of time before sunset. Jumping out of bed as the AC stopped in the room and let it heat up, I felt energized. Before going to the office, I made a pot of coffee and took a mug out to my back porch, standing in the sun with the hot drink. It had to be over a hundred and ten, and I loved it, soaking it in. I wasn’t technically cold-blooded, but like my snake form, my human form enjoyed the heat much more than the cold. When I settled in Phoenix, that had been the only thing on my mind. Living somewhere it was hot most of the year.
“Mother would have loved it here,” I said softly, sipping my coffee. Longing was a sharp pain I tried to avoid, but at that moment, I let it happen. Whatever the reason, my mind turned to thoughts of my family. Father would have been fine in Phoenix, but he liked humidity, a lot of it. So had my brothers. My mother and I loved dry heat. She and I were the only ones. Most nagas preferred places with a bit of humidity.
I can’t do this reminiscing bullshit right now. I need to get to work.
I turned my back on the view and the sun, leaving thoughts of my family with them, and headed back indoors. When I sat down in my secondary office and checked the computer, I was glad to see both searches were done. It was always nice to be right about something.
I glanced over the monitor and hissed. That was the problem—The Board. Any time I dealt with The Board, I thought of my family more often. It was never a good time for me or anyone else foolish enough to get involved. Then again, The Board started because a group of people murdered my entire family in front of me, and I was still trying to figure out who. The why had been easy, but the who was an elusive bit of information I was still trying to find.
Looking back at the monitor, my mood soured. I clicked through the results. If Raphael was posing as an illegal immigrant, there was a slim chance I would find anything official or a real paper trail, but I could hope there was a minor arrest, a note in a file, or something small and innocuous somewhere. Raphael and his history of running didn’t point to there being any bank accounts in his name. He would need to use his real name and identification, something he definitely couldn’t do, or have enough falsified data.
I clicked through the results, wondering if I would find anything. His aliases were incredibly common combinations. He was smart, and I had a shred of respect for him as I realized none of the results were him. He was good at staying under the radar, which made me wonder how Mygi kept finding him. I went back to the print outs and noted how they used security cameras to find him in different areas. They must have been using some very illegal facial recognition programs. Not even supernaturals were okay with that little piece of technology coming out in recent years. We didn’t want our faces tracked everywhere we went through the ages. I, personally, only had one photo of myself, and it was from when I was young. My parents decided we needed a family photo when photography was just really hitting its stride as new, capable, and affordable technology. It was so old, I was certain I was going to need to hire someone to restore it and make new copies.
So, a supernatural company probably using facial recognition software was a no-no. I tucked that thought away as I dug deep into what was given to Sinclair. Something here gave him enough information to think he could capture Raphael tonight.
I found it. I had taken nearly a hundred photos while I was there, so I tried not to kick myself for missing it the first time I went through them. They had four addresses of places where they caught him on security cameras. I cross-referenced the information with a map and discovered a few apartment complexes and a new subdivision being built. They said he frequently hid as a construction worker, which played up a lot of human stereotypes he was probably hoping made him ignorable.
I printed a piece of the map of the Phoenix area, focusing on the city of Goodyear and circled