, she turned on the TV to catch the evening news. She half listened as the co-anchors blathered on about winter storm warnings, odd and even side of the street parking, and snow emergency routes. Just when she was thanking the powers that be that Channel 7 had stopped running wall-to-wall coverage on the Darden kidnapping, Portia Bourgoyne’s face filled the screen.

Oh crap, it’s the Queen of Mean again.

The camera pulled back to reveal Portia standing in front of a small white house surrounded by trees. Afton recognized the house instantly. It belonged to Muriel Pink over in Hudson, Wisconsin. The woman who had organized the ill-fated doll show at the Skylark Mall.

Suddenly, there was a two-shot of Portia and Muriel Pink, standing in Pink’s kitchen. Behind them, dolls seemed to grin and peek over their shoulders. Afton wondered if it was still so stifling hot in there.

“As the hunt continues for the missing Darden baby,” Portia said, “Newswatch 7 has obtained an exclusive interview with Muriel Pink, the woman who organized the doll show at the Skylark Mall.”

Then Portia went hot and heavy into the interview, rapid-firing questions at Pink, who looked a little deer-in-the-headlights stunned.

“I understand you were one of just a few people who talked to this mysterious doll lady who’s the prime suspect in the Darden baby kidnapping?” Portia asked, enunciating carefully.

Pink gave an uncomfortable nod. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

“Did she seem a little strange or off to you?”

“Now that you mention it, I think she might have been.”

Portia gave an encouraging smile, so Pink continued.

“I’ve always had a sixth sense about people . . .”

Afton grabbed her phone and dialed Max’s number. When he answered, she said, “Is your TV on? Are you seeing this?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “Pretty unbelievable, huh?”

“How on earth did Portia find out about her?”

“Who knows? Portia’s probably got paid informants in the MPD. In the FBI for all I know. A woman who looks like that, Lord knows how many guys are lining up to give her what she wants.”

“You think we’ve got a leak in the department?” Afton asked. She was still half listening to Pink on TV.

“Hard to say.”

“This is just not good.”

“And it might not go anywhere either.”

“Still,” Afton said, “Muriel Pink seems to be remembering a lot more. A lot more than she told us anyway.”

“You’ve got to let this thing go for a while,” Max said. “Or else you’re gonna drive yourself nuts and burn out. Take a bubble bath or whatever you ladies like to do. Or better yet, hug your kids and read ’em some Dr. Seuss.”

“You’re right,” Afton said with a certain reluctance. “I hear you. See you tomorrow.”

Afton tried, she really did. She piled up their burgers with pickles, onions, and cheese, wiped bean spatter off the stove, and joked with Lish about her date this coming Saturday night.

Finally, she sprawled on the living room rug with Poppy and Tess and played a game of Clue.

But she still couldn’t let it go. Because trying to resolve the Darden kidnapping just wasn’t as cut and dried as discovering Professor Plum in the Billiard Room with a candlestick.





24


MARJORIE feathered her brush just so against the baby doll’s face, creating a perfectly arched brow. She’d always had a steady hand. Even as a child, she’d been able to trace her letters perfectly. Her teachers always told her that she was gifted, advised her parents to send her to art school. Those teachers were so stupid—they didn’t know her father. They didn’t know what he was capable of, or what a sadistic bastard he really was. But that was then, this was . . . years later.

Blessed with a photographic memory, Marjorie required no pictures of babies to provide her with inspiration. She knew what appealed to mothers the most—big blue eyes, cherubic lips, masses of silken hair. So she created baby dolls that were so impossibly beautiful that women were driven almost delirious when they saw them.

Now, as she labored over her latest creation in her workroom, Marjorie gently placed the doll in a silk-lined holder and wheeled her chair sideways. She pulled open a plastic drawer that contained bags of fox fur in dozens of brown, auburn, and red tones. This baby boy she was working on had chestnut hair with a few auburn highlights, so she needed just the right color for his eyelashes. She inspected one of her plastic bags. It wasn’t quite right. She tried another bag. Finally, she found just the perfect color. She took a small bit, just what she needed, and sealed the bag up tight again, rolled back to her workbench.

Wearing a pair of Bausch & Lomb magnifier glasses, Marjorie leaned in close and began the painstaking process of inserting each individual strand of fox hair. She worked steadily, humming as she went, and was halfway through the second eye when she was interrupted by a loud pounding on her door. She ignored it.