I turned and walked out, my mind racing faster than any car on the dyno. I had one chance to get out before everything I’d built went up in flames. Heading straight to the bay next to mine, I plugged the USB drive I kept on my keychain for diagnostics into the workstation's computer. It was mainly used to look up OEM or aftermarket technical manuals, wiring diagrams, and parts specs. But there was access to other systemstoo, so I copied every suspicious file I could find and yanked the drive out before Shawn realized what I was doing.
My hands didn’t shake as I grabbed my best tools from my bay and some stuff from my locker. Then I slipped out the back door where my car waited in the employee lot. I popped the trunk and loaded everything inside. After a quick stop at my apartment, I hit the nearest ATM to pull out as much cash as I could. Even using the app to increase my daily withdrawal limit, I could only pull out a few thousand dollars, but it was enough to disappear for a little while.
My mom had just left for a transatlantic cruise to Portugal a few days ago, and she planned to travel around Europe for a few weeks before returning to Jacksonville. I’d been a little worried about her being alone for such a long trip, but the timing worked in my favor now because Shawn’s goons wouldn’t be able to easily find her.
I didn’t have time for goodbyes. My honorary uncles who taught me to rebuild engines at twelve and tune bikes at fifteen would worry, but reaching out would only paint targets on their backs. I couldn’t do that to them.
My 1990 Mustang LX 5.0 Notchback didn’t have GPS, so they couldn’t use it to track me that way.
When the engine rumbled to life, the familiar growl made my throat tight. I’d poured so much of myself into this world, and all of it was gone in one conversation with a smug jerk.
I drove east through the dark, my eyes flicking to the rearview mirror every few miles. No headlights stayed with me, but Shawn’s warning about the kind of guys he was involved with kept looping in my head.
By the time I crossed into Baker County, exhaustion was pulling at me. I’d had no idea where I was headed when I took off, but then I remembered the campsite my dad had taken me to when I was little. It seemed like the perfect spot for tonight eventhough I’d have to rough it in my car. But nobody would ever think to look for me there, and that was all that mattered.
An hour after I drove away from my apartment, at a primitive site in the national forest, I used my flashlight and my tools to unclip the side stoppers of the glove box and zip-tie the USB to the stamped sheet-metal dashboard framing system. Then I curled up in the back seat, where sleep came in fragments, haunted by the ghost of my dad’s voice telling me I was tougher than any engine I’d ever rebuilt.
Forty-eight hours later,I was convinced my dad had been wrong. Being on the run had already left me hollow-eyed and in desperate need of the coffee I was chugging down at a roadside diner.
I sat in a corner booth, my back to the wall so I could watch the door, picking at a burger that tasted like cardboard. My stomach was too twisted to enjoy it, but I needed the calories.
The bell over the door jingled. I tensed, tracking the new customer out of habit. Just an old man in a trucker hat. I exhaled and went back to my burger, forcing down the last bite.
I dropped a crumpled twenty on the table and headed back to the no-name motel I’d checked into this afternoon because I desperately needed a shower and a real bed.
I still had no real plan as I pulled into the parking lot and backed the Mustang into the spot in front of my room, scanning every shadow before killing the engine. Something felt off, but I’d been paranoid since I left Jacksonville, so I tried to shake it off.
But when I opened the door, I found the dresser drawers yanked out and dumped. Even worse, the safe in the closet hungcrooked, the door pried open. All of the cash I’d taken out except the few hundred still in my purse was gone.
I stood frozen, my eyes darting around the wreckage. They’d been thorough, but the USB was still safe behind the Mustang’s glove box. If that was even who’d tossed my room since nobody was waiting for me when I got back.
Telling myself I was just unlucky and had been randomly robbed, I wedged the rickety wooden chair under the doorknob, checked the window lock, and dragged the nightstand in front of it for good measure. The wrench Dad had given me when I was nine went under the pillow. I lay fully clothed on the ruined mattress, staring at the water-stained ceiling while every noise outside made me jolt.
Sleep came in jagged pieces. By the time the weak morning light crept through the curtains, I felt more exhausted than when I’d arrived.
I loaded my meager belongings back into the Mustang and drove with no real direction, just following the highway signs and trying to outrun the fear that lived inside me now.
2
RILEY
Heat shimmered off the asphalt in thick waves as I kept the Mustang at a careful sixty. Crossbend was just ahead when a sharp metallic snap cracked from beneath the hood. The power died instantly, and I gripped the wheel to coast the last fifty yards into a gas station lot before my car rolled to a dead stop beside an air pump.
“Perfect,” I muttered, my voice raw with exhaustion. “Just freaking perfect.”
I sat there a moment, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. Finally forcing myself out into the blistering heat, I popped the hood and stared down at the carnage I already knew I’d find.
The timing chain had snapped clean, and that single failure had turned into a disaster. The snout of the billet crankshaft was fractured. The custom-ground roller camshaft had its lobes sheared right off. This wasn’t a twenty-dollar fix at the auto parts store. I was staring at a new forged-steel stroker crank, a matching custom-profile cam, a billet double-roller timing set, and an SFI-approved harmonic balancer. Parts alone wouldeasily clear two thousand five hundred dollars before I bought a single gasket or drop of oil.
I could fix every bit of it myself, but I didn’t have the right tools, lift, or parts. And no money beyond the couple hundred bucks in my pocket.
I braced my hands on the scorching fender and let my head hang for a moment, the sun baking my neck. Three nights on the run, and I’d had most of my cash stolen and now this. The universe really wanted me on my knees.
I straightened, wiped sweat from my eyes, and pulled out my phone. Time to find a garage that wouldn’t completely screw me over.
Leaning against the car, I squinted at my phone screen while the sun tried to bake my brain. A quick search for nearby performance shops pulled up The Pit almost immediately. They were one of the best in the South for race and performance work. Exactly what my poor Mustang needed, if I could somehow afford the repair.
I dialed before I could talk myself out of it.
