Free The Longest Winter by Harrison Drake

the background I did have in anthropology was enough for me to analyze some of what I saw. Mathias must have noticed me staring and thinking.
    “What can you tell?”
    “The cranial sutures, where the bones in the skull meet… see how they’re still fairly pronounced? Probably looking at someone in their thirties. The forehead isn’t very sloped and there’s not much of a brow ridge. The lower jaw is rounded and the chin is slightly pointed. Likely female. I can’t tell much else without looking closer at the bones.”
    I snapped back out of detective mode.
    Mathias just nodded as I spoke. We both were thinking the same thing.
    “There’s a good chance it’s Kat,” I said. I had no idea what to feel. I still wasn’t ready to accept that it was her, but there was almost a sense of relief in the idea of finding her. As much as I wanted to tell myself otherwise, I had always felt that I wouldn’t find her alive. Especially not after so much time had passed.
    I had come to terms with it long ago, but I had put on a brave face for the kids. I’d been a cop long enough to know that the odds of finding her alive had started low and gotten lower with every passing day. But there had always been that hope - that faint thread that I clung to. It was what got me through the days and nights, what kept me moving on even if in my moments of clearer thought I didn’t always believe it.
    “It might not be her, Lincoln.”
    I nodded. “I hope you’re right,” I said. Maybe he was right; there was something about the skull that I couldn’t quite place. Was it the nasal bridge? Or the eye orbits? I knew there was something I was missing, something that would help identify the person I was looking at.
    Or maybe it was just that when I looked at the remains, I didn’t want to see Kat.
    My eyes wandered down the length of the body, toward the hand that sat just below the abdomen. My eyes were drawn to the shiny metal objects sitting on the ring finger of the left hand, objects I could never forget.
    I dropped to my knees and buried my head in my hands. The doubt was gone.
    It was her.

Chapter Eleven
    C laude was awake and watching cartoons on the small television that hung from the ceiling when Kara and Yuri arrived at the hospital. He was well into his fourth serving of Jello but hadn’t touched any of his lunch. He looked up when Kara and Yuri walked in then cowered in his bed at the sight of Yuri.
    “I think I am scaring him,” Yuri said, so that only Kara could hear.
    “Suspect is around your height. Maybe it’s best to leave this one to me.”
    Yuri nodded then turned and left the room.
    “It’s okay, Claude. He’s a police officer too, but he had to go do some other work for a bit so it’s just you and me, okay? My name is Kara.” She looked across the room to where Claude’s parents sat. “I’d like to ask Claude a few questions, if that’s okay.”
    Marie nodded. Henri stood up and walked to Claude’s bedside. He spoke to him in French and Kara couldn’t pick up everything he was saying. She heard him ask Claude to do his best, and then she heard Jacques’s name.
    “He forgets a lot. I hope he can help,” Henri said. He put his hands in his pockets and went back to sit beside Marie.
    “So Claude, I’m going to ask you a few questions and I just want you to do the best you can, okay?”
    Claude nodded and put the last spoonful of Jello in his mouth.
    “Why don’t I get you another one,” Kara said. “I’ll be right back.”
    True to her word she returned a minute later with two more cups of Jello, one lime and one cherry. Claude smiled and thanked her in French.
    Kara walked over to Claude’s parents. “I’m going to try to do the interview in French, just to make him more comfortable. I may need some help though, my French isn’t the best.”
    Marie and Henri both nodded. Kara returned to Claude’s bedside and sat down beside him. With his bed raised, his head was higher than hers now. It