The Longest Winter

by Harrison Drake

  “Please, don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, that’s okay. But I do need to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “Lincoln, wait!” Kara wasn’t sure she should at this point, but she didn’t want him to be alone. “They’re forcing me to take a day off tomorrow. We were at it through the night and into the evening. I’m heading to the airport. I’ll catch the first flight. You shouldn’t be alone for this.”

  “I’m fine, Kara.”

  “No you’re not, Lincoln. I know you.”

  Lincoln didn’t speak for a moment. Kara took another drink while she waited. She knew he was thinking, she could almost hear it. “Whatever the case may be, how do you plan on getting here?”

  “I’m not far from the airport, I can be there in a few hours.”

  “All of the planes are grounded, Kara. And apparently the trains aren’t running either… something about ice on the tracks. Unless you plan on driving, there’s no way.”

  Kara walked over to the window. The snow was coming down in sheets, so thick and heavy she couldn’t see the building across the street from her. Only the faint glow of the streetlights showed through the white.

  “Okay. You have a point. I don’t know when else I’d be able to get down there. We’ve had some major breaks in this case.”

  “I heard. You got one of the boys back?”

  “He escaped. Tough kid.”

  “Yeah,” Lincoln said. “I’m glad I’m not on that case. Too close to home.”

  “I know. I’d thought about that. What you went through, what these boys are going through… I can’t even imagine. With any luck the one he still has will take a page out of your playbook and put a knife in his captor’s back.”

  “I got lucky. And I had help. If my dad hadn’t been there, I never would’ve survived.” Lincoln took a deep breath. “I have to let you go though. I need to call Kris and Agnes, let them know what’s happening and that I’ll be in Lyon a couple more days. I’ll call you when I know for sure.”

  “Thanks. Stay strong, Lincoln.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  Lincoln didn’t want an answer, didn’t expect one. He hung up as soon as he had asked his question. It was a question he already knew the answer to – nothing Kara could say would have changed his opinion. And what was there to change? What choice did he really have?

  “I should be there. He has no one there to support him, no one to help him get through all of this. Kat’s gone, Chen’s back home. Fuck, you were there through all the shit with Saunders, you were there when he found out about having been abducted all those years ago, about how he killed his captor to save himself and his father.”

  Kara looked around the apartment. She had just realized she was talking out loud.

  “I need a cat. At least then I wouldn’t be talking to myself.”

  She walked back to the counter and took another drink from the bottle then poured a double into the glass and topped it up with a can of Coke from the fridge. The couch in the other room called to her, its worn-out shape perfect for a night of forgetting. Her leg bumped the end table as she walked past and a small unicorn figurine toppled to the ground.

  “Shit!”Kara set her drink down and crawled beside the table to retrieve the ceramic statuette. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “I thought I’d broken you.” She looked at the object in her hands, a hand-painted unicorn that held memories of a different time beneath its aged surface. She put the unicorn back on the table and moved the table back toward the wall, out of the way of any future collisions.

  Kara sat down on the couch, her body fitting into the groove left in the cushions. She synced her phone to the speaker dock beside her and set her playlist to shuffle. The music that played seemed to be exactly what she needed, an oddity she had experienced before. It was as if it could tell how she was feeling and what she needed to hear. In the hour that she sat there, as the Coke cans piled up and the liquor bottle emptied, she only changed the song twice. Once when she got up to get the bottle, and the second time when the old folk song that played reminded her too much of Lincoln.

  It was because of him that she had downloaded the song in the first place; one that he had said she had to hear. And he had been right. It spoke to her just as it had to him, the lyrics and the music reaching deeper than she’d ever expected.

  The song took her back to happier times, a time where she thought, despite how much damage it would have caused, that she and Lincoln could be together. She never told him, not for the longest time, in hopes that what had happened could be brushed off as an accident - a lapse on both their parts. The lie tore at her and the happiness she had felt was ripped away when Lincoln and Kat reunited. And yet there was another happiness there, the kind that came from seeing the smiling faces of the ones you love, knowing that they had found contentment. Even if for them to find theirs it had to cost you your own.

  The alcohol was starting to go to Kara’s head. The room started to waver as she looked across the apartment, and her thoughts seemed to go with it. They were the thoughts she had long ago forced into the deepest recesses of her mind, thoughts that she shut down without hesitation whenever they tried to surface. They worked their way up once more and even though she knew she should have stopped them, she let them slip through.

  If it is Kat – if she is dead - is there a chance for me again?

  It was a question that brought with it more imaginings than she had expected. She envisioned everything; from the funeral to seeing Lincoln again, to moving to Poland to be closer to him – relocated for work, she would say – to the two of them getting together and living happily ever after.

