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So, he just told himself that Faith was the one with the problem, not Ellie. Then he told himself that it didn’t matter who was the problem because they were on a case, and everything else could wait.
“We’re here.”
Michael lifted his hat off of his face and didn’t bother hiding the fact that he wasn’t really asleep. He got out and followed Faith to a few officers standing in front of the entrance to the terminal.
Along with several hundred people.
“What the hell?” Faith muttered under her breath.
“Yeah,” Michael said.
To the officers, he shouted, “Hey, what the hell is this?”
One of the officers, who wore the stripes of a sergeant on his uniform, lifted his hand and said sternly, “Sir, you need to move along.”
Michael pulled his laminate and said, “Yeah, FBI numbnuts. I’m Special Agent Michael Prince, and this is my partner, Special Agent Faith Bold and our K9 unit, Turk. We’re supposed to be here investigating a crime scene.”
The sergeant’s attitude changed immediately. His eyes widened, and his tone was much more contrite when he said, “I apologize, Special Agent. I’m Detective Sergeant Emilio Rameses, and this is officer Colton Wales. We can escort you to the scene.”
“What is all this?” Faith asked. “I thought the terminal was closed.”
“It was,” Rameses said, “up until midnight.”
“I thought it opened at six in the morning.”
“It did,” Rameses explained. “Today is the start of twenty-four-hour service. As you can see, it’s already very popular.”
“Jesus Christ,” Michael muttered.
“Did you at least cordon off the scene?” Faith asked.
“I did,” Rameses said, “but I’ll be honest, it’s likely the cordon’s been removed.”
“You didn’t assign officers to watch the cordon?”
“I did,” Rameses explained again, “but this service expansion is one of our mayor’s major campaign promises, and the rail service made it clear that our investigation was not to hamper or impede service in any way.”
“Glad to know they have their priorities straight,” Michael said irritably.
“For what it’s worth,” Rameses said, “which by my estimation is about half of a crap sandwich, I’m not happy with the situation. Unfortunately, it’s out of my control. I hope the cordon is still there, but my boss made it clear that if Metro Authority tells our guys to piss off, the only reason we can stop them is a crime in progress.”
“Lovely,” Faith said. “Well, take us there anyway. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
They were not lucky. Rameses swore under his breath as they approached the scene, and Michael could see why. Yellow police tape lay was scattered around a fifteen-foot radius of a bench currently occupied by three bored-looking individuals with the vacant expressions of night-shift workers. At the wall behind the bench stood a pair of morose-looking uniforms glaring at an imperious woman in her mid-forties flanked by two even more morose-looking security officers.
“Officers, take my partner to the scene and see if you can convince those passengers to find another bench to sit at while our K9 investigates. We’ve gotten lucky before. Maybe Turk’s nose will pick up something.”
“Where are you going?” Rameses asked.
“I’m going to talk to Little Miss Middle Manager over there.”
As Michael approached the severe-looking woman flanked by bodyguards, he overheard the woman dressing down the officers. Michael was already upset after Turk’s behavior toward Ellie and Faith’s refusal to discuss it, so arriving at a crime scene that had been utterly ruined for political reasons left him in no mood to deal politely with the assholes responsible.
“Your superiors were told very clearly that officers were not to be present …” the woman was saying.
“Excuse me,” Michael interrupted, pulling his ID from his wallet.
The manager turned an irritated glance toward Michael that vanished almost instantly behind a perfectly polite, customer-service smile. “Sir, we have an information booth right over …” Her voice trailed off when she saw Michael’s ID and realized he wasn’t a passenger.
