Rowe returns. His pace is heavier now, the walk of a man who has not received the answer he expected and has chosen not to show it. “Plates come back clean,” he says. Selden nods once, almost imperceptibly. “I want to look in the trunk,” Rowe says, not to Amina, but to Selden, as though her consent does not matter.
“Do you have a warrant?” Amina asks. The question drops into the lot like something heavy. Rowe turns. “Excuse me?” “The law requires consent, a lawful arrest, or exigent circumstances for a warrantless search.”
“I have not consented. I have not been arrested. A report of a matching vehicle connected to a theft ring does not by itself create exigent circumstances. So, I am asking whether you have a warrant.” Silence follows.
Rowe's jaw tightens. His hand moves to his belt in frustration. “You're 17 and you're going to stand here and cite code sections at me.” “I am asking a procedural question. It requires a yes or no answer.”
A family car pulls in at the next pump. A woman and two children get out. The children stare at the lights. The woman hurries them inside. Rowe steps closer.
He is significantly larger. He uses that size the way some men use their voices. “Here is what is going to happen,” he says, voice low enough for only her and Selden to hear. “You are going to stop with the legal lecture and you are going to let me do my job, or we are going to have a very different kind of conversation. Do you understand?”
Amina looks up at him without blinking. “I understand that you still have not answered my question.” He moves fast. His hand closes on her upper arm and turns her toward the car. Not a tackle, but firm.
The grip of someone declaring that her body is no longer entirely her own to direct. “Hands on the vehicle. I am detaining you for further questioning pending investigation.” She places her palms on the Lamborghini's roof. Steady.
“On what grounds?” “Reasonable suspicion of involvement in the theft ring. Don't make this harder than it needs to be.” His hand stays on her arm and tightens slightly, pulling her elbow back and up in a way that knows exactly how to become pain. She moves with the pressure instead of against it. Not submission, but something smarter.
Rowe seems briefly confused, the way a person is confused when a door does not swing the direction they expected. Her wrists come together behind her back. The zip tie bites down hard. She feels the sharp edge against the small bones, but she breathes through it the way you breathe through something that will not last forever. Her face gives nothing away.
She looks across the lit concrete at the two children watching from the Exxon window and breathes slowly. What she does not do, and this is the part Rowe will not understand until much later, is panic. She does not cry. She does not argue in a way that gives him anything to use. She does not tell them who her father is.