Little Girl Gone Read Online Free Page A

the department.
    Afton followed Thacker into a large, fluorescent-lit conference room, where the murmur of conversation throbbed like a beating heart. Two uniformed officers sat hunched at a table with four detectives. They were all shoving paper around, jotting notes, and looking generally stressed.
    All heads jerked up when Thacker entered. Deputy Chief Gerald Thacker was dressed as if he were attending a shareholders meeting at a Fortune 500 company. Plaid Joseph Abboud sport coat, black slacks, and high-polished black oxfords. Once the detectives in their khakis and thermal pullovers had surveyed Thacker, their eyes turned to Afton. This wasn’t unusual. She was used to their stares, and it was starting to get old. She just wished she could be looked upon as another member of the team, not as a little sister, chickie-poo, soccer mom, or forbidden fruit. Only Thacker and Max Montgomery, one of the veteran detectives, treated her as if she really belonged here, and for that she was grateful.
    â€œOkay,” Thacker said loudly. “To catch everybody up, here’s what we’vegot so far.” He stood at the head of a battered wooden table covered with cigarette burns in a stuffy room that had probably been painted pea green sometime around the end of the Eisenhower Administration. Probably the only thing that had changed in the room in seven decades was that you weren’t allowed to smoke there anymore.
    â€œWe got the call around midnight last night,” Thacker continued. “The Dardens had just come home from a charity event . . .” He snapped his fingers at Max Montgomery.
    â€œCarrousel to Fight Cancer,” Max said.
    â€œHosted by the Edina Country Club,” Thacker said. “Anyway, they arrived home to find their babysitter hog-tied and hysterical, and their infant daughter missing. Two uniformed officers responded immediately and secured the scene. Then Montgomery and Dillon here”—he nodded toward Max Montgomery and Dick Dillon, who were sitting side by side across the table from Afton—“got the callout.”
    Detective Dick Dillon, a short man with a florid complexion, cleared his throat messily and paged through his notes. He popped a pair of bifocals on his rotund face and picked up the story. “So Max and I showed up at the scene, immediately separated the parents, and commenced with interviews. Crime scene techs arrived and worked over the baby’s room, her crib, the front door, and hallway.”
    â€œAnything missing?” Thacker asked. “Besides the baby?”
    â€œPink blanket,” Dillon said. “Anyway, our guys also grabbed the Dardens’ computers and are mining the data down in the geek cave.” He paused. “As far as the parents go, Mom is totally beside herself. Dad not so much. Guy seems guarded, but that could just be good old Nordic stoicism.”
    Like a good partner, Max Montgomery recognized his cue and stepped in with his own assessment. “The babysitter, Ashley Copeland, wasn’t a lot of help. She was pretty freaked out and was able to give only a rudimentary description of her assailant.”
    â€œYou don’t think she knew him?” Thacker asked. “That she let him in?”
    â€œOh, she let him in, all right, but it’s doubtful that she knew him. We talked to her in the hospital, but her nose was broken and she was on somekind of IV drip, so we didn’t get much out of her. The girl’s mom assured us we could talk to her later so she can give a formal statement.”
    Montgomery, who was silver-haired and handsome in a slightly grizzled sort of way, stood up and kicked back his chair. “But there are a couple of interesting things. One of the Dardens’ neighbors was out walking his dog, a big slobbery brown malamute, around eight thirty last night. He said he saw a couple of people kind of bent over and hustling toward a junky-looking car. Said