He replaced the receiver and looked down at me. "Inspector, we'll have you off the aircraft as soon as the jet bridge is attached."
"Thank you, Captain," I said.
Victoria stood motionless by the galley wall as the aircraft swung slowly through a ninety-degree turn, reversing direction on the tarmac. She stared down at the orange juice drying on the front of my tweed skirt, but the small, triumphant cruelty that had defined her face ten minutes ago was entirely gone, replaced by the hollow realization that the gate door waiting ahead would not open on her terms.
The tug moved us backward into the alleyway between concourses, the heavy metal hitch groaning through the floorplates under my sodden shoes.
Captain Miller did not return to the cockpit immediately. He stood in the narrow throat of the galley, one hand braced flat against the doorframe, watching Victoria Sterling with the cold, measured detachment of a commander whose flight deck had just been compromised from within. His silence did not invite explanation; it maintained a perimeter.
Victoria remained pressed back against the galley counter. The bright, plastic veneer of her composure had fractured completely, leaving behind a sharp, frantic calculation. Her fingers caught the edge of her navy silk scarf, smoothing it once, twice, three times in rapid, mechanical strokes, but her eyes never settled. They darted from Miller’s rigid profile to the cockpit door, then down the aisle toward the passengers who sat rigid in the silence of the stopped engines.
"Captain," Victoria said, dropping her voice to a thin, urgent whisper that still reached row 3. "If ground operations boards this aircraft over an unverified claim, the entire bank misses the departure window. Crew scheduling will flag our duty hours before we can reposition to Nashville. You know how maintenance logs get transcribed during irregular ops. A misfiled override slip doesn't mean the aircraft is unsafe—it means the ramp dispatch system timed out during the shift change."
"Be quiet, Victoria," Miller said. He did not look at her.
"I am the in-flight lead," she pressed, her voice gaining an edge of panic. "I am responsible for the safety and order of this cabin. You cannot allow an off-duty inspector with an unverified binder to dictate operational clearance before we even reach the runway."