As she finished speaking, her phone buzzed sharply against her leg. Samantha fumbled it out of her pocket, expecting another empty message, another dead lead. But it wasn’t. A new comment had appeared under her Facebook post—someone had found something. Eagle feathers. Lots of them. Near the abandoned orchard.
Her breath hitched. She opened the photo. Massive, stark white and brown feathers littered the grass in ragged circles, stark against the earth. The orchard… on the far edge of town. Her pulse leapt painfully. She turned to Alex, her voice breaking with sudden, shuddering hope: “I think we have a lead.”