Gretta sat in her car, studying her notes. She went over what she knew. Multiple eyewitnesses placed him and Sofia at the diner, which helped her narrow down their scents. Sofia had a sticky stuffed bunny. The thugs chasing them had not shown up since their scents weren’t present. A weird guy in a hoody was paying too much attention to her. The manager had let her see security footage, and a blue Toyota Corolla with a white hood and a grey trunk left the parking lot and headed west. Based on her photograph of Miguel’s bank account, he was nearly tapped out, so he wouldn’t likely stay in a hotel for more than two nights.

She pulled up a map on her laptop. Going west on this road didn’t lead to any hotels. There was a bit of a residential area in a small town called Avra Valley and some back roads that led to Tohono O'odham Nation Reservation.

She searched the internet for social media accounts tied to Miguel and found an account that was seven years old. He and a woman were holding a small child. Miguel and the woman were both smiling. Behind them was a mountain and a small house. The caption read, “A little escape at my sister’s cabin.” Miguel’s hiding place wouldn't be in plain sight if he were heading for a safe place. A cabin, especially one tied to family, made sense. If Miguel was running low on cash, it might be his only option.

Gretta looked up from her laptop and realized the guy in the hoodie from the diner was standing across the street in the shadow of a building. He seemed to be watching the road, and while he wasn’t watching her, it felt like he was waiting. She’d seen that relaxed, alert posture in martial artists at the dojo where she practiced jiu-jitsu. He wasn’t overtly muscular, but his readiness spoke volumes about how dangerous he could be.

Gretta wanted to keep digging through the internet to find Miguel’s sister, but not until she went somewhere else. As a shapeshifter and a sorceress, she wasn’t afraid of any ordinary guy, but given the case she was on, Hoodie might not be an ordinary guy.

Deciding to play it safe, she put her car in gear, backed up, and pulled out of the parking lot, heading west in the general direction where Miguel was last seen going. When she looked back at the shaded spot where Hoodie had been standing, he was gone.

There weren’t many cars on the road, and the distance between buildings grew, with patches of cotton fields and desert scrub separating them. Finally, she approached a small convenience store, pulled into the dirt lot, and found a parking space as far from the door as possible. She looked around and didn’t spot any cars pulling in after her or anyone watching her.

Gretta pulled out her laptop again and did a public records search using the PI site for Miguel Vega. In her three-year apprenticeship as a PI, this had been a large part of what she had done: finding information on people using public websites and the databases that required a PI license to access. She scanned the records until she spotted a marriage license and a divorce decree. She pulled her notebook from her purse and wrote "Lucia Vega-Martinez." Then, she kept scrolling until she found Miguel’s birth certificate. A few searches later, she tracked down Miguel’s parents and found that he had no sister.

Gretta rubbed the center of her forehead and whispered, “What the hell?”

She looked back at the social media page for older posts and noticed that Miguel sometimes referred to himself in the third person—or maybe he wasn’t the one posting! She looked up Lucia’s public records and found that she had one sister: Maria Martinez. Maria owned land just outside of Avra Valley. Bingo.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gretta dialed Adriana’s number.

Adriana answered on the first ring. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Vega, this is Gretta Sullivan.”

“Have you found my son?”

“I think I have a lead. He might be staying in a cabin near Avra Valley. I’m going to check it out.”

“He doesn’t own a cabin,” Adriana said.

“No, but his ex-sister-in-law does, and I have reason to suspect he might stop there.”

“Thank you for the update, detective,” Adriana said. “Please let me know if you find Sofia.”

Adriana hung up, and Gretta looked down at her phone. She had expected more questions or even a request to be brought along. Adriana seemed all business, not the sad woman Gretta had talked to yesterday.

Gretta jotted down the address of Maria’s cabin and stowed her laptop in her backpack. Then, she got out of the car and scanned the dirt parking lot. A raven perched on a power pole let out a gurgling laugh. She glared at the bird, who stared back at her. She gave the bird a rude hand gesture, and it laughed again.

“It’s just a bird,” she whispered to herself.

Gretta stowed her backpack in the trunk and walked into the convenience store. Behind the counter, an elderly woman watched a soap opera on an old television. She glanced up, nodded to Gretta, and then returned to watching her show.

Gretta grabbed a cold bottled water from the reach-in fridge at the back of the store, passing by crowded aisles of staple goods. This little store had rice, cereals, beans, soups, canned vegetables, milk, pasta, and more. It was a small store with limited variety but might serve as a local grocery store. Anyone wanting fresh meat or vegetables would likely need to drive further south toward Marana’s large commercial grocery store.

She placed the bottle on the counter, and the lady looked away from the television long enough to ring up the sale. “Four dollars.”

Gretta grimaced and pulled out four dollars from her purse. Even convenience store water was rarely more than three dollars, and she could get bottled water at the grocery store for less than a dollar-fifty.

As the woman rang up the sale, Gretta pulled out the picture of Miguel and Sofia. “Have you seen this man or this little girl?”

The old lady leaned forward and looked at the picture. “He was here this morning.” She pointed at Miguel.

“What did he buy?” Gretta asked.

The lady looked back at her television show, clearly not wanting to miss the dramatic reveal. Then she tore off the long receipt from the cash register, which had been tallying sales for days. She glanced at it long enough to tear off the long tail and hand it over.

“You are my only other customer from today,” she said, then returned to her show.

“Thanks,” Gretta said weakly. She walked out with the receipt, which she scanned as she walked.

Miguel had bought staples that didn’t need to be cooked or refrigerated: Bread, cereal, peanut butter, and honey. He also bought a stain remover spray, powder laundry detergent, an air freshener, and a roll of paper towels. Even though he was on the run from someone, he was still going to wash his daughter’s sticky stuffed rabbit. Gretta didn’t know him, but he seemed like a good father.

As she returned to her car, she spotted the raven still perched on the power pole. It was watching her. She looked around to see if anybody else was around. Nobody else was there, just her and the bird.

“Look, it’s creepy that you are staring at me. I seriously hope you are a bird because if you are not, you should know I have a purple belt and will test the limits of those little crow legs.”

The bird let out another laugh, and the croak it let out sounded like “Raaaven.”

Gretta growled. “Fine. Limits of those little raven legs.”

She got into her car and slammed the door. “Effing birds.”