Little Girl Gone (10 page)

“Stay in the blue prints,” Seifert warned everyone.

Afton stepped out of line and saw a second set of prints leading deeper into the woods. “The other prints are from the hunters?” she asked.

“Yes,” Burney said. “We marked our trail, but tried to keep everything else as uncontaminated as possible.”

“Smart,” Max said.

They trudged along another twenty feet into a small clearing. Just as Sheriff Burney had told them, there was an old log. It was large and smooth and silvered, as if it had fallen a long time ago and had lain there ever since. Bare trees overhead formed twisted patterns in the dying sun.

“Okay now,” Burney said. “It's over here.”

Afton tiptoed carefully through the blue prints. Moving toward the scene was almost like playing a monochrome game of Twister.

Right foot blue. Left foot blue.

Afton crept up next to the log, where a fragment of pale green blanket stuck out. The sight of that blanket, frozen stiff and smudged with grime, made her heart pound faster.

Who could do this?
she wondered. Then the answer swam up to her.
A monster.

All five of them stood in a semicircle and gazed at the fallen log, which had done its job in sheltering the tiny little body, probably keeping it safe from woodland predators. The sheriff pulled out a heavy-duty Maglite and aimed the beam at the open end of the log.

“Go ahead,” Martha said. “I already took a look.”

Max took a step forward and bent down on one knee. He peered in for a good couple of minutes, then shook his head and stood up.

Afton was next.

A
FTON
sank down on both knees into the soft snow and put her face as close to the end of the log as possible. The shadows formed a light and dark chiaroscuro, playing faint tricks on her, but she could definitely make out the body of an infant swaddled tightly in a blanket. Anger and shock flared within her, and her initial reaction was to beat a hasty retreat. Fighting to push down that impulse, she forced herself to absorb every detail of the scene. There was the dirty, frayed blanket that appeared to be woven from cheap polyester. And though she couldn't see much of the infant, she noted a few hairs. Dark hairs. Wasn't the Darden baby supposed to be towheaded? She thought so.

Finally, Afton stood up and brushed snow off her knees. She turned to Martha and asked, “From what you could make out, could you get any sort of fix on the baby's age?”

Martha shifted from one foot to the other as wind moaned through the treetops. She was a little chubby and older that the rest of them, like someone's slightly hip grandmother. She'd dressed well for the cold, too—red snowsuit, thick fur gloves, and boots. A few strands of gray hair poked out of her stocking cap.

“I can't tell from just looking at this baby,” Martha replied. “I'd need
X-rays of the skull to tell how far along the anterior and posterior fontanelles have solidified. We can also tell age by how advanced its cranial sutures are.”

“But it's not a newborn,” Afton said.

“No.”

“And it could be older than three months.”

“It probably is.”

Sheriff Burney cleared his throat. “We shouldn't be calling that poor baby an
it.
”

Martha held up a finger. She wasn't finished. “What I can do is give you a guesstimate of how long that baby's been out here.”

“How long?” Max asked, stepping in closer.

“More likely months rather than days,” Martha said.

“So it's not the Darden baby,” Afton said.

“It's not her,” Martha said.

Sheriff Burney grimaced. “I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Maybe bad for you,” Afton said. “This is your problem now.”

Max shrugged. “We've still got the FBI's crime scene guys coming to take a look.” He turned toward Martha. “If it doesn't put your nose out of joint, they could probably take the baby back to Minneapolis, get some lab tests going, do a DNA analysis. Maybe even put their guys on the hunt for the parents.”

“Or the killer,” Afton said.

“That's fine with me,” Martha said. “We've got a contract with the ME in Minneapolis anyway. I'm not really trained in forensics; my specialty is pediatrics.”

“Minneapolis PD and the FBI have better equipment and more manpower than we have down here,” Burney said. “So I definitely think that's the best thing to do, considering the circumstances.”

It was full-on dark now as Afton stared into the woods. A strange thought capered through her brain—trolls stealing babies.

Now where did that come from?

Maybe she'd read about it in one of Poppy's storybooks. No trolls here, though, she thought to herself. Just a stone-cold killer.

