Page 74 of A Furever Home
I made grabby fingers. “You’re a goddess of a borrowed sister. Give it here.” When she passed it over, I laid the ice over the burning muscles of my thigh and sighed. “Yeah. That’s good. What do you mean, no yearbook?”
“You have to understand the mindset,” Brooklyn said. “Photos mean being traceable and identifiable, especially with facial recognition software these days. The adults in our community try to keep our digital footprint to a minimum. No social media for fun, although they monitor it for information. No posting pictures. No smartphones for anyone except male heads of households.”
“Seriously? No internet?”
“Minimal. Back when I was a junior, the local high school decided to put their yearbooks online, but my dad and his group took over the school board and nixed the funding to scan in back issues. And they persuaded the school that the yearbook should be a voluntary end-of-year celebration only, which means the half of the kids who live in town did pictures, and those of us out in the boonies didn’t, and there’s not a formal class list that’s so easy to find.”
“Wow, that’s pretty hardcore.” I was surprised. “Yearbooks are as American as apple pie.”
Cheyenne sat down where Eb had flopped on a big rubber mat and rubbed his belly. In a voice that sounded like a quote, she said, “Sacrifices must be made.” Then in her own voice, “Not that I care about a yearbook.”
“Would be handy now,” I pointed out. Plus, I’d been hoping for a look at Brooklyn at eighteen. I bet he’d been cute.
“Denver looks a lot like Brooklyn,” Cheyenne said. “He’s three years younger and his hair is darker and he wears a lot more beard, but if you see someone that reminds you a lot of Brooklyn, that’s probably him. Or Dad, if the guy’s hair is receding in front and going gray. All of us take after Dad, except Nevada, who looks like Mom.”
“Okay, that helps,” I said. “What about Harvey?”
Cheyenne looked up sharply. “Harvey? Does it matter? He’s home watching his two little kids. I hope.”
“It just occurred to me that if your brother wasn’t eager to drive all this way, he might tell the guy you’re supposed to marry to go get you instead.”
Cheyenne shivered. “God, I hope not. Denver’s a creep and he wants to be Dad’s mini-me, but Harvey’s scary.”
Brooklyn said, “Showing him to Arthur would be a good precaution, though. I’m not sure where we’d find a photo.”
“Workplace?” I suggested.
Cheyenne shook her head slowly. “He works at the lumberyard, but it’s run by one of Dad’s friends. I doubt they post work photos online. WildApple Building Supply, if you want to check.”
I dug my phone out of my pocket and searched, but the listing was pretty basic. No staff info or photos. “Nope. What about his wedding? He was married, right?”
“Yeah, but Nancy was local so I bet they kept the photos off the internet.”
“Big wedding?” I asked. “Small? Any guests from the outside? What was Nancy’s maiden name?”
“Medium-sized,” Cheyenne said. “Her name was Kleeberg.”
“That’s not too common,” I noted. “Worth a look.” I put the name into an online search with no luck. “Maybe the Book of Face,” I quipped. There were no profiles with that name, but when I checked for photos, two came up. And looky there, wedding pictures. “What about these?” I turned the phone and Cheyenne came over to look.
“Oh fuck, yeah.”
“Cheyenne,” Brooklyn chided. “Language.”
“That might be a titch hypocritical,” I suggested, nudging his crotch with my heel. I remembered a few f-bombs recently.
He glared at me, then sighed. “Okay yeah, sorry, Cheyenne. I promise to stop nagging about your language.”
“Thank you.”
“Is one of those men Harvey?” I asked.
“That guy.” She pointed a finger at the dark-haired, bearded, hulking man on the left of the photo. “That’s him.” Her finger shook and she snatched her hand back.
I tried to zoom in on the photo but it lost resolution pretty quickly. “Maybe on a laptop.”
“I’ll get mine.” Brooklyn stood and set my foot on the couch. He brought the laptop over and squatted by me, opening it on his knees and logging in. Cheyenne knelt beside him to see better. He found the page and photo, then zoomed.
On Brooklyn’s bigger screen, I could make out a hawk-like nose and heavy brows on Harvey’s face above a bush of beard that could’ve hidden any kind of chin. He held his bride’s upper arm and his grip looked more like restraint than affection. He looked older than twenty-five in those photos which were dated five years back. I could totally understand why one glance made Cheyenne shiver.
