They stayed 40 minutes. Then they walked back to the Rolls-Royce that Nadia kept practically unused in a Jacksonville storage facility for the two or three times a year she came home. She drove it herself. No driver, no entourage. A concession to anonymity that on this particular morning would prove complicated.
They were southbound on State Road 228, 8 miles from the hotel when the light bar activated behind them. Red and white strobes in the rearview mirror are Nadia checked her speed. She had been traveling at 51 in a 55 zone. She signaled, pulled to the shoulder cleanly, and cut the engine. She folded her hands in her lap.
Ranata in the passenger seat closed the small notebook she'd been riding in. She capped her pen. She looked straight ahead. Two units had pulled over. One patrol car, one unmarked Dodge Durango.
That was the first thing Nadia noted. Two units for a routine stop on an empty road. The second thing she noted, the man who got out of the Durango was not in patrol uniform. He wore a department polo and slacks. He had captain's bars on his collar.
A captain. Personally, Ford Calhoun was 53 years old. He had spent 19 years at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, the last six as a precinct captain. His record showed 31 commendations and four sustained misconduct complaints, none of which had resulted in discipline beyond a letter of counseling. He had a way of walking that communicated absolute territorial ownership of whatever surface his boots touched.
He approached the Rolls-Royce from the driver's side with the deliberate unhurry of a man who believes the other person's time belongs to him by default. He tapped the window twice with one knuckle. Hard. The way you tap when you don't expect to be made to wait. Nadia lowered the window.
"License, registration, proof of insurance." Not a greeting, not a reason for the stop. Calhoun planted one hand on the roof of the car and leaned in slightly, his eyes moving over the interior with a particular quality of attention, not looking for something illegal, but cataloging something that offended him. The leather, the grain matched trim, the small integrated screen in the rear console. Nadia produced the documents without hurry, without comment, without a single unnecessary movement.
He took them. He looked at the license for longer than necessary. He looked at Nadia. He looked at the license again. "This vehicle registered to you?"
"It is." "Purchased by you?" A pause, not nervous, simply measured. "It is." Officer Priya Holden, 28 years old, four years on the force, stood at the rear quarter panel of the ghost and ran the plates a second time on her handheld.