“Here they come,” Sheriff Burney said. He looked past their group at a pair of white-clad techs and a man in civilian garb who were pushing their way toward them. “They made good time.” When they got closer, he called out, “You made good time.”

Afton immediately recognized the man walking in the lead. It was Don Jasper from the FBI's Chicago office. She'd met him yesterday afternoon in a fleeting introduction outside Thacker's office. Today he was wearing a nice-looking shearling jacket and a navy stocking cap that said FBI in yellow letters.

The two techs deposited their cases and immediately began securing the perimeter and setting up lights. Once the crime scene resembled an outdoor photo shoot, they readied their cameras and began shooting stills as well as video. One of the techs pulled Martha aside and began discussing protocol for the removal of the body.

“Hey, fella,” Jasper said to Max as they shook hands. Then he turned to Afton and stuck out a hand. “Don Jasper. FBI.” He was tall and lanky with steel gray hair and warm brown eyes the color of precious amber. They seemed to twinkle when he spoke.

“Afton Tangler,” she said. “We met yesterday. Briefly.”

“Oh sure. And you are . . .”

“Minneapolis Police Department liaison.” Afton decided the man was not unattractive. On a scale of one to ten, he was a . . . well, he was definitely up there.

“A liaison on a crime scene when there are no victim's family present?” Jasper said. “They must think highly of you.”

“It's more happenstance,” Afton explained. “I was out with Max when he got called down here.”

Jasper cocked his head at her. “So you're working on the missing Darden baby case, too.”

Afton nodded. “We were just interviewing the execs at Novamed, Richard Darden's previous employer.”

“Learn anything?”

“Nothing beyond the usual boilerplate bullshit,” Afton said.

“Ah,” Jasper said. “I see you have the proper amount of irreverence and disdain for civilian corporate culture. You'll fit right in with us.”

“Trying to,” Afton said.
Hoping to
. She took a step back as Max and Sheriff Burney joined the conversation.

“Did you talk to the two hunters still quarantined back in their truck?” Max asked Jasper.

“There's an agent interviewing them right now,” Jasper said. “But I don't think . . .”

“What?” Afton asked.

“I don't think anything will come of it,” Jasper said.

“They're just a couple of regular old hunters,” Sheriff Burney said. “Stumbled upon a bad thing and made the right call.” He glanced toward the log. “Oh boy.”

The four of them watched silently as Martha and one of the crime scene techs gently slid the baby out of the log and placed it inside a black vinyl body bag. The bag was then placed upon a child-sized stretcher.

Sheriff Burney slid his hat off his head. “I feel like we should say a prayer or . . .” He stopped and glanced up as the sounds of helicopter rotors split the air.

“What the hell?” Max cried. Now he was looking up, too. “Did our ride just take off?”

The roar was absolutely deafening as a helicopter suddenly appeared over their heads. It hovered above them, swaying slightly, creating a tremendous updraft that turned snow, ice, and bits of leaves into a swirling maelstrom.

Afton gazed up as a bright beam of light suddenly flashed on, encompassing all of them in its glowing circle. Then she saw the red letters that spelled out C
HOPPER
7. The unwelcome intruder was Channel 7 News.

“Go away!” Sheriff Burney yelled as the technicians scrambled frantically to try and salvage what was becoming a messed-up crime scene. “Get the hell outa here!” But his words were drowned out by the frantic beating of the rotors.

High overhead, Afton could see a man with a camera poke his head out
the side of the helicopter and begin filming the scene below. Now their entire group was trying to wave the news chopper away, but it held firm. The cameraman continued to film as the coroner and one of the crime scene techs leaned over the stretcher to hopefully protect the baby's body from the swirling wind.

Afton looked around at the angry faces, the shiny black body bag, and the helicopter hovering overhead like some kind of dark angel. And thought,
What a terrible ending to a terrible day.

