Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(74)

Max appeared to consider this. Finally, he nodded his head and said, “Yeah, that works for me.”

“So what?” Portia asked, drawing closer to Max. “What’s going on? What’s the latest on the Darden kidnapping?”

“We have a very strong lead,” Max said. “But we’re being stonewalled.”

“By who?”

“Novamed.”

Portia was watching Max like a lion might eye a zebra. “Explain, please.”

“We’ve obtained information concerning a possible marital indiscretion between Richard Darden and one of their company executives, an Eleanor Winters.”

“So she’s a suspect?”

“Absolutely. Only problem is, Novamed is covering for her like crazy. They’ve got several new products coming on the market and they’d hate like hell to have any adverse publicity right now. Their stock is up and they don’t want anything to upset the delicate balance.”

Portia wasn’t convinced. “Are you saying this Eleanor Winters is the kidnapper or that she has information relating to the case?”

Max spread his hands apart, palms up, in what looked like an outright appeal. “We simply don’t know. That’s what we’ve been trying to find out.”

Portia eyed him carefully. “And you swear this is legit?”

“Absolutely,” Max said with a straight face.

Portia reached for her black mink coat, which was casually draped over the wall of one of the cubicles. “If this turns into something, I’m gonna owe you big time. But if you burn me, watch out.”

“I know,” Max said. “Hell hath no fury and all that.”

“You’d better believe it,” Portia said. She pulled on her coat, leaned forward, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, sweetie.”

“You’re welcome,” he said as she scampered away. Then he turned and gave Afton a rueful look. “What do you think?”

“I think she’s going to come back and slit your throat open with a dull letter opener is what I think.”

“Maybe so,” Max said. “But it was worth it.”

“How so?”

Max pulled his mouth into an angry snarl. “Payback.”





31


I feel like we live on this damn freeway,” Max said. They were humming along, heading for Hudson again and what would probably be a not-so-nice meeting with the local medical examiner.

“You remember when all those college kids were disappearing, maybe ten years ago?” Afton asked.

Max nodded. “Yeah, I remember. There was a fellow down in La Crosse . . .”

“One in Eau Claire,” Afton said. “And one in Minneapolis and another up in Saint Cloud. I always thought of the perp as the I-94 killer.”

“Most law enforcement agencies thought the murders were isolated incidents. Local incidents.”

“I know. But I always had a feeling it was either a long haul trucker or maybe a traveling sales guy. Somebody who drove that stretch of I-94 fairly regularly. They’d stop in college towns where they knew kids would be drinking and hanging out in the local bars. Then they’d lure them away from their group and murder them.”

“Seems to me all the victims were dumped in water.”

“Rivers and swamps,” Afton said. “Yup, same MO for all of them.”

“You did research on this?”

“It was kind of my hobby for a while,” Afton said. “This case and that poor anchorwoman who disappeared down in Iowa.”

“Some hobby,” Max said. “Doing research on missing, murdered people.”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Afton said. “Somebody’s got to try to take down the monsters.”


*

AFTON and Max passed by the large blue Hudson water tower and made a quick turn into the oversized parking lot that fronted the Saint Croix County Government Center. The large brick structure housed several county government entities; few area residents realized that the morgue was located in the basement.

They badged their way in and then took a clanking elevator down to the lower level. A sign with an arrow directed them to the corridor on their right.

“Hate this smell,” Max said as their footsteps echoed in the white-tiled hallway.

The smell that wafted toward them also made Afton’s stomach lurch. Chemicals mingled with harsh cleaning fluids and a touch of something foul.

Max pushed open the crash doors at the end of the hall and they suddenly found themselves in a small anteroom. More Spartan than a reception area, not quite a lobby.

A young man in green scrubs looked up from a desk. “Help you?” With his earnest look and curly hair, Afton thought he looked like he was about fourteen years old. A medical student? Mort sci student?

“We’re here to see Dr. Taylor,” Max told the kid.

The young man stood up. “Got some ID?” He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, squinted a careful assessment at their IDs, and then said, “Follow me, please.” He guided them down a wide, green-tiled hallway, pushed aside a large vinyl curtain, and said, “There you go.”

Afton and Max stepped inside a compact autopsy room that contained Muriel Pink’s body. She was lying atop a metal table with a white sheet pulled up to her chin. With her eyes shut and her mouth closed, she looked like she was lost in peaceful slumber, so very different than the look of horror and agony that had marred her face earlier. A man they assumed was Dr. Taylor backed away from her when he heard their footsteps and turned to face them. He was also young, maybe late twenties, and blond and blue-eyed, in keeping with the area’s high concentration of Scandinavians.