The Longest Winter

by Harrison Drake

  “You were in better shape then,” Yuri said. He grunted as his left foot slipped and he fell to his knees. Kara wobbled but managed to keep her balance.

  Something fell to Yuri’s right, cutting through the deep snow with little more than a thump. He looked up and saw Sophie standing at the top of the hill about fifty feet away. “Grab on. Not sure I’ll be able to pull you both up, but it should help with the climb.” Yuri dug into the snow and found a rope. He let Kara go ahead of him so that he could catch her if she slipped.

  The sound of sirens filled the air as Kara and Yuri reached the road. An ambulance came into view moments later and pulled up behind Sophie’s car. The paramedics wasted no time wrapping Kara in a blanket and helping her into the back of their vehicle.

  “You might as well go to the hospital with her, Sir. I’ll stay here until we figure out what to do with her car.”

  Yuri nodded. “Thanks. I doubt they will be getting the car out of there until the spring at this rate. Unless they want to bring in a crane or something.”

  “It’s further down than it looks, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I have no idea how she managed to walk away from that crash.”

  “All that matters is that she did,” Sophie said.

  “Very true. She got lucky though, there is no doubt about that. Thanks for the help, Sophie.”

  “Not a problem. Glad we found her. I’ll see you at Headquarters at some point, I’m sure.”

  Yuri walked to the back of the ambulance and knocked. A short time later, a female paramedic opened the door. “Sorry, we just needed a minute.”

  Kara laughed then took a deep breath from the pain. “Wasn’t very presentable for a moment there.” She was lying down on the gurney, covered in blankets. Her clothes lay in a heap by the rear door.

  “Must be nice to get out of those cold, wet clothes.”

  “I was fine until you dragged me out of there and through all of that snow.”

  “Sorry, next time you wreck your car and tumble down an embankment then get snowed in I will just leave you there.”

  “Thanks. I was hoping to finish my book. Should’ve grabbed it when we came up.”

  Yuri smiled. “Is it a new one? I can buy you a copy from the hospital gift shop if they have it.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  The paramedic in the driver’s seat knocked on the glass. “Looks like we’re on our way,” Kara said. “Take a seat, Yuri.”

  Yuri unfolded a small metal seat from the wall and sat down then buckled himself in. There wasn’t much room in the back of the ambulance, but Kara seemed happy to have him along.

  “Hopefully this won’t take long. I need to get back to work.”

  “Not like that. At least not in the field.”

  Kara nodded. She knew better than to argue. She was injured and a liability if she was out of the office. “Guess I’ll be doing records checks and research.”

  “A lot has happened. We have a last name and found his records. Now it is just a matter of finding him.”

  “You found out who he is? How?”

  “The newest victim, his father used to work with Max. There is more, but it can wait. I talked to Lincoln. It wasn’t Kat.”

  Kara didn’t know what to say. She lay there, stunned into silence, as a tear rolled down her cheek. “That’s great news. Is he any closer to finding her though?”

  “Not sure,” Yuri said. “We did not talk much. I just called him to see if he had heard from you.”

  “Great, so now he’s probably worrying about me. He has too much on his plate already. Can I use your phone?”

  “Sure.” Yuri took his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Kara. He could hear Lincoln on the other end when he picked up.

  “Yuri, have you found her yet?”

  “It’s me, Link. He found me.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “What are you thinking?”

  Chen was sitting on the couch in my apartment right where Crawford had been when we kicked the door down almost a year ago. The realization must have struck him because he all of a sudden slid over to the other side of the couch.

  “I’m thinking that this is messed up, Link. I mean, this was his apartment. You put this bullet hole in the couch.” Chen stuck his finger into the hole in the upholstery and wiggled it around.

  “I told you, Chen, it was a necessity. I needed to tear this place apart, even more than we had. I needed to know what he was thinking. And I needed a place to stay that wasn’t going to break the bank. You try affording apartments in Warsaw and Lyon at the same time.”

  “No thanks, one mortgage payment is enough for me. I get it, Link, but it’s still weird.”

  “Yeah, but you get used to it. And I doubt we would’ve found the body in the storage locker otherwise.”

  Chen nodded. “And Crawford’s message.”

  “Exactly. There’s something about being right here, where he was, that affects me on a subliminal level or something.”

  Chen raised an eyebrow.

  “Just before you got here,” I said, “I dreamt he was standing on the balcony. He was looking north, toward where he led us to escape. We talked and it was weird. It was just before we busted down that door, and not long before he took us to where he said he’d buried Kat. But we talked about the whole thing as though it had already happened.”

  “It was a dream, Link. Time doesn’t really matter in there.”

  “I know. And it wasn’t him talking. If I closed my eyes, I would’ve thought I was talking to myself. I mean, it was his voice and all, but the way he spoke…”

  “Your dream, your mind. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  “Thinking about it now, it was like I was working through it all with a shrink or something.”

