after a cruel celebration.
“Fraudulent identification,” he said. “Possible identity theft. Attempted international travel under false documents.”
Maya stared at the torn paper. For a moment, the airport sounds faded behind the rush in her ears.
“My name is Dr. Maya Ellis. I am scheduled to speak at the International Trauma Equity Forum in Vienna tomorrow afternoon. My documents are legitimate. You need to call a supervisor.”
Bell leaned forward.
“What I need to do is place you under arrest.”
Her phone began vibrating in the plastic tray beside her watch and keys. The screen lit up. Daniel Hart — Attorney General’s Office.
Maya reached for it.
Bell caught her wrist before her fingers touched the phone.
“No calls.”
“That is my husband.”
Pierce looked at the screen and smiled wider. “Your husband works for the attorney general?”
Maya looked from Pierce to Bell. She had spent eleven months keeping Daniel’s name out of casual conversations, not because she was ashamed of him, but because his job made privacy a form of safety. There were people who hated him. People who blamed him for indictments, convictions, ruined careers, and exposed deals. They had agreed that Maya would travel under her own name, keep her public schedule focused on medicine, and never use his office as a shield.
But this was no longer about convenience or embarrassment. This was about survival.
“No,” she said. “He is the attorney general.”
The sentence landed in the room like a glass dropped on tile.
For one second, Bell’s face emptied.
Then his grip tightened.
“You are under arrest for presenting false identification.”
The cuffs closed around Maya’s wrists before she could say Daniel’s name again.
Seventy-two hours earlier, Maya’s biggest problem had been a wrinkled blouse.
She stood barefoot in the kitchen of the narrow Providence house she shared with Daniel, pressing the white silk against the ironing board while rain ticked against the back windows. The house was old, warm, and full of small imperfections. One stair creaked no matter how carefully they stepped. The kitchen cabinet over the sink refused to stay shut. In the dining room, Daniel had turned half the table into a battlefield of case folders, sticky notes, court transcripts, and two untouched mugs of coffee.
He was reading with his glasses low on his nose, one hand resting on a file marked with a red tab.
“You are going to burn that sleeve,” he said without looking up.
Maya lifted the iron. A curl of steam rose between them. “You have not slept in thirty hours. You do not get to supervise fabric.”
Daniel smiled faintly, but the exhaustion around his eyes stayed. At forty-four, he had the composed face of a man who had learned to make enemies without flinching. Before becoming attorney general, he had been a prosecutor known for taking cases nobody wanted near their desk: police corruption, public contracts, witness intimidation, elder fraud. He was not the loudest person in a room. He did not need to be. People listened because he spoke like he had already weighed the consequences.
The case on the dining table had consumed him for weeks. Three airport officers were accused of extorting travelers who spoke limited English, threatening deportation, confiscating cash, and making complaints disappear inside paperwork. Two
