Spirit Woman by Margaret Coel

Author:Margaret Coel [Coel, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781585470631
Google: tYJsAfF7ppsC
Goodreads: 1129459
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1901-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Where’s Laura?”

“He was alone, Vicky. No sign of any struggle in his car. No blood.”

A phone was ringing down the hall somewhere, a muffled distant jangle, like a memory. The scenario she’d worked out last night when she’d found herself awake, staring into the blackness, was wrong. Toby hadn’t forced Laura to go with him.

“What did he do with her?”

“He admits he went to her apartment last night.” The detective tilted his head back and peered at her down the long, sharpened angles of his face. “He claims that when he saw the mess, he took off.”

“He didn’t report it? Something terrible could have happened to Laura, and he didn’t bother to pick up a phone and call the police?”

Eberhart was shaking his head. “The man says he and Laura Simmons had a few misunderstandings in the past.”

Vicky cut in: “He beat her up.”

“Well, he called it misunderstandings, and he was afraid if he reported her missing, with the room ransacked and all, we might think he had something to do with it. So he says he got out of there.”

“He’s lying.” Vicky gripped the armrests against the impulse to propel herself out of the chair and start pacing. She could think better, marshal her thoughts, when she was moving. She paced at home, in the office, in the courtroom. There was no room to pace here.

“You know that for sure?”

“He’s a batterer, Bob,” Vicky said. “Laura was trying to leave him. He was stalking her. He wouldn’t let her go. You know that’s the most dangerous time for a woman, when she tries to break away. He came here Tuesday night. He could have come back the next night.”

“Okay, let’s say that’s what happened. Becker bludgeoned her and took her somewhere. Why did he return to the apartment last night?”

The detective leaned back until the top of the swivel chair scraped against the wall. He laced thin fingers over the blue shirt. “The man says Laura rebuffed him, crushed his ego, as he put it, on Tuesday. So he drove back to Colorado. Says he was there two days before deciding to give it another try. He drove back yesterday. According to him, he’s been on the highway most of the time Laura’s been missing. A friend he poured out his troubles to will vouch for him, he says. Laura Simmons’s department chair, as it turns out. He’s one of her acquaintances we’ve got a calf into right now.”

“He’ll cover for Becker, Bob. He’s the one who must have told Becker where Laura was. The chairman knew where she was staying.” She locked eyes with the man on the other side of the desk. “You’re going to let Becker go, aren’t you?”

“What choice do I have? This is a man with no priors. He’s gotten two speeding tickets in the last fifteen years.”

Vicky got to her feet and moved to the window. One, two, three steps.

She stopped and turned back. “Laura never reported the assaults. She must have been too ashamed.

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