Page 43 of To the Grave

“Got something,” he said.

I leaned over to look. “What is it?”

He pointed to a color photo: a group of kids standing in formation, tallest in back, a few kneeling and sitting in the front next to two guys with whistles around their necks.Run,Forrest, Runwas spelled out at the top of the page, and under it,Blackwell Track Team.

I saw Jace’s dad immediately, standing in the back, arms folded over his chest, chin tipped, all-too-evident chip on his shoulder.

There were other photos of the team under and around the team picture, the team celebrating wins and goofing off during practices, and that was where I saw another picture of Arlo, one that was more revealing.

“Who are these people?” I asked, pointing to the two guys standing on either side of him. They were clearly teammates, arms around each other like they’d just won a gold medal at the Olympics.

Wolf lifted the yearbook closer to his face to read the fine print under the picture. “‘Arlo Kane with Hunter McAllister and Michael White, Carlton Finals.’” He hesitated as the names hit him. “It’s Mac. They were friends in high school.”

It hadn’t been obvious at first. This version of Mac was clean-cut, minus the scraggly hair, facial hair, and the creases around his eyes. But now that Wolf had said the name, I could see it.

“They were friends,” Otis said. “Good friends.”

I sucked in a breath. I didn’t know why it mattered. Mac and Arlo Kane had been close in the MC — that was obvious from the fact that Arlo had left Jace in Mac’s care — but this felt different.

Bigger.

Now I could see history coming into focus, and I couldn’t help wondering if that history was connected to all the questions we had about, well, everything.

“Who’s the other guy?” I asked. “Michael White.”

He was a chubby, his expression serious under shaggy brown hair.

“Maybe just a teammate,” Wolf said.

“No,” Otis said, “they’re tight. All of them.”

I looked at the picture, at the way they stood close together, the way the Beasts stood close together.

Like they were closing ranks around the world.

I watched as Wolf turned the pages of the yearbook. It only took about a minute to find another picture of the trio, this time sitting under a tree in the courtyard, the paper bags around them indicating it had been taken during lunch.

This time there was a fourth person, a guy with dark skin and an easy smile.

I leaned in to read the name: Derrick Mayer.

We found other pictures of Arlo and Mac, almost always with Michael White. Sometimes they were with Derrick Mayer, sometimes not.

After we worked our way through the yearbook Wolf had found, we did the math to figure out which of the remaining yearbooks would have pictures of Arlo and Mac, then started on those. It was more of the same, track team photos (except for senior year, when they didn’t appear with the team), candid shots at school events and on field trips.

And then, in their senior year, there were several pictures of Mac with my mom.

At lunch, her head in his lap, Arlo, Michael, and Derrick sprawled out around them.

In the bleachers during a football game, Mac’s arm draped possessively over my mom’s shoulders.

And then, prom: Mac and my mom in formal wear, beaming at the camera, clearly in love.

But this one was different because in this one, Arlo Kane looked on, part of the picture but separate from Mac and my mom.

A third wheel.

And this time the photographer had caught something on his face during an unguarded moment, an expression I recognized because I’d seen it on Jace’s face more than once.

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