Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(86)

“Have you gone completely loony!” Marjorie screamed. The fox eyes stared at her hard and beady, the whiskers fairly twitched.

“Like it?” Ronnie asked.

“You fool. You imbecile,” she raged. “I’ll show you who’s . . .” Her arm shot up and her hand clenched into a fist, ready to slug him.

Quick as a striking cobra, Ronnie grabbed Marjorie’s wrist and pinched it tight.

“Let me go!” Her dark eyes, sunk into her putty face like raisins, blazed fiercely at him.

“What did you call me?” Ronnie glowered back at Marjorie, gripping her wrist tight, really digging in his fingernails. Then he hoisted her up slowly until she was standing on tiptoes, practically dangling. He decided she looked like a helpless old cow about to be slaughtered.

“Stop it, stop it!” Marjorie screamed, twisting in his grip, eyes rolling back in her head. “Put me down!”

Ronnie fixed her with a crooked, half-glazed smile. “Shut up, bitch,” he whispered. “You shut up before I take you outside and lop your head off with an ax.”

Marjorie snapped her mouth shut as a jolt of fear ripped through her. And for the first time in her life, Marjorie did exactly what her son told her to do.





37


WHO wants the last slice of pepperoni?” Max asked.

“Me,” Bagin said. He gazed across the conference room table at Afton, put a hand to his mouth, and stifled a burp.

“Go ahead and take it,” Afton told him. “In fact, you’re welcome to it.”

It was practically nine o’clock on Friday night. Afton, Max, Thacker, Jasper, Bagin, and a half dozen others had hung around police headquarters, talking nervously, waiting for Darden’s phone to ring, finally ordering out for pizza.

Darden sat at the far end of the table, looking miserable. He didn’t eat; he didn’t talk to any of the others; he just stared at his cell phone as if willing it to ring.

It hadn’t.

For the second time in two days, techs had attached a microphone and miniature tracking device to Darden’s clothing. They’d debated at length about fitting him with a tiny camera, but had decided against it.

Privately, Afton feared that the kidnappers might have abandoned their original plan to collect a ransom. She worried that the Darden baby might have died, accidentally or otherwise, so there wasn’t going to be a phone call. But here she was, just the same. Waiting, hoping to beat the odds, sweating bullets along with the rest of them.

“You should go home to your kids,” Max said. He’d told her that twice already, as if she were the only person in the room who had kids at home.

“They’re fine,” Afton muttered. “Why don’t you go home to yours?”

Max shrugged. “It’s snowing outside, you know?” Four inches had filtered down this afternoon. More snow—an even larger and more dangerous weather system—was already barreling through the Dakotas and heading their way.

“Yeah,” Afton grumbled. “It’s snowing. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Max held her eyes for a few moments, and then broke off his gaze. He knew she was just as invested in this case as he was. Just as frustrated by the lack of inertia.

Another twenty minutes crept by. Detectives, FBI agents, and uniformed officers came and went. They made urgent, whispered phone calls, rattled candy wrappers, slurped coffee, and tried not to alarm Darden any more than they already had.

Darden, for his part, was not holding up particularly well. No longer looking like a male catalog model for Brooks Brothers, he was dressed in blue jeans and a droopy plaid shirt. He was also chewing his fingernails ragged, muttering to himself, and taking endless trips to the men’s room.

Privately, Afton thought Darden might be ready to crack. It had been forty-eight hours since the first phone call had come in from the kidnappers. And there’d been nothing since. She suspected his nerves were pretty much frazzled.

Bagin tossed a half-gnawed hunk of crust into the pizza box, where it clunked loudly and bounced a few crumbs around. He flipped the lid closed, and then stood up slowly and stretched. Reached down and scratched his belly.

Max lifted an eyebrow. “You got a personal problem?” he asked.

Bagin slid a hand up and touched the area just below his throat. “I think that damn pizza gave me a case of heart—”

And that’s when the phone rang. Not any sort of melodic ring tone, but a shrill, startling ring. A ring that said, Okay, boys and girls, time to pull it together and get down to serious business.

Darden stared at his cell phone as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. As if an inanimate object had suddenly started speaking to him.

There was a flurry of officious footsteps and then Thacker’s voice barked out, “Answer it.”

Darden reached gingerly for his phone and pushed the On button.

“Hello?” he croaked. He sounded like a ninety-year-old man who’d lived in a cave for the last ten years.

Thacker snapped his fingers for everyone to shut up. He wanted Darden to answer the phone, listen carefully, and ask a few gently rehearsed questions. The cell phone had been adapted so that any conversation would be recorded. They would all hear the call in its entirety in a matter of minutes.

Darden bowed his shoulders forward and said, “Yes, I understand.” There was more conversation on the other end of the line and he said, “Okay, but it’s going to take me a while to get there.” He listened some more, his mouth going slack. “Absolutely.”