But the instant he saw her, he had stopped looking at her face and started staring at the motorcycle’s rear plate.
Not casually.
Recognizing.
The sergeant said:
“We received a report of a stolen motorcycle matching this description.”
The woman’s expression did not change.
“What description?”
“Red sport bike.”
She looked at the motorcycle.
Then at him.
“That’s your probable cause?”
“Don’t play games.”
“I asked a question.”
“You’re standing beside a motorcycle reported stolen.”
“What plate was reported?”
The sergeant hesitated.
Half a second.
Enough.
“I’m not discussing dispatch information with you.”
“You haven’t run mine yet.”
The younger officer looked up.
The sergeant turned slightly.
“What?”
She continued:
“You arrived before your dispatcher read my plate over the radio.”
The sergeant’s face hardened.
“You seem very interested in procedure.”
“I am.”
“Hands out where I can see them.”
Her hands were already visible.
One holding her black motorcycle glove.
The other empty.
She raised both slightly.
“There.”
The officer near the motorcycle reached toward the ignition.
“Don’t touch that.”
He looked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t touch the bike.”
The sergeant gave a humorless smile.
“You’re in no position to give instructions.”
The woman’s voice stayed level.
“Actually, that depends entirely on what you think is happening.”
The sergeant stepped closer.
“What I think is happening is somebody called about a stolen forty-thousand-dollar motorcycle, and I found you with one.”
“Did the caller give a VIN?”
“No.”
“A plate?”
“Stop.”
“Did your database return stolen?”
“Stop talking.”
She stared at him.
Something in her stillness made him more uncomfortable than anger would have.
Anger fit categories he understood.
This did not.
Behind the police vehicles, a neighbor stood on a front porch holding a phone.
Another person watched from behind curtains.
The woman knew at least one camera was recording.
Good.
Her own covert audio recorder had been active since she turned onto the street.
Better.
What worried her was not the stop.
It was the clock.
5:00.
The exchange was supposed to happen at 5:07.
A man from the theft network was waiting three blocks away in a detached garage behind an empty rental house.
He believed the red superbike had been stolen the night before from a luxury apartment garage.
He believed she was delivering it to him.
He believed the bike’s cloned paperwork would be ready within an hour.
The motorcycle was not stolen.
It belonged to a federal front company.
Its VIN was clean.
Its registration was valid.
It contained three tracking systems.
Two covert cameras.
A tamper sensor.
And a microscopic forensic marking compound applied to specific components.