Between Us and These Bones

18

The attic had not even a speck of dust. Ivan gestured to a stack of boxes, sitting down on the blue chair that looked a billion years old. He struggled to catch his breath but refused to let on the flight of stairs had tired him out.

I smirked, passing him, clapping him on the back. "You okay there, old man?"

He narrowed his eyes, playfully and grunted. "Who are you calling old? I am in perfectly good shape."

I snickered. "Okay, whatever you say."

I reached the stack of boxes and opened them. There were albums upon albums, some labeled, some not. Haisley James, Haisley and Tarryn's First Birthday. There were more and more boxes of photographs. I took one of Haisley, brown haired and chubby with blue eyes. He wore blue overalls, sitting with musical piano, dimples showing when he smiled.

"These will work, I think," I murmured, putting them in a folder I'd found while digging. "Okay, old man, we can -"

I trailed off as I noticed another box, taped closed. I bent down, ripping the tape off and noticed a handful of papers and documents, as well as a couple photos of mom and a man I'd never seen before.

***

"We can use this photograph and use aging software to see what Haisley would look like now. Then we might be able to find him," I held up a photo of Haisley when he was four, chubby cheeks and all. "If we find him, we might find Wayne and maybe find mom."

"We'll give it a shot," Sam said, his gaze traveling over my brothers before landing on me.

Carson followed me out of the kitchen. "How much sleep did you get?"

"The probability of facial recognition picking out a face is slim."

"Sure, maybe," I said, facing the witch, "but ears are like fingerprints. They are unique."

She's a detective, how did she not know this?

"So you plan on finding our brother by his ears?" Matthew asked.

I smirked, patting his shoulders. "I knew you'd catch up."

"Tarryn, I don't think-"

I ignored my oldest brother. "Carson, can you stop being a negative Nancy for like five seconds? I am trying to find my brother."

"Our brother." Matthew corrected. I ignored him too.

"Can't you be happy that I've not locked myself in my room?" I said, sighing. Carson ran a hand through his hair. "It's impossible to be around you fools sometimes."

"Hey, watch it," Carson warned.

"Well?" I turned to Sam. "Any results yet?"

Sam shook his head. "It'll take a few minutes, maybe longer if there are any results." He shot my brother a look, doubtful.

Yup I chose to ignore it too.

***

"Hey." Trey knocked on the library door. I glanced up from the book I'd been reading, raising an eyebrow.

"Are the results back?" I asked, hopeful. It'd been two hours since Sam and another agent sent in a request with the FBI and I hated waiting.

"No, not yet," he said. "I just came ... to check to see how you're feeling ... I'm sorry, I know that sounds stupid." He held a softness in his expression, one I'd only seen used towards me. He stepped forward hands shoved in his jeans pockets, his eyes scrutinizing me.