  “Are you getting to the point where you think you know where she is?”

  “I’m trying to give you some back story, Chen. It seems insane to me. I want to bounce it off you, but you need to know how I got here.”

  “Okay,” he said, but I knew he wasn’t.

  “He kept looking north, to where he had taken us. He almost looked sad about the whole thing. Said he did it because he had grown to hate me. Then he called me a fool. Said I either trust too much or I’m too blinded by emotion. He sat down on the couch and then I busted the door down. Well, me but not me. I watched the whole thing. The other me fired the shot into the pillow but then he just kept shooting until Crawford was dead.”

  “I would’ve liked to have seen that.”

  “Normally, me too. I wanted to shoot him that day more than anything. But I didn’t because he said I’d never find Kat if I did. I believed him.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I took the gun from dream me’s hand and shot him to death.”

  “You sure have some fucked up dreams.”

  I nodded. That was the undeniable truth. “So, that was the Cole’s Notes version, and you didn’t feel what I did, but… if you had to guess where she was, what would you say?”

  This was the moment of truth. If Chen arrived at the same conclusion, maybe there was something to my idea. I wasn’t putting it on the dream; this wasn’t repressed memories like before, it was just me working through things at a subconscious level.

  Chen thought for a moment.

  “It’s not going to make sense. But if I had to come up with something, between what you’re saying and the message under the body, I would say we should go back to where he said she was.”

  I leapt up from my chair and threw myself at Chen, hugging him tight. “Thank you,” I said, smiling. “Guess I’m not insane.”

  “Jury’s still out, Link.”

  I didn’t hear him. I was alre
ady on the phone waiting for Luc to pick up.

  “Luc? It’s Lincoln. I need you to grab the radar again and meet me north of the city.”

  “Sure, where am I going?”

  I gave him the directions and knew he realized where it was. There was an apprehension in his voice that was all too familiar. I had heard it too many times when I’d come up with new ideas about where Kat might be or new ways to try and track her down. Even Luc, whom I had grown to trust and who knew me better than most of the cops in Lyon, wasn’t immune to doubt.

  “Alright, Lincoln. It’ll probably take me an hour or so.”

  “Thanks, and if you need to leave you can.”

  “Just using me for my radar connections?”

  He laughed after he said it, which I was very grateful for. Luc didn’t show much emotion in his voice.

  “Something like that,” I said. “I just don’t want to abuse your generosity.”

  “I’m happy to help, Lincoln. But I won’t be able to stay too long. A few hours, maybe.”

  “Anything would be great, Luc. We’ll see you there.”

  I hung up the phone and put it back in my pocket.

  “Probably wondering who ‘we’ is,” Chen said.

  I was confused.

  “You said ‘we’ll’ see you. I just figure he’s probably a little confused right now.”

  I shrugged. “He’ll find out soon enough. Probably just thinks I’ve finally lost it. You two should start a club.”

  Chen had taken a cab from the airport, so we climbed into my rental car and drove north to Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or. I hadn’t been back since we had wrapped the initial investigation. We had taken Crawford with us that day; it was the only way he would show us where to find Kat. He made it sound like she was still alive – buried, but alive. When we reached the clearing in the woods at the end of a dead end street he told me where to dig. I started into the dirt with my hands, pushing the loose soil aside with ease. It wasn’t until I stuck my hand into something wet that I realized it wasn’t her.

  The woman buried in the shallow grave had been dead for a lot longer than Kat had been missing; decomposition was in full swing. The next thing we knew the air was filled with acrid smoke, blinding lights and deafening noise. Crawford had rigged the area with flashbangs and hidden a gun. He managed to escape after shooting at two officers, injuring one. We lost him that day and we never found Kat, just a dead impostor in a grave meant for my wife.

  And now we had returned, Chen by my side once more. There was a chill in the air, worse than the usual cold. It went right through the bone and hit me deeper - somewhere a heathen like me had no words for. A soul? My very being? The feeling was an unpleasant one; it was as if I’d been filled with fear and grief and dread. I looked around the area and saw nothing but trees. There wasn’t a sound beyond the whistling of wind through snow-covered branches.

  Where were the birds?

  I thought I had heard birds when we left the car a few hundred metres back, thought I had seen them flitting above us in the cloudless sky.

  I shook my head and tried to refocus. My mind was getting the better of me, ascribing some sort of paranormal influence to the area. It was irrational and it didn’t help at all.

  “Man, this place is creepy,” Chen said as he folded his arms and shivered. It wasn’t the cold; we were having a warm spell while the north was buried under feet of snow.

  I nodded. There was nothing to add. Chen had summed it up perfectly: creepy.

  We walked to where we had found the other body. There was a depression in the snow that led me to believe no one had ever bothered to fill in the grave after the body had been removed. I crouched down in the snow and went still. I looked and listened, searching for something.