*   *   *

BUT
it wasn't over yet. There was the technical matter of a debriefing at police headquarters. Don Jasper and Harvey Bagin, also with the FBI, huddled with Max and Afton in Deputy Chief Thacker's office. It was an “I'll show you mine, if you show me yours” type of meeting. The FBI guys had a laundry list of completed tasks and an even longer to-do list. Then it was Max's turn to sketch out the meeting at Novamed and their findings in Cannon Falls. He did it quickly and efficiently, as if he'd already written the report in his head.

“This Cannon Falls baby isn't related to the Darden baby kidnapping, is it?” Thacker asked.

“Doubtful,” Max said.

“Okay then,” Thacker said. “Write it all up and give it to me in triplicate.” He looked across his desk at Jasper. “Better make that quadruplicate. We have a lot of different agencies working on this.”

*   *   *

THANK
goodness you can type,” Max said. He and Afton were squashed into his cubicle, finishing up the last of their report. He yawned, did a slow neck roll, and said, “Long day.”

“You look like you're badly in need of a decent night's sleep,” Afton said.

“I'm okay.” Max pulled a jingle of keys from his pants pocket. “I'll be home in . . .” He stopped, frowned, and said, “Damn.”

Afton looked up from the computer. “What's wrong?”

“I was gonna stop over at HCMC. Talk to that kid.”

“Ashley Copeland. The babysitter.”

“Yeah, but it's probably too late now,” Max said. “They probably gave her a sleeping tablet or something.”

“I drive right by that hospital,” Afton said. “I could pop in.”

Max looked mildly interested. “Yeah?” Then he shook his head. “It's probably a bad idea. If Thacker got wind . . .”

“You don't trust me? To interview her, I mean.”

“She's already been interviewed. I was just gonna make a casual inquiry.”

“Because you're wondering if she might have remembered something else,” Afton said. “Something new.”

“That'd be about it.”

“I can handle that.”

Max continued to stare at her.

“Really,” she said.

Max considered this for a few moments and then nodded. “After the kind of day we just had, I suppose you can.”

A
FTON
eased her Navigator up to a meter on the street outside Hennepin County Medical Center. The glowing clock on the courthouse tower two blocks away said nine o'clock. Late to be visiting someone. Then again, she knew that hospitals were much more lenient about visiting hours these days. And she did carry a police ID.

Inside, the gift shop had just closed, its wooly sheep, plump teddy bears, and tethered balloons keeping their silent vigil in the dark. Afton rode an elevator up to the fifth floor and crept down the hallway looking for Room 522, Ashley's room. The overhead lights had been dimmed and the floor was quiet but not yet deserted. Nurses floated past on rubber-soled shoes, a patient shuffled along pushing an IV pole down the hall. As Afton passed a few open doors, she heard snatches of quiet conversation, the hum and hiss of machines, and the rattle of privacy curtains being pulled.

Room 522 was at the very end of the hall. Afton stopped outside the door and listened. Nothing. No TV, no talking. Maybe Ashley Copeland was asleep already? Maybe, just as Max had figured, she'd been given a pill to carry her away to dreamland.

Well, she'd come this far. Besides, she knew that Ashley was just a few
years older than Tess. Which meant the girl could be huddled under the covers, playing possum and texting like mad.

Afton pushed open the door and stepped into the room. A dim nightlight was on somewhere, but a flimsy privacy curtain had been pulled across one half of the room, blocking her view. Behind the curtain a shadow quivered.

“Ashley?” Afton said. “Are you still awake, honey?”

She put a hand out and slowly pushed the curtain aside.

“My name is Afton Tangler. I'm with the . . .” Afton's eyes suddenly registered the dark apparition that loomed up on the other side of the sleeping girl's bed.

“Ashley?” she choked out again. But she knew it wasn't Ashley. Whoever this dark, menacing person was, they were suddenly lunging directly at her!

Spinning as fast as she could, Afton raced for the door and pulled it open maybe half an inch.

Quick as a snapping turtle's bite, a hand shot out and smashed the door closed.

Too late! Her escape was cut off!

Afton twisted her body around to face her attacker, determined to make a stand and defend herself. She jabbed toward the darkness that was his face, intent on poking a finger into his eye. But the man—whose face was completely obliterated by a wool ski mask—heaved himself hard against her and flattened her against the door.