  It’s a fantasy, she tried to tell herself. But she wanted to believe it could be more. She hated herself for thinking that way, for hoping for a future with Lincoln when she still believed herself responsible for his present.

  “It can never happen,” she said as she took another drink from the bottle.

  “No matter what, it can never happen.”

  Another drink.

  “You need to forget him.”

  She took one more drink and set the bottle down.

  “For your own sake, Kara.” She shook her head as she spoke then leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. She watched the ceiling fan spin above her head as it lulled her to sleep.

  * * *

  The phone ringing on the coffee table woke Kara up. It took her a moment to realize where she was; she hadn’t been expecting to find herself on the couch, her neck aching from the position she’d fallen asleep in. She leaned forward, stretched out some of the tenseness in her muscles and picked up the phone.

  Yuri.

  Shit, it’s almost five in the morning? How long was I out?

  “Hello?”

  “Kara, it’s Yuri.”

  “Yeah, I know… saw you on display. What’s going on?”

  “I know we are supposed to be off tomorrow, but it doesn’t look like that will be happening.”

  “Is it Jacques?”

  Kara feared the worst. She had been worried that Claude’s escape would have sped the killer up. Max, we have a name now. With Claude gone, Max would probably be looking for another pair of boys. She was worried it would mean an earlier death for Jacques.

  “No, not Jacques. We just got a report of a boy abducted from his home not far from here.”

  “Luxembourg?”

  “Yeah,” Yuri said. “The place is in Pétange, about twenty kilometres west of us. Small town, less than ten thousand. The mom woke up just after four. She could feel a draft and wondered why there would be a window open, what with the weather lately.”

  “Took the kid right out of his room?”

  “Looks like. They panicked and the father started following fo
otprints in the snow but they ended once they reached the main road.”

  Kara took a deep breath.

  “Fuck. Just the one boy taken this time?”

  “He’s an only child.”

  “So Jacques is still alive.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Yuri said. “I think he wants them in pairs for some reason.”

  Kara stopped for a moment and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want them to be alone.”

  “Serial killer with a heart? This is not Hollywood, Kara.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Where is this place?”

  “I can text you the address. See you there soon?”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “Give me a few and I’ll be on the road.”

  “See you there. And drive safe, I hear the roads are a mess.”

  “Will do.”

  Kara hung up the phone and stood up. She picked up the bottle of rye and the empty pop cans and looked at the clock. She had been asleep for nearly seven hours. She took another look at the bottle, ran through some basic math in her head and then walked to the kitchen and put everything down on the counter.

  Ten minutes later she was dressed and on the road, one of the only people stupid enough to be out driving. The roads were covered in a deep layer of snow and hadn’t been plowed since the previous evening. She stuck to the tracks left behind by other vehicles and made her way red light by red light out of the city. It was a slower drive than she had expected, even with the road conditions and the driving snow that worsened once she hit the rural highways.

  The tall buildings in the city blocked the wind and kept the snow on the ground. There had still been enough falling from the sky to make it hard to see in front of her, but once she hit the open roads the winds that whipped across the highway picked up the freshly fallen snow and mixed it with the rest. The result was an almost total whiteout, visibility reduced to only a few car lengths ahead of her. The driving snow and the windshield wipers whipping back and forth like a metronome at full speed caused her focus to drift. She gave her head a shake and stared forward, forcing her eyes open.

  You’re exhausted. It’s not much further. Stay awake.

  She kept going, pushing forward through the storm. The snow around her was uniform, the road straight and unchanging. All she saw was the blizzard in front of her and the tracks just past the hood, deep tire ruts in the snow that were already filling in. There was nothing there to gauge her speed by, and as she stared into the snowstorm looking for the lights of other vehicles or changes in the road, she never noticed her speed increasing.

  Kara felt herself drifting off again, felt her eyes starting to close. Her head began to slump forward and the car moved toward the shoulder. She felt the drift and forced herself back to attention.

  It was too late.

  The car was about to go into the ditch and Kara reacted too hard, turning the wheel fast toward the center of the road. The rear end of the car lost traction and she began to spin. She cranked the wheel the opposite direction and started to regain control then lost it again when her front tire hit the soft snow on the shoulder.

  The car left the road and flipped as it went down a steep incline. The airbag inflated and Kara lost all sense of orientation as the car rolled. Glass shattered and metal crunched as Kara’s head bounced off of the doorframe knocking her unconscious.

  Chapter Twelve

  Max had waited for the snow to stop, waited for hours for a chance to go out. He knew where he was going. It wasn’t ideal, but it would work. They were a trusting family who rarely locked their doors or windows.

