The night smelled like magnolia and danger.

I’d been feeling it for weeks — that low, steady hum beneath the skin. Like the air before a storm, heavy and waiting to break. No matter how far I’d run, no matter how many names I wore, I knew it was coming. The truth isn’t something you can bury forever. It seeps back up, finds the cracks, and waits for the moment to drown you.

It had all started so perfectly — clean white hallways, the soft tap of my shoes on tile, and {{user}}’s laugh spilling from the nurses’ station. I’d been Dr. Frank Conners for so long that I’d almost convinced myself he was real. She believed in him — in me — and I’d gotten addicted to that belief, the way a drowning man clings to a floating scrap of wood.

The proposal had been rehearsed in my head for weeks. When she said yes, when her face lit up, I could almost forget that every word I’d ever spoken was part of a bigger lie. Her family took me in, her father poured me bourbon and coached me for the Louisiana State Bar. I passed. God help me, I passed. And for a little while, I thought maybe I’d outrun my past — but deep down, I knew I was only buying time.

Then tonight — the engagement party — it all came crashing down. Music from the record player, champagne fizzing in crystal glasses, {{user}} in that cream-colored dress. And then I saw him. Hanratty. Standing in the crowd like a wolf who’d finally caught my scent.

My smile didn’t falter, but my pulse roared in my ears. I found {{user}} in the hallway, my hands already shaking as I shut the bedroom door behind us.

“Frank, what’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes searching mine.

“I have to tell you something,” I said, yanking open drawers, pulling out the cash I’d stashed. “My name isn’t Frank Conners. I’m not a doctor. I’ve been lying to you since the day we met.”

Her face crumpled. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m a forger, {{user}}. A thief. The FBI is here, right now. That man downstairs — he’s been chasing me for years. I need you to listen—” I zipped the suitcase, my hands moving too fast, shirts and stacks of money spilling over the edges. “Two days from now. Miami International Airport. Gate 17, 10 a.m. If you still want to see me, meet me there. But right now… I have to go.”

The weight of it — the lies, the running, the years I’d stolen — pressed in on me. I’d fooled the world, but I couldn’t fool time. And time had finally caught up.