The Girl with Braided Hair (A Wind River Reservation Myste) by Margaret Coel Page A

he’d closed the door. She had no intention of providing the receptionist with any gossip to pass around. “This was on my dashboard,” she said, thrusting the envelope into the detective’s hand. “Whoever left it got into a locked car.”
    Coughlin worked the folded sheet past the flap, then stared at the word a moment. “You sure?” he said.
    “It was locked, Gary. But somebody put that inside. It’s part of the message. Whoever did it can do anything, get in anywhere. Somebody knows who she was,” Vicky hurried on. “Somebody here and now knows what happened thirty years ago.”
    The detective was shaking his head. “What else are you working on?” He waved the sheet of paper between them. “This could refer to anything.”
    “It refers to the skeleton.” Vicky could feel the truth of it. “The women came to see me yesterday. Somebody must have found out that I’d agreed to talk to you.” She shrugged. “I’d agreed to put some pressure on you, let you know the women want this case solved. Whoever it is was waiting for me to show up here. He wants me to back off. He must be hoping that if nobody on the rez says anything, you’ll dump the case in the unsolved files.”
    “Okay, okay,” Coughlin said, and she realized she’d raised her voice. “I’ll check the outside security cameras, see what they picked up. I also intend to talk to people on the rez and shake things up a little. Somebody’s bound to want to talk about thirty years ago.”
    Vicky stared at the man for a long moment. That was not going to happen. People on the rez were not going to open up to a white man.
    She thanked him and made her way back across the entry and the hot asphalt to the Jeep, glancing around as she went, half expecting someone to materialize out of the haze of heat and the wind. There was no one.

6
    1973

    THE LIGHTS OF Lander glowed in the black sky ahead. The Ford’s headlights flowed down the highway a short distance before being swallowed into the darkness. Liz felt suspended in space, plunging through a dark void, the only people left in the world, she and Luna. The baby had started to stir in the backseat, and Liz could hear the faint thrusts of tiny fists against the sides of the cardboard box. The baby would be awake in a minute, awake and hungry, and, oh God, she was out of formula. She’d given Luna the last can a couple of hours ago, just before she’d gone to the meeting.
    Liz hunched over the wheel, trying to keep her own breathing quiet, hoping that the hum of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of the tires on the asphalt would lull the baby back to sleep. In the dim light of the dashboard she could see the needle bouncing on empty. She tried to think how much money she had. A couple of dollars in her wallet. Some change in the bottom of her purse. There might be a few quarters in the jockey box, what whites called the glove compartment, some dimes or nickels on the floor. If she could get to Lander…
    She gripped the wheel hard, willing the car to keep going, conscious of the darkness rolling like clouds outside the windows. The baby was starting to make little wake-up noises. How well she knew everything about Luna, the sounds she made when she was hungry or needed a change, or wanted company. It was odd to know so much about someone that, just a month ago, she hadn’t known at all. Except that even before Luna was born, she’d felt the light kicks inside her and known her baby wanted something. Maybe for her to turn over or sit in a different position or go for a walk. Little by little she’d come to know her baby.
    The baby would want to eat. She had to get more formula, and that wouldn’t leave much for gas. Not enough to get anywhere, Liz was thinking. Not enough to get out of Lander, but Ardyth was in Lander, and in some part of her, Liz realized that, for the last thirty minutes, ever since she’d left Ruth’s, she’d been heading south toward Ardyth’s place. There was no other