Page 4 of S.O.S. Billboard

“ID please,” the cop ignored her greeting, and delivered his demand, stony-faced.

O’Shea raised a brow.Seriously? This is how he was going to play it? Well, hell. She had to give him alittlelip for his attitude. “Uh, I’m not the bad guy here, officer,” she snorted. “This man was making off with two bags: one belonging to the passenger with the Red Sox hat, and the other to me. It was in my best interest to stop him.”

“I can corroborate.” The Sox fan who’d also been waiting for his late-ass luggage, spoke up. “Our bags were delayed and they were last to come down the conveyor, but before we could get them, this man,” he pointed to the now interested perp on the floor, “grabbed them and started to take off.”

The grounded jerk had the audacity to whine. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I thought they were mine.”

“Oh really?” O’Shea glowered at him. “If that’s the case, give me the info on either of the luggage tags.”

Before the wanna-be thief could answer, the cop spoke up again. “That’s enough. I’ll be the one asking the questions around here,” he barked. “Now you,” he spoke to O’Shea again, “let me see that ID.”

O’Shea’s gut urge was to lash out with sarcasm, but she sucked it up, deciding to play nice. Wouldn’t her colleagues back home be proud?

As she bit her tongue, she dug in her fanny-pack for her license, which just so happened to be in the same leather, windowed-folder as her Opeloosa shield. She opened it up with a flourish, not letting any emotions show on her face as the officer took a look from a few feet away before making a “gimme” motion with his fingers.

Moving closer and handing it over, O’Shea watched him study it up close for a few seconds before a woman in the crowd yelled out. “Hey! Miss! Your thief is trying to get away.”

Right. On his belly.

Without thinking, O’Shea took a few quick steps in the man’s direction and put a booted foot on his back.

“Owww!” the asshole cried out. “You’re hurting me. This is assault.”

“Nope,” O’Shea stated with a smirk. “If it was, you’d know it. I simply had some shite on my footwear and needed a place to wipe it off.”Thank you, Brigid, for the Irish version of the word, “shit”, whichshouldgo over well with a Boston crowd.

“That’s enough,” the taciturn cop growled. “Step away.”

What?He didn’t like her cute excuse? O’Shea thought it had been a pretty good one. She sighed. Clearly, the cop wasn’t going to make this easy.

Maybe it was time to call Brigid.

O’Shea would get a ration of shit, because,yeah, she should have told her friend she was coming. But she’d had some time off on the books that her superiors had been urging her to take, and this trip had been a spur of the moment decision.

Thetriphad been, she reminded herself, but not the reason behind it.

Still, there wouldn’t have been any of this over-the-top fuss if she’d had Brigid meet her here. The problem of the dick-officer would already have been solved, and they’d be happily sucking down two extra-large lattes by now, swapping hugs and stories.

The thought of seeing Brigid again made her smile. O’Shea’s once-upon-a time fellow officer from Louisiana had met the love of her life—her now-husband, Sarge—back in Opeloosa, and was currently a Boston cop. Maybe…

O’Shea knew the BPD was large with many precincts, but perhaps the cop on duty would know Brigid?

Turning to the officer and using her best smile, she attempted to be friendly. “I’m here to visit my bestie, uh…” Which last name did Brig use now? O’Shea wasn’t sure, so she went with a hyphenated version. “Officer Brigid Fitzdunne-Montverra, who is currently employed by your fine city as a detective.”Yup. Brig had passed that exam.

The cop soured even more. “Nice try. But if you think knowing someone on the BPD is going to get you out of this, you can think again.”

“Wait. Out of what?” O’Shea asked, scrunching her brows together.

“Assault and battery.” He pointed to the now-grinning perp. “Excessive use of force…”

“Excessive…?”

O’Shea took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. If this is how law enforcement worked in the big city, she might have torethink the plans she’d been unofficially making. “Officer, this is not a case of assault. I was simply protecting my belongings.”

He looked unimpressed. “And the zip-ties?”

She tried her ineffective smile again. “Those were because he wanted to get away, and if he’d managed to take a few more steps, Iwouldhave had to beat the shit out of him,” she stated calmly. “This way, restraining himpeacefully,” she emphasized that word, “nobody got hurt, and there was no prolonged chase that might have compromised public safety. You’ll find from all the video being taken,” she nodded appreciatively at all the people in the crowd who had their phones up, “that I never once used an…excessiveamount of force.” O’Shea threw the officer’s word back at him.

Two additional cops, O’Shea noticed, were currently walking their way, which could mean that things might get better for her—if the pair weren’t sour-pusses—or worse. Since that judgement was as yet inconclusive, she sweetly asked. “May I make one phone call and perhaps clear things up that I’m not a loose cannon?”

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