The Spirit Woman by Margaret Coel Page A

fast-food drive-in and ordered a hamburger, then continued east into a neighborhood of houses from another era, a quieter, less stressful time, she thought. At a white Victorian on the corner, she slowed into the driveway and parked next to the garage in back. Clinging to the brick wall was an outside stairway that led to the rooms perched above, like an afterthought.
    Tense with cold, she hurried up the stairs, holding the hamburger bag in one hand, fumbling in her purse for the key with the other. Her fingers curled around the cold metal, and she jammed the key into the lock and pushed open the door.
    The instant she found the switch, the light from a faux Tiffany fixture flooded the round table near the window. Charlotte Allen’s manuscript sat in a neat stack, just as she had left it. In the shadows beyond the table stood an upholstered chair and a dresser with a television perched on top. Most of the room was taken up by a double bed, the flowered comforter trailing onto the worn green carpet. Against the far wall, next to the door that led to the bathroom, was a closet-sized kitchen.
    She dropped the hamburger on the table and tossed her coat and purse onto the bed. After she’d retrieved a soda from the miniature refrigerator, she turned on the TV and sat down at the table, angling the chair so that she had a straight view of the nightly news. A feeling of sadness hit her like a blast of cold air as she opened the bag and took a bite of the hamburger. Was this the way it would be? She, always alone?
    She forced herself to concentrate on what the beautiful blond newscaster, cloned from a hundred others, was saying. The FBI was close to an identity of the skeleton found last week near St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation. According to a spokesman, the skeleton was not ancient, as was originally suggested by tribal elders. Lab reports confirmed that the skeleton was a Caucasian female around thirty years old who was buried about twenty years ago. The death had been ruled a homicide.
    Laura set the hamburger down, staring at the screen, all of her senses on alert. A familiar feeling washed over her—the feeling that often came when she was doing research and had picked up strands of information that suddenly came together. Charlotte Allen was in her early thirties; she’d disappeared twenty years ago. Could it possibly be?
    She shrugged the notion away. Charlotte had disappeared in the mountains, miles from St. Francis Mission. It couldn’t be Charlotte.
    Laura was about to take another bite of the lukewarm meat when the footsteps sounded on the stairs—a slow, steady ascent. She sat motionless, wondering if the sound came from the television. There was a loud, firm knocking. She mentally ticked off the people who knew she was here. Only a few. She wasn’t expecting any of them.
    The knocking came again, impatient now, crashing over the television noise. Laura got to her feet and pushed back the flimsy white curtain at the window. On the stairway landing was the large, shadowy figure of a man.
    She stepped over to the door and slid the chain into the channel. Leaning into the tiny crack at the frame, she called, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

12
    â€œL et me in, sweetheart.” The voice came like a painful memory floating uninvited into her consciousness. “I’m turning into the iceman out here.”
    Laura slid the chain free. Her hand trembled. Her legs felt weak and unattached as she opened the door and watched Toby Becker stride in, boots stomping the carpet, shoulders rolling, so that tiny snow crystals flew into her face like sand blowing in the wind. He had on blue jeans and the bulky red ski jacket he always wore to campus on cold days. The tips of his brown curly hair fanned over the thick collar as if it were a pillow.
    â€œHow did you find me?” she managed. She knew the answer. She’d told the department chair where she was