Page 2 of Her Brother's Keeper

“Maybe it’s hitting so close because of Archer and Mel,” Disney suggested.

“Meh could be,” I said. Mel was pregnant, due in the first week or so of June. Archer was an instant dad with Noah and all, but this was going to be his first biological kid. Honestly, though, I don’t think this had anything to do with my older foster brother. I think it had everything to do with those deep, wide brown eyes, haunting me every time I closed mine.

“You get any information we could use to track her down?” Dragon asked.

I frowned, “Like what?”

“A name is a good start,” Data said from his little alcove, leaning back in his chair to look through the open door at me.

“Maren, that’s all I got, and that’s only because her boss said it.”

“Maren who works at the Walmart on Douglas,” Data said to himself, tipping forward and pulling himself along his desk over to one of the screens and one of the many keyboards laying on its dark surface.

“That enough to actually get you something?” I asked, kind of incredulous.

“We’ll find out,” he uttered, voice distant as he clacked across keys, his eyes rooted to one of his screens.

“While he works on that, how do you want we should help?” Dragon asked and I blinked, falling back in my seat.

“Seems to me she’s worried about getting the bills paid, why else would she be working the same day her daddy died?” Rush said.

“Too right,” I agreed. “She said it was just her and her brother now, I assume that means he’s younger than her…”

“Fundraiser and toy run?” Dragon asked.

“We do things like that out here?” Rush asked.

“Been a minute since we had a cause other than veteran’s affairs, and Trig and Ghost usually head those up. We could do it, though.”

Dragon scratched his beard and Data called out, “Got it!”

“Got what?” I asked.

“Obituary,” he said and began reading off the screen, “Ronald G. Tracy lost his battle with cancer this past Friday and is survived by his two children, Maren Elizabeth Tracy and Sage Hunter Tracy… Services to be held, blah blah blah, looks like they just went down…” He started muttering to himself, “Yeah, thanks for printing their full names…” his volume went back up as he addressed me again, “I should have an address in a couple of minutes.”

“You seriously found all of that out because of her first name and where she works?” I asked.

“No, I found it out because you said the dude died last Friday. I put in ‘obituaries’ and ‘Maren’ and got lucky on the first try.”

“Didn’t say anything about a wife in there, did it?” Dragon asked.

“No, it did not,” Data agreed.

“I got the impression that she was on her own with the brother. Couldn’t tell you what gave me the vibe that he was younger than her.”

“The fact that she said thatshehad to pay the bills?” Disney said.

“Girl must be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders,” Aaron murmured and slicked some of his dark hair back off his forehead. “Poor thing,” he added.

“How old d’you think she is?” Rush asked.

“Seventeen,” Data called out. “The younger brother is eleven.”

Dragon sat back in his seat looking smug while the rest of us sat around shaking our heads.

“What’s taking so long to get that address?” I asked sarcastically.

Data came out of his digital kingdom and handed me a printed page with the information, “I was printing it out for you.”

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