  Max knew that because he knew them.

  It had gone better than expected. The boy’s veins were quite pronounced for a twelve-year-old which made finding a good injection spot that much easier. He had prepared the syringe before he arrived, estimating the boy’s weight ahead of time and filling the syringe with one hundred milligrams of Propofol.

  He held the syringe over the boy’s arm and his other hand over the boy’s mouth, close enough to feel his breath. He waited for a moment, took a deep breath and lowered both hands at the same time. The needle was sharp and it entered the skin without resistance, but it was enough for the boy to wake up. Max pushed down on the plunger, sending the drugs into the bloodstream, and pushed down on the boy’s mouth with his other hand.

  He was stronger than Max had expected, but the kicking and flailing didn’t last long. Max looked the boy in the eyes and waited for that glimmer of recognition.

  “Shh,” he said. “It’ll be over soon, David.”

  David looked back into Max’s eyes with fear and confusion until the sedative took effect and he drifted back to sleep. There wasn’t much time now. The drugs he had given the boy would only last so long, and with the roads the way they were he needed to get back before he woke up. The snow had started again just as Max was putting him into the trunk of his car.

  He had taken so many risks, but it had paid off. Max couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened.

  What choice did I have? He gripped the steering wheel hard, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. I couldn’t leave him alone any longer. I was never alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You want another one?”

  I nodded and waited while he poured out another two fingers of scotch.

  “Thanks,” I said. I put a twenty euro note on the bar.

  “Do you want to just run a tab?”

  “No, thanks. I may have to run out of here in a hurry.”

  “Let me guess,” he said with a smile. “Waiting on a woman?”

  “Something like that. You don’t want to know.”

  He outstretched his hand, wanting me to shake it. “The name’s Nick. And if you want to talk, I’m good to listen. Probably heard it all.”

  “Been at this a while?”

  “Six years overall, three here and three back home.”

  “Boston, right?”

  “That obvious?”

  I laughed. “Just a little bit.” I’d always loved the Boston accent. Might have been why I’d watched Good Will Hunting so many times. “What brings you here?”

  “It was school. Finished my Masters last year. No desire to do a Ph.D. yet, so I’ve just been working and traveling. But I’m supposed to be asking the questions. So, what’s her name?”

  “Kat,” I said.

  “Your wife?” He looked down at my left hand, at the wedding band I had been fidgeting with earlier. It was a stress response lately, something I did whenever I thought of her. I would spin the ring for hours until the skin beneath it was so smooth and shiny I could almost see my reflection in it.

  I nodded.

  “You haven’t seen her in a while, have you?”

  I shook my head. “Coming up on a year.”

  He looked me in the eyes, beseeching me to tell him more.

  “I fucked up. The whole thing is my fault.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “A thousand times over, but always in my head. It’s complicated.”

  “Not answering your calls, huh? I had one like that.”

  I shrugged. “Something like that.”

  I didn’t want to get into it. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know where else to go. This bar was just a couple of minutes from my apartment. I’d cancelled on Luc after finding the remains in the storage unit; I needed time alone. He had understood and hadn’t pressed the issue, but there was a part of me that wished I hadn’t cancelled.

  At least then I would’ve had someone I could actually talk to about it. Not some kid who would probably pass out if he had all the details.

  I finished the drink and s
et the glass down.

  “Another?”

  I nodded and pushed some more money his way.

  “So what’s the plan?” he asked as he poured my drink. “Going after her?”

  I picked up my drink but didn’t get a chance to answer.

  “Lincoln!”

  I turned and looked toward the door. Luc stood in the opening clearly out of breath.

  “I went to your apartment. Your landlord said I’d find you here. I wanted to tell you in person.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I was at the lab, Mathias told me everything about…”

  I cut him off. “Not here. Let’s walk.”

  “Lincoln, it’s not her.”

  The glass slipped from my hand and hit the bar before bouncing to the floor and shattering.

  I looked at Luc but couldn’t speak. Everything I tried to say came out as a mumble.

  “It’s not her, Lincoln. Mathias told me you thought something didn’t seem right, that there was something about the skull you couldn’t place. You were bang on. We’ve identified the woman. She was a sex trade worker of African descent.”

  I nodded. That made sense. The wider nasal chamber, rectangular eye orbits and prognathic features. I should have noticed it right away, but I was out of practice. They were traits that were consistent with a person of sub-Saharan origin.

  “She went missing a few days after coming to Lyon for some escort work. Looks like Crawford must have murdered her and put her there for you to find.”

  I looked at the bartender who stood frozen, staring, his mouth agape. He hadn’t expected this part of my story.