He gave her nothing.
Finally:
“Your appearance.”
There it was.
Ava nodded.
“Explain.”
Elise swallowed.
“You looked…”
A long pause.
“…younger than I expected.”
“Expected for what?”
“A private aircraft owner.”
Ava tilted her head.
“I’m thirty-four.”
“Yes.”
“Many people who use private aircraft are younger than thirty-four.”
“Yes.”
“So what else?”
Silence.
Robert said:
“Ava—”
She looked at him.
He stopped.
Elise stared at the table.
“The clothing.”
“My clothing.”
“Yes.”
“White dress.”
“Yes.”
“Leather coat.”
“Yes.”
“Boots.”
Elise did not answer.
Ava leaned back.
“Would you have stopped a twenty-eight-year-old white man in jeans and sneakers?”
Elise looked up quickly.
“I stop anyone who seems out of place.”
“That was not my question.”
Silence.
Ava did not need a confession about race.
She did not need to force language into Elise’s mouth.
The facts were enough.
The process failure existed regardless of motive.
Still, motive mattered for training and accountability.
Ava changed direction.
“How many passengers have you stopped this year?”
Elise blinked.
“I don’t know.”
“Can Meridian identify that?”
Robert answered:
“We should have incident reports.”
“Should?”
“Yes.”
Ava looked at him.
Robert corrected himself.
“We do.”
“Good.”
“I want twelve months.”
He nodded.
“Names can be anonymized initially.”
“Understood.”
“Access disputes.”
“Yes.”
“Security calls.”
“Yes.”
“Passenger complaints involving identification.”
Robert nodded.
Ava continued.
“And any case where staff denied ramp access before verifying the manifest.”
Elise’s face changed.
Ava noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No.”
Ava leaned forward.
“You reacted.”
Elise shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
Daniel spoke for the first time in several minutes.
“You did.”
Elise looked toward him.
Daniel’s voice was quiet.
“Is there something in those reports?”
“No.”
Robert looked between them.
“Elise?”
She said nothing.
Ava felt the story shift.
This was no longer merely her encounter.
“Robert.”
“Yes?”
“Pull the records now.”
He hesitated.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“We can have compliance—”
“Now.”
There was enough steel in the word that Robert stopped negotiating.
He opened his laptop.
Logged into Meridian’s internal system.
Ava waited.
Elise stared at her hands.
Daniel noticed too.
He leaned slightly toward Ava.
Something.
Ava nodded once.
Robert searched.
His expression changed.
“Sixteen reports.”