By the time the sun slipped behind the strip mall across the street, my hands were black with grease and the sky over the shop looked like an oil spill—purple, orange, and one bad decision away from dark.
I was closing up, same as every night. Roll the bays shut. Kill the compressor. Pretend this life was permanent and not printed on dissolving paper.
The bell over the front door chimed.
“We’re closed,” I called without looking up from the invoice I was pretending to understand. “Come back tomorrow if your car still hates you then.”
The air shifted. Not footsteps—presence. Too still. Too deliberate.
“Riley Knox.”
My pen slipped. Nobody called me that here. My name in this life was Rae Nolan, printed on my W-2, stitched in cheap thread on my coveralls. Only two people still used the one I’d bled for, and both of them were on government letterhead.
I lifted my head.
He filled the doorway like he’d been carved for it—broad shoulders in a dark jacket, posture military-straight. Close-cropped brown hair, clean-shaven jaw, the kind of face people trusted until they noticed the eyes. His were cool and precise, a blue-gray that had measured a lot of rooms and probably a few corpses.
He held my real name in his mouth like it was evidence.
I swallowed. “Wrong girl.” I forced a smile, too bright. “Happens all the time. You want oil change, tire rotation, stolen identity—little of everything?”
His gaze traveled—sign, counter, me. It stuck on the grease on my forearms, the smudge on my cheek I’d missed, the faded ‘Quinn Auto’ logo over my chest. I watched him catalog me, felt it like fingers tracing a wanted poster.
Then he reached into his jacket. I tensed, every old instinct flaring awake, but he just pulled out a slim black wallet and flipped it open.
Federal badge. Photo. Name: COLE MERCER.
I laughed once, brittle. “Damn. I was really hoping you were a tax auditor.”
He didn’t smile. “You’ve been sloppy, Knox.”
“I told you, it’s Rae here.” My fingers tightened around the pen until the cheap plastic creaked. “And unless this is about my boss’s expired vending machine license, you’re supposed to call first.”
“We did.” His gaze stayed on me. “You didn’t answer.”
My old burner, the one I kept in the bottom drawer of my bedroom dresser, had been dead for months. I’d told myself that was a good thing. No calls. No orders. No reminders that my life was borrowed.
Something cold slithered under my ribs.
“Look,” I said, reaching for flippant because the alternative was panic. “If this is about overdue paperwork, have a heart. I’ve been busy actually working for a living.”
He set his phone on the counter and turned it so I could see the screen.
A grainy photo took up the display—me, yesterday, standing by bay three, head tipped back as I wiped sweat and grease off my face with my forearm. My eyes were closed. I looked tired and almost happy.
Underneath, in blocky text, four words: WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.
Every ounce of heat drained out of my body. The walls of the office narrowed to the rectangle of the screen.
My voice scraped. “Where did you get that.”
“Encrypted forum,” he said. “Channel that used to belong to your old associates. It lit up ten hours ago. Image’s already been copied to half a dozen other places.”
