Chapter 2

My stomach dropped. I grabbed the dashcam and rewound.

On the recording, the fuel can in Rhys's hands had turned into a toolbox, and the refueling had become a close-up of repair work.

"I clearly called you out here to gas up the car."

I pulled out my phone and found the recording of the call.

My own voice came through, clear as anything:

"Hi, my car broke down, I need your help."

How could this be happening?

I unscrewed the fuel cap again and shone my phone's flashlight inside.

The inner wall of the tank was spotless. Not a single drop of fuel.

My face must have looked frightening, because Rhys didn't dare linger. He held up the QR code.

"Two thousand for the roadside assistance, man."

The gas never went in, but the two thousand went out just fine.

After Rhys left, I walked the exact route he'd driven, back and forth, several times. Nothing. Not one clue.

There were no shops on this road, no passersby, barely even a mouse.

There was no way anyone could have stolen the fuel.

If I kept trying to refuel it myself, chances were I'd just waste the effort again.

But what if someone else did the refueling?

The moment the thought hit, I called my childhood friend Elmer Weiss and asked him to gas up the car for me.

Elmer agreed without hesitation. He helped me tow the car to the gas station.

He didn't mention that I was the owner. He just told the attendant, "Five hundred worth of gas."

The attendant took the money, lifted the nozzle, and started pumping.

The machine rumbled, and in under two minutes the tank was full again.

This time I was smart about it. Right in front of the station attendant, I opened the fuel cap and confirmed there was gas inside before I let myself relax.

Then I switched on the camera, aimed it at the fuel gauge, and had Elmer drive laps around the station.

Elmer looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Gas is this expensive and you're just burning through it like this?"

The words sat heavy in my chest.

But there was nothing to be done. This wasn't the time to argue about money.

The only thing that mattered right now was figuring out how the fuel was vanishing into thin air.

Complaints aside, Elmer still got in the car and started circling the station, loop after loop.

Fifty full laps later, the gauge had dropped by only a hair.

He rolled down the window. "Keep going?"

I thought about it. "No. Just sit in the car. Don't get out."

Through the window, Elmer and I both watched the dashboard.

A minute passed. Nothing changed on the gauge.

Ten minutes passed. Still nothing changed on the gauge.

Elmer yawned and was about to say something when the dashboard suddenly lit up red, warning that fuel was low and to refuel soon.

"What the hell!"

Elmer rubbed his eyes and stared at the dashboard, looking again and again, then abruptly threw open the door and called over the attendant who'd pumped the gas.

"Get your manager out here!"

"We just filled up, we've barely driven, and the gas is already gone. You people are going to answer for this."

The station attendant got worked up too.

"I clearly saw the tank was full."

He hurried off and found the manager.

The manager looked over the car, and his expression turned strange.

"You're telling me this car, this spotless car that doesn't even smell like gas, just got refueled?"

Elmer froze for a second, then grabbed his phone and pulled up the video.

One glance and his face changed.

A moment ago the video had clearly recorded the gauge going from full to falling to gone. But now the needle on the dashboard in the footage sat at zero the whole time, never once moving.

Good thing I'd braced myself for it.

I grabbed the manager and wouldn't let it go. "We came here to fill up. You owe us an explanation."

The manager had no choice but to take us to the surveillance footage.

In the 4K feed, you could plainly see Elmer towing the car to the station.

You could see the attendant jam the nozzle into the tank.

But there was no payment record in the station's account. None at all.

The attendant saw that and instantly dug in.

He said he'd been holding the nozzle, ready to pump once I paid, but since I never paid, he'd never pressed the trigger.

"That's a load of bull."

Elmer lost it, rolling up his sleeves to go at the attendant.

The manager quickly stepped in. "Easy, easy. There's a simple way to find out whether gas was pumped or not."

"You two were the only customer all morning. We just check whether the fuel level dropped."

As he said it, he pulled up the fuel data.

Sure enough, the fuel was down by forty liters, the exact capacity of my tank.

"See, see, see..."

Elmer's confidence surged. "Our tank holds exactly forty liters. We just gassed up at your station, so how did it suddenly disappear?"

"You people are giving us an explanation today. No explanation, we're not leaving."

The manager's face darkened too, and he fixed a cold stare on me.

"Right. You only came in, drove a few laps, and never paid. So how did the fuel go down?"

My stomach dropped, and then I heard the manager say it, slow and deliberate:

"I think you two staged this whole scene to steal gas!"