The Longest Winter by Harrison Drake Page B

thought maybe I’d left the one in the kitchen open… I’ll often open it when I cook. But when I walked past David’s room, it was just so cold.”
    Mia stopped for a moment and Yuri could see she was holding back tears.
    “I yelled in at him, wondering why he had the window open in the middle of this weather. He didn’t respond so I yelled again. That’s when I looked closer and saw that his bed was empty. I started screaming and Hugo came running. He looked out the window and saw the footprints.”
    Hugo nodded. “That’s when I went outside and started following the prints. I didn’t get far though before I saw tire tracks. The snow was barely falling at that point so I got in the car and started following them while Mia called police.”
    “Where did the tracks lead?”
    “I don’t know. I followed them only for about a block before they hit the main road. After that, there were too many. I couldn’t tell which ones were which.”
    “Any idea as to the type of car?”
    “Not really. The tracks were only a litter wider than mine, and I drive a Fiat.”
    Great, something small. Like every European car.
    “Did either of you hear anything in the night?”
    They both shook their heads. “Nothing,” Mia said. Yuri could see the guilt in her eyes. Maybe if she had heard something, she could have stopped him.
    “He may never have even made a sound,” Yuri said. “And if you had caught him mid-act, who knows what he might have done to you or to David. You have to trust me. If it is the same person, then David is okay right now.”
    “For how long?”
    Yuri looked at Hugo, his face solemn. “I’m not sure. A couple of weeks, maybe more. I’m going off of his history - it’s not science. But it gives us time to find him.”
    Hugo and Mia nodded. It wasn’t good news, but it was better than the alternative. Yuri wasn’t sure what else to say, how else to set their minds even slightly at ease.
    “Detective?”
    A voice from the hallway gave Yuri a chance to take a step back.
    “Yes?”
    “Can you come here for a moment?”
    “Excuse me,” Yuri said to the couple. He walked into the hallway and followed the officer into David’s room. One of the forensics detectives looked up at Yuri and held up the orange cap to a syringe.
    “Found it under the nightstand,” he said. Yuri looked at the nightstand and saw a small decorative cutout on the base. There wasn’t much space, but it was enough for something that small.
    “If it is the same person,” Yuri said, “the first two boys were killed by an overdose of Propofol. We need to send that in and see if they can find any trace on it. Print it first though, may have left one behind when he took the cap off the needle.”
    “Will do.”
    “Anything else? I am surprised he was that sloppy.”
    “Nothing so far,” the forensics detective said. “We’ll keep looking though. But it seems like that’s it. We’ve gone through the entire room, so unless something else is under furniture I think this is it.”
    Yuri nodded. “Let me know if you find anything else. I need to ask the parents a few more questions.”
    He walked back into the living room and found Hugo and Mia right where they had been when he had left. They didn’t look like they had moved at all, or even spoken. It was the shock, he decided, they were frozen in place with no idea what to do next.
    “Sorry for that.”
    Hugo looked at Yuri. “That’s okay. Did they find something?”
    “Yes, it looks like the suspect may have dropped something. We will be having it fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA to see if we can find out who did this.”
    “Okay. Will that take long?”
    “Not usually. It depends if his DNA and prints are on file with us.” He could see the fear in their faces. The question of what if lingered in their minds. If he wasn’t on file, would he ever be found? Yuri didn’t want to tell them he wasn’t on file. Printing and swabbing the needle cap was just to give