Afton opened her mouth to scream, but he quickly clapped a hand across her mouth. She squirmed as she felt his pelvis bump up against her. His closeness, his almost indecent intimacy, made her skin crawl. Terrified, forcing her frenzied brain to recall her self-defense training, Afton fought like a wild woman. She wiggled and bit and struggled until she managed to rip her right arm free of his clutches. Mustering all her strength, she drove a fist up, hard, directly under the man's chin.

He let out a
woof
, drew back an arm, and swatted her with an open hand, as if she were a bug. Afton's head flew back and cracked hard against the door. Before she could regain her bearings, his fist slammed into her jaw.

Afton literally saw stars. Miniature constellations that spun sickeningly inside her head. She sagged into him and when he took a half step back, she gathered what strength she had left to jerk her chin downward and head-butt him in the chest. Two seconds later she was tossed to the floor. Pain flared in her lower back as the man crawled on top of her, trying to capture her arms and legs, as if they were contestants in a high school wrestling match.

He was so strong! And the sickening odor that came off him smelled like a wet animal.

Slowly, Afton stopped struggling until she lay completely still. He didn't seem to have a weapon, so what was he going to do? The man was breathing hard now, like an overwrought teakettle. Was he excited by their struggle? Was he enjoying himself?

A terrifying thought rose like a bubble in Afton's brain. Oh no! Was this the same boy who'd strong-armed Ashley the other night! Had he come back to finish things with Ashley? To rape her? Or worse, to kill her?

As Afton felt the man lift up slightly from where he had her pinned, she brought a knee up hard, aiming for his groin. She wasn't on target, but she wasn't all that far off either. As her knee connected, the man groaned and partially loosened his grip.

That was all she needed. Elbows and knees pumping like pistons, Afton spun away from him and clambered to her feet. Catlike, the man sprang up after her, blocking her chance for a getaway. With her options dwindling, Afton sprinted toward the bathroom. Just as her feet hit tile and she struggled to pull the door closed behind her, he landed a roundhouse punch and she felt a stabbing pain in her right shoulder. Afton stumbled as he hit her a second time, and this blow sent her reeling across the bathroom and crashing into a second door.

The impact of hitting that second door popped it wide open and catapulted Afton into the adjoining hospital room. She fell against an empty bed and slid awkwardly to the floor. She had two seconds to gather her wits and then he was on her again, this time hooking an arm around her neck. Afton gasped for air as he squeezed her hard, putting tremendous pressure on her airway. Blind panic began to set in. Her arms and legs flailed
furiously, hitting an IV stand in the process. The metal pole crashed down on top of them, striking her assailant in the head. As his grip suddenly slackened, Afton scrambled on hands and knees toward a silver medical cart. She grabbed frantically for the boxy metal cart and wrenched it toward her. The medical cart swayed for a few moments, and then slowly tipped up onto two wheels. The drawers flew open, shooting its hodgepodge of contents toward them.

Afton grabbed the first thing she saw—a syringe for drawing blood. She clutched it in her hand and used her thumb to flick off the orange plastic tip, unsheathing the two-inch needle. Growling in anger, Afton spun around as fast as she could and cocked her arm. Like a picador attacking a bull, she lunged forward and rammed the syringe deep into the man's neck.

The man let loose a bloodcurdling scream and flew backward. He stumbled and landed hard on his butt. One hand flailed and batted frantically at the syringe, which was stuck deeply in the side of his neck.

That was the break Afton needed. She ran for the door, yanked it open, and plunged down the dim hallway toward the nurses' station. She spun around the tall Formica desk, sending a stack of file folders tumbling to the floor, banging her hip on the corner. She spotted a phone and grabbed it. A nurse, a small, dark-haired woman in a pink smock, who had just emerged from a storage room, gaped at her in surprise. “You're not supposed to be back here,” she scolded.

“Call hospital security!” Afton cried. Then she punched in 9-1-1. And then she called Max.

