"Thank you," the officer said, and something in the way he said it, the slight crack in it, told her he was more frightened than she was. He stepped back, keyed the radio on his shoulder, and read off the Skylark's license plate. Then he leaned through the open driver's door and read the VIN off the dash plate with his flashlight, slowly, letter by letter, mispronouncing nothing.
It was cold. Naomi pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Across the lot, the shuttle doors folded open, and Odette Pryor stepped down onto the pavement and stood there with her arms crossed, not coming closer, not leaving. Naomi wanted to wave her back inside, and did not dare move her hands.
The radio crackled. A dispatcher's voice, a woman's, flat with the boredom of the night shift. The officer turned his shoulder away and lowered the volume, but the lot was very quiet and Naomi heard the first part, which was her own name, and her own address, and registration valid, and then the second part, which made her stomach drop.
"...also showing a hit on the VIN, stand by, it's an old record, it's coming up out of the legacy file. Stolen vehicle, Calder PD, reported..." A pause. "Reported 1979."
The officer turned around and looked at her, and the expression on his face had changed. He was not frightened anymore. He looked, very briefly, like a man who has been proven right.
"Stand up," he said. "Turn around. Hands behind your back."
"Officer Brandt," Naomi said, standing, "that car was bought by my father in 1979. I have the bill of sale. It's in the glove box."
"Hands behind your back."
She put her hands behind her back. The cuffs were cold and very tight. He walked her to his cruiser, which was parked at the end of the row with its lights off, which was why she had never seen it, and he put his hand on top of her head and folded her into the back seat, and closed the door. The door made a sound that was nothing like the sound of the Skylark's trunk.
* * *
Hector Ruiz came off his shift at twelve-thirty, the way he did every night, and drove his pickup out to Lot E to pick up the battery charger he'd lent a gate agent, and he saw the cruiser and the open hood of the green Buick and the woman in the back seat of the cruiser all at the same time.
He recognized the car first. Everybody on the ramp knew that car; one of the younger guys had a picture of it as his phone background. Then he recognized the woman.
"Hey," he said, getting out of his truck. "Hey. What's going on? That's Captain Whitfield."