" The atrium had gone quiet enough to hear the ship's engines under the deck. Naomi's hand closed over her purse. No. I'm not asking. I understand that.
The answer is still no. The phone isn't evidence of anything, and it isn't mine to hand over. She said it evenly, the way you read someone their options. Who authorized you to seize it? I do.
On what basis? On the basis of a $4 million theft. That isn't a basis for that phone. Brandt's face reddened from the collar up. He had wanted a confession.
He had gotten a procedural question in front of hundreds of witnesses, and he heard every phone in the room recording him lose the argument. Cuff her. Kessler didn't move. Sarge, behind the back? She's not resisting.
I said, in front, Kessler said. His voice was quiet and hard. Sarge, she's not running. In front. Brandt held his stare for two full seconds.
Then he jerked his chin. Kessler took her wrists gently and closed the steel around them in front of her, at her waist, and did not look her in the eye. Naomi looked down at her hands. Then she looked up at the room. The time is 2:31.
She said, someone please remember that. Brandt tore the page from his pad, held it up to the light, and read it aloud so the phones could catch it. Suspect refused to cooperate and concealed a device. Devon's hand tightened on his pocket. Above the atrium, the security cameras kept their small red lights on.
Below them, the guests began to step back, one at a time, until Naomi stood alone in a widening circle of polished wood. On the starboard side, the ship's second officer, Priya Nair, paused at the deck rail. She stared down at the planks. Something small and bright glinted between two boards, catching the afternoon light. She crouched.
Brandt moved her out of the atrium at 2:36. To avoid a scene, he told the staircase as if it weren't already on 100 phones. The side lounge on the promenade deck had leather chairs, a fireplace screen with no fire behind it, and a door with a frosted panel. Shapes gathered behind the glass. Kessler took the door.
Brandt took a chair and didn't sit in it. "Sit. " he said. "Thank you. " Naomi said, cuffed hands at her waist.
"Officer Kessler, would you log the time of the cuff check every 15 minutes, and please check the fit. Two fingers should slide under the steel. " Kessler blinked. "Ma'am? " "It's on the form, Sarge.
" Brandt let it go. Kessler stepped out, came back with a paper cup of water from the service counter, and set it by her hands. Nobody had told him to. Naomi thanked him quietly. She noticed that he wouldn't meet her eyes, and that he didn't walk away either.
The door opened without a knock. Second Officer Priya Nair wore the ship's white uniform shirt with gold stripes on the epaulets, and she carried a folded cloth napkin in one hand, and her phone in the other. She looked 26, and had the posture of someone who had been told to stand straight so often it no longer felt like an order. "Sergeant, I need to report a recovery. " She unfolded the napkin, the necklace lay in it, and its diamonds threw small hard light across the leather chairs.