Chapter 16 · The Body From Eight Years Ago

The photo on the file was mine. Same jaw, same scar over the left eyebrow. The date stamp at the bottom said eight years before Prague.

Cause of death: catastrophic spinal trauma.

I stared at it. My hand didn't shake. Ava was watching me from across the table, her fingers still resting on the folder's edge like she might yank it back if I moved too fast.

"You knew," I said.

"I knew someone used your name. I didn't know it was stolen from a corpse." She tapped the photo. "That's you, right? Not some random guy who looked close enough?"

I didn't answer. The burn scar. The chipped tooth I'd had fixed in my twenties. It was me. Or it had been.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Grey market coroner archive. Eastern Europe. Not cheap." She leaned back. "You want to tell me how you're sitting here if you died in a facility outside Minsk eight years ago?"

I closed the folder. My wrist was still at 06. Six lives left. But if I'd been dead before any of this started, what did that counter even mean?

"I need to see the original report," I said.

Ava shook her head.