Young lady. He turns back to her and the edge in his voice is the kind that is meant to close a door. I did not ask you to explain vehicle registration law to me. Stand here. Don't move.
He walks to his cruiser, gets in. Radio crackles. Seldon stays at the passenger side. She is looking at Demi with an expression that is almost sympathetic. The kind of expression that is calibrated to look like concern.
You understand? We're just doing our jobs. She says, "A call came in. We have to follow up." Demi says nothing. Is there someone you can call?
A parent. My father is traveling. Traveling where? For work. Seldon waits as if more will follow.
Nothing does. She glances toward the cruiser where Maul is running plates. It would help if you had someone who could come verify. The registration verifies it. Demi's voice is even, not loud, not rude, just factual.
The way a statement is when it doesn't need to be anything other than true. OCGA section 40-2-7 requires the registered owner's name on state-issued documentation. The documentation matches my name. It matches the plates. There's nothing here to verify.
Seldon is quiet for a moment. Something shifts behind her eyes. Not quite respect, but the edge of recalculation. You know that statute. The number is on the registration form itself.
Bottom left. It is. Seldon looks down at the document in her hand. Looks back up. Maul's door opens.
He walks back across the lot and his pace is slightly different now. Not slower, but heavier like a man who has not gotten what he expected and is choosing not to show it. "Plates come back clean," he says. Seldon nods once almost imperceptibly. "I want to look in the trunk," Maul says.
He is not asking Demi. He is saying it to Seldon as if Demi's agreement is not a factor in the equation. "Do you have a warrant?" Demi asked. The question lands in the lot like something dropped from a height. Maul turns to her.
Excuse me. OCGA section 17-5-30. Warrantless searches require consent, a lawful arrest, or exigent circumstances. I haven't consented. I haven't been arrested, and the call you received, a report of a matching vehicle in connection with a theft ring does not on its own constitute exigent circumstances sufficient to override the warrant requirement.
She pauses. Her voice has not changed pitch. So, I'm asking whether you have a warrant. The silence that follows is not comfortable. Maul's jaw tightens.
His hand moves not toward his weapon, but a movement of frustration redirected to his belt. You're 17, he says, and you're going to stand here and cite code sections at me. I'm asking a procedural question. It's a yes or no answer. A car pulls in at the next pump.
Family. A woman and two kids getting out. The kids stare at the police lights. The woman hurries them inside. Maul steps closer to Demi.
He is significantly larger than she is. He is using that consciously or not as a physical argument. Here is what's going to happen. He says, voice dropping low enough that only she and Seldon can hear. You're going to stop with the legal lecture and you're going to let me do my job or we're going to have a very different kind of conversation.
Do you understand? Demi looks up at him without blinking. "I understand that you haven't answered my question." He moves fast. His hand closes on her upper arm and he turns her toward the car. Not a tackle, not a slam, but firm the grip of someone communicating that her body is no longer fully her own to direct.
"Hands on the vehicle." He says, "I'm detaining you for further questioning pending investigation." She places her hands on the Lamborghini's roof. Her palms are steady. On what grounds?
Reasonable suspicion of what specifically? Of involvement in the theft ring we told you about.
Don't make this harder than it needs to be. His hand does not leave her arm. It tightens just slightly, pulling her elbow back and up in a way that is not quite a pain compliance hold, but is aware of how to become one. She goes with the pressure instead of against it. Not submission, but something smarter than resistance.
Maul seems briefly confused by that. The way someone is confused when a door they push does not swing the way they expected. Her wrists come together behind her back. The zip tie bites down hard. And this time she does feel it.
A white edge of pain where the plastic presses the small bones. But she breathes through it the way you breathe through something that is not going to last forever. And her face gives nothing away. She looks out across the lit concrete of the gas station lot at the two kids watching from inside the Exxon window and she breathes slowly. What she does not do, and this is the part that Maul will not understand until much later, is panic.