Bones to ashes - Kathy Reichs

When Temperance Brennan was young, she and her sister, Harry, spent summers at the family beach house with her grandmother on Pawley's Island in the Outer Banks. One summer, they met Evangeline and her sister, Obeline, who were there visiting their relatives. Evangeline and Temperance struck up a conversation, as young girls will do, and a friendship developed. The girls kept in touch during the winter months and looked forward spending time together in the summers. One summer, overnight, Evangeline and Obeline just vanished. When they inquired with the relatives, they were told that the girls had gone home to be with their mother. After that, Evangeline and Obeline never returned for another summer visit, and they were not heard from by the girls again.

In the present time of the story, Temperance has returned to her second home, Montreal, where she does forensic anthropology work for the police department. She is told by one of the detectives, Hippo Gallant, that there is an old set of bones sitting in a box in the office of a provincial police officer in the Maritimes, and Temperance is asked to examine these. Temperance thinks of her friend, Evangeline, who was from that area of the country, and wonders if perhaps these are her bones. She sets in motion the requests necessary to get the bones brought to her office in Montreal for examination.