  I stayed like that until my legs hurt then stood up and walked the perimeter of the clearing. Memories came rushing back to me of our last time there, of bombs going off, shots being fired and a serial killer getting the better of us.

  If she was here, she had to have been buried deep beneath the ground. He would have needed to remove the extra dirt to keep the ground level, or we would’ve noticed the freshly overturned dirt. But he didn’t have time to do that. He barely had time to bury her at all. The time from the abduction to us arresting him in his apartment was too short. Unless he already had a grave dug…

  I shook my head. Even then, at the depth he would have needed, he couldn’t have filled it in and smoothed the dirt out that fast. He would’ve needed help to be able to pull it off.

  “Think out loud, Link.” Chen had been following close behind me, looking where I looked.

  “If she’s here, I don’t know how he would have done it. He didn’t have much time to bury her or anything.”

  Chen seemed confused. “So you don’t think she’s here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always trusted my instincts; hunches, feelings - whatever you call them, they seem to be right. And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve processed something subconsciously and dreamt of the solution. Seriously, I should donate my brain to science when I die… it’s beyond effed.”

  Chen smiled. “So you do think she’s here?”

  “Yeah, I do. But if she is, he couldn’t have buried her. He couldn’t have dug down to wherever she is. If she’s alive and there’s something underground, that would have taken too long to set up and too much planning. Kat wasn’t planned, not for long anyway.”

  “I agree. I think he put enough time into the planning to succeed, but it seems like he made the decision to abduct Kat not long before he actually did. Which means if she’s here…”

  “Then there has to be something underground. An old bunker?”

  “Okay, but where’s the entrance?”

  I nodded. “Exactly what I’m thinking. If the bunker is from the Second World War, the house that stood over it could be gone. That might explain this clearing, and why it isn’t on any records. They would’ve wanted to keep it secret in case of invasion.”

  “Then the entrance should be somewhere in the clearing, right? You’d think the entrance would be from inside the house.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.” Something hit me right then, an image of something I had seen but not truly observed.

  I sprinted down the path that Crawford had taken in his escape and turned back after about fifty metres. It had been there that day, something I’d walked past while searching for evidence. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, just a spot where the hillside had given way. It looked like the site of a minor landslide, rocks and dirt and grass that had tumbled down. Some was left on the slope, the rest had made it to the bottom and piled up, but it had looked natural.

  Why shovel the dirt back bit by bit when you can just push it back down the hill? It had taken extra work to get it to the top, but made covering it up that much easier.

  I threw the keys to Chen. “There are two shovels in the trunk.”

  He didn’t hesitate; the moment the keys were in his hand he turned and started to run. I dug into the earth, my hands forcing their way through the settled rocks and soil. My hands worked in circles like a dog digging a hole, the dirt being pushed to the bottom of the hill as I worked until my fingers bled. It was tough to dig through. The warmer temperatures had thawed the top layer, but the rest was solid. The only thing that saved my fingers was that the dirt was still somewhat loose from having been pushed down the hill.

  The pile at my feet had grown large by the time Chen returned. He tossed me a shovel and we both began to dig, pulling the dirt back as we tore into the hillside. We worked hard and fast until my shovel struck something metal.

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We need to be careful. God knows what else he buried.”

  I
threw the shovel behind me and went back to digging by hand. There was no pain despite the dirt and stones tearing at my skin and cracking my fingernails. I clawed at the soil, shoved it aside until I knew what I was looking at: a steel door – large, solid and sealed.

  “Shovel,” I said, holding my hand out. Chen handed it to me and I turned it around, holding the handle near the blade.

  I used the handle as a knocker, giving three loud taps on the door. Time slowed to a stop as we waited, our ears almost touching the cold, hard steel.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  She sat alone in the dimly lit room, her fingers passing over the beads of the rosary she held in her hands. She said her prayers as she passed each bead, just as she had done since she was young. It was something she knew by heart, something she could do without thinking. Things had changed and what had once been routine she made into a form of memory work, something to keep her mind sharp. She no longer followed the ritual by rote, instead she focused on every bead, thought of its position in the rosary as she rolled it between her fingers, thought of the prayer that came with that bead as well as those that came before and after, and tried to make a new ritual from the old.

  She needed to keep her mind sharp and her faith sharper in order to survive. The rooms were still stocked with food and water, more than she would hopefully ever need. He had told her how much she could eat and drink per day; they were simple rules she had to follow in order to survive.

  Her trust in him was nonexistent, and so she counted the stockpile several times, calculated the amount she would need per day and determined how much time she had. Then she took the daily amount and reduced it by twenty percent. She would be weaker as a result, but it would last longer. The red numbers on the wall told her when she should eat and drink, they told her when to sleep and they told her when to wake.