Page 27 of David's Love

He must’ve left Colorado a long time ago.

He behaves like someone who has lived in different parts of the world and doesn’t connect to his old place anymore.

I can’t say I’m not disheartened.

This is not what I had hoped to find.

I return to the laptop and my amateurish search, leery of what I might find. A lot of things can actually surface if you’re willing to pay a few bucks, and I’m doing just that, my curiosity ignited.

I find an old address on some paperwork he filed out for the state many years ago.

Going further with my investigation, I check the names connected to the address.

The website courteously provides a short list.

One name stands out.

Eleonora Winston.

I write down her name and address before clicking that link. My face falls as I hit a dead end.

The woman is an elderly woman who lives––or lived––at that address. Maybe she had no connection with him. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know what to believe.

I have a feeling I’m doing something wrong. Immoral. Illicit. As if I’m trespassing a graveyard of memories that belong to him.

Digging into his past can’t bring out anything good.

I don’t think so.

I can tell.

But something clutches my heart inside my chest and makes me pay attention. It’s a burning need to dive deeper and learn more about this man.

I find my way around that website again.

On some almost defunct social media platform, the bots come up with a couple of pictures of him.

The kind that people used to scan and post on the Internet. I know that from Terry.

She did that before deciding that posting online would only make her hate her life.

These are not digital pictures with good lighting and nice filters. The images are blurred.

On top of that, the pictures had been posted on someone else’s account. I check that man’s profile picture. He wears a uniform like David. Enlarging the imagine, I manage to retrieve his name.

Ned Sutton.

I write it down.

My chances of finding that man are practically null.

Sure, I can spend more money to gather more information on that individual, but I’ve already crossed a line with my inquiries.

So, I don’t know. We’ll see.

If I could find something about him without leaving a trail on the Internet, I might check that lead as well.

For now, I have an old woman’s name, an old address, and this guy’s name. Probably a friend.

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