The Longest Winter Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t see why not. Stay low, and ladies first.”
    “So you can catch me if I fall, right?”
    “No, so you will not see me fall. You would hold that over me for ages.”
    “If you’re really going up there, just wait a second.” Kara looked behind her to see one of the local officers walking away from them and toward his cruiser. He returned with four road flares, long cylinders that always made Kara think of sticks of dynamite. Each one had a two-inch spike at the bottom, solid enough to drive into the road to stand the flare up. “Use these. Should make the climb a little easier.”
    Kara and Yuri both nodded. “Good idea,” Yuri said. “Get a couple of officers to the top of the hill from the other side, there has to be a road or something that will take them there.”
    The officer nodded then began speaking French into his radio.
    The climb was slow going, even with help from a pair of substitute pickaxes. Both Kara and Yuri slipped on a few occasions, but the flares held. They were winded when they reached the top; their clothes were soaked from the snow and sweat and the cold wind bit to the bone. Kara looked back, her gaze reaching down to the road below.
    “Shit, Yuri. He’s lucky to be alive.”
    Yuri turned and looked as well, then took two stumbling steps backwards.
    “You okay?”
    “Yeah, just never been good with heights. Gives me vertigo.”
    “If he was running from someone, he was probably going in a straight line.” Kara looked back down to the road to see where she had brushed the snow away. It had already begun to fill in, the road barely visible through the new snow. Only the difference in height gave it away. She turned around and pointed. “This way.”
    Kara took the lead, any concerns regarding the depth of the snow long gone. Guess there was no point in having Yuri brush the car off, she thought. The snow clung to her clothing, cold and damp, which in turn clung to her skin. They hadn’t prepared for this weather, although it appeared neither had the majority of North-Western Europe. Record snowfall, it had said on the radio; police were urging people to stay off the roads, stay indoors and to be prepared for power outages. The storm had stalled above the area and just sat there, unleashing its beautiful fury on the world below.
    Visibility was reduced to only a few strides ahead, leaving Kara and Yuri to cover ground at a slower pace than they had hoped. “Better to take it easy and be prepared,” Yuri had said when they started out. “Claude had said the man was close behind him. It can’t be far or I would assume he would have caught him. A man against a ten-year-old boy? Not much of a race in most cases.”
    Kara agreed and moved her hand to her pistol, the butt sticking up from her holster. The light of the moon was almost blocked by the thick clouds and what broke through was just enough to cast a glow on the flurries that swirled about them. Their flashlights lit the way forward, but also acted as beacons announcing their approach. They walked for several minutes, trudging through the snow.
    “Do you see that?”
    Kara shook her light side to side, casting shadows on a building a few metres ahead.
    Yuri nodded and the pair moved forward.
    Kara keyed the mike on her radio. “We’ve found a building in the field. Looks old. Mostly made of cinder blocks. How far are the other officers?”
    “Detective, we’re not sure. We entered the field east of your position, but I think we’re a ways back. The nearest road was almost two kilometres over. We used the GPS and we’re walking a straight line back to where you were.”
    “Okay, pick it up. We’re looking for a door now.”
    Kara and Yuri moved around the south side of the building. It was about the size of a ranch house, a large square footprint with a flat roof, and simply constructed. It was built for function rather than aesthetics and Kara assumed it had been a farmer’s outbuilding, although for what purpose