*   *   *

TEN
minutes later, Thacker himself showed up, looking both visibly shaken and quivering with outrage. He was accompanied by a scrum of eight uniformed officers, who immediately searched the area and huddled with hospital security. They looked everywhere, up and down the back stairway, ripping open janitor's closets and storage rooms, but found no one.

Max showed up some twenty minutes later, ashen-faced and practically frothing at the mouth. “He was here?” he cried out when he caught sight of Afton. “You think it was the kidnapper guy?”

“We don't know it was him,” Thacker said. He sounded calm and controlled, though he'd been furious when he'd first arrived.

“I think it was him,” Afton said. “I mean . . . for Christ's sake, he was right there in Ashley's room.”

“Does she know?” Max asked.

“No,” Afton said. “Amazingly, she slept through the entire thing. Even when the nurses moved her bed to a different room so crime scene could get in there, she never woke up once.”

“Sleeping pill,” Max said.

“Where do I get one of those?” Afton asked.

*   *   *

FINALLY,
thankfully, when all the talking was done, when all the gentle reprimands had been doled out, Afton went home. Max had insisted on following her in his car and offered to park a cruiser at the curb to keep watch for the night.

Afton had declined his offer. She just wanted this day to be over and done with. Now she was at home, snuggled in her own bed under a pile of warm blankets. Poppy and Tess were asleep in their rooms; Bonaparte snored loudly from where he was curled up at the end of her bed. The TV was on, but it was just flickering images, something to occupy her wonked-out brain.

Afton was mentally reviewing her day, which had seemed to unfold like some kind of weird time warp. Chastisement followed by the trip to Novamed, followed by a nail-biter helo ride, followed by the discovery of the dead infant, and then the attack at the hospital.

Had it been one of the kidnappers that she'd tangled with tonight? Had the boy come back for Ashley Copeland? To do what? See her again? Kill her?

Afton had read the transcript of Ashley's interview with the FBI. And the girl really hadn't told them anything of value about her attacker.

Hell,
she
had been face-to-face with a crazy person who was probably the very same guy and she didn't have much of a takeaway. Barely a description, really more an impression.

They would have to talk to Ashley tomorrow. Push the girl a little harder, try to ascertain if the girl knew more than she'd let on.

Afton fumbled with her pillow, struggling to get comfortable. She was having trouble trying to erase the image of the poor baby who'd been stuffed inside the log. Was that baby lying on a cold metal laboratory table right now? She knew the answer was yes. Max had even told Don Jasper that he planned to attend the preliminary autopsy tomorrow morning. The notion didn't thrill Afton, but she supposed it was part of the case. And if she wanted to stay on this case, then an autopsy was part of the package deal.

Shivering, Afton picked up the remote control and flipped along until she hit Channel 7. It was eleven o'clock and she was curious—and a little fearful—to see what kind of footage the TV station had actually shot down in Cannon Falls. She drew a deep breath, amped up the sound, and watched as the somber face of the Channel 7 news anchor appeared. His blow-dried hair was camera ready, his diction was precise, even his demeanor was appropriately solemn as he said, “Good evening. Tragedy struck in Cannon Falls today when the body of a dead infant was discovered in a hollow log. And only Newswatch 7 was live on the scene to bring you this exclusive footage . . .”

Afton watched, wide-eyed and disbelieving, as the film footage played out just as she remembered it. The fields, the clearing in the woods, the tracks spray-painted blue. And there, in the middle of their little law enforcement huddle, she saw her own pale face staring quizzically up at the camera as everyone around her waved and shouted.

The anchorman blathered on. “. . . calls placed from our newsroom to the Sheriff's Department in Goodhue County, as well as to our local FBI office, were not returned. A spokesperson for Susan and Richard Darden had no comment. So now we wait with bated breath to find out if this missing baby turns out to be the recently kidnapped Elizabeth Ann Darden—or if this is the body of yet another missing child.”

“Oh my God,” Afton whispered. She couldn't believe they could be so callous as to speculate on the dead infant's identity. She wondered if poor Susan Darden was watching this. She hoped not.