By fourteen hundred hours the next afternoon, I was standing beside the main exit of the arrivals terminal at Norfolk International Airport.

Detective Rebecca stood at my left shoulder, tapping her spiral notebook against her chin as she scanned the crowd coming out of the customs corridor.

Two uniformed patrol officers, including Officer Marcus, stood ten feet behind us near a bank of payphones, their hands resting lightly on their duty belts.

“The shuttle from the cruise terminal dropped them off twenty minutes ago,” Rebecca said, her eyes never leaving the double doors.

“Their flight back to Atlanta leaves in two hours.”