Hard.
Before she could fully react, he twisted her arm behind her back and drove her forward against the hood of the patrol car.
The metal hit her hip first, then her shoulder. Her phone slipped in her hand, but Briggs caught it before it fell and stepped back with it.
Naomi winced sharply.
“Hands behind your back,” Mercer snapped, though he was the one forcing them there.
“You’re hurting me,” Naomi said through clenched teeth.
“Then stop resisting.”
She went still.
That lie, stop resisting, hit with a special kind of ugliness because both of them knew she was doing no such thing. Her breathing was fast now, but controlled. She turned her face just enough to look at Mercer over her shoulder, dark eyes steady.
Across the street, the elegant white-stone house stood quiet behind its tall automated gate.
Mercer leaned closer.
“We’ve had complaints,” he said. “Someone wandering around, checking houses, acting like they belong.”
Naomi’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
So that was it.
Somebody had seen her jogging in her own neighborhood and decided that the problem was not her behavior but her presence.
Briggs turned her phone over in his hand. “No ID in her hand.”
“I didn’t ask for my phone to be taken,” Naomi said.
Mercer ignored her. His fingers tightened around one wrist while his other hand reached toward the handcuffs hanging from his belt.
“You can explain everything downtown.”
Naomi stared past him, across the street, toward the house.
Then she said, very quietly:
“You might want to look across the street first.”
Mercer frowned.
“What?”
A soft electronic chime cut through the morning.
Then another.
Then the security lights on the white-stone house clicked on all at once beneath the eaves.
Briggs turned first.
The tall black driveway gate began to slide open with a low mechanical hum.
Both officers looked toward it.
Mounted beside the entrance, the smart security panel lit up bright blue. A clean, calm electronic voice carried across the sidewalk with perfect clarity.
“Good morning, Naomi Carter. Welcome home.”
No one moved.
For the first time since stepping out of the cruiser, Officer Mercer looked unsure.