The story opens with Evie Porter already deep in an assignment: she has moved into the orbit of Ryan Sumner, a well-liked local whose grandparents left him a comfortable home. Evie has engineered their relationship from the start, even staging a flat tire to meet him on his Thursday routine. Over dinner with Ryan’s lifelong friends, she fields probing questions with curated answers, alert to the group’s scrutiny and the way each detail might be tested later. She agrees to move in with Ryan, raising her emotional stakes and operational risk.

To support her cover, Evie secretly rents and stages a short-term apartment to manufacture a plausible origin for her belongings and history. She carefully plants signs of use and pushes back on a nosy manager, then lets Ryan help pack it up. His protectiveness shades into searching, and Evie clocks that he is more thorough—and more secretive about his own Thursdays—than he lets on.

Between social obligations, Evie makes covert drops at a private mailbox, showing she reports to an unseen handler. A fraught lunch with Ryan’s friends pushes her to deploy a sympathy-earning backstory, bolstered by planted online news. Shortly after, a work call overheard in the gallery hints that Ryan’s Thursdays involve an arrival and a missing item, deepening the mystery.

The façade cracks at a lavish Derby party when an old friend of Ryan’s arrives with a woman introduced as Lucca Marino. She resembles Evie and, worse, recites facts from Evie’s true history. Evie tests her with a hometown reference; the woman answers correctly, confirming she’s been briefed with intimate details. Evie realizes her real identity is in play.

Flashbacks reveal how the present came to be. As a teen, Lucca (Evie’s true name) supported her cancer-stricken mother with carefully planned thefts learned from a lifetime around costumes and craft. Years later, caught skimming at a gala, she is mysteriously extracted and recruited into a covert operation overseen by a voice-masked Mr. Smith through a handler named Matt Rowen. Early jobs teach ruthless lessons: as a nanny she cracks a safe and escapes a crisis; embedded in a gubernatorial campaign, she rejects a ham-fisted honey trap, protects a clean candidate, and instead creates leverage on corrupt power players. That coup lets her cut Matt out and report directly to Mr. Smith, building a network of Hilton Head 2017 favors she can call in.

Back in the present, Evie gathers intel about James Bernard, the friend who brought the impostor, and learns his history of gambling and betrayal. Her mailbox is empty when she checks for guidance, so she reasons the impostor was sent by her own side. Mr. Smith later confirms it: he planted the double and reminds Evie she’s replaceable. Determined to steady the job, Evie goes off script to reassess Ryan’s East Texas business. In disguise inside a Glenview warehouse, she witnesses Ryan’s cold control as he crushes an internal theft and hands a culprit off to a dangerous client. The revelation reframes Ryan as capable and dangerous—not merely a mark.

When Evie and Ryan run into James and the impostor again, she invites them to dinner. Anticipating snooping, Evie plants a fake spreadsheet, confirms the impostor searches, and confronts her privately: they share a handler, and the impostor has already sent the planted file to Mr. Smith. The warning shot is clear. By morning, tragedy: news reports say James and the impostor died in a late-night crash. At the Bernards’ house, Evie quietly finds a hidden envelope ordering the impostor to search Evie’s belongings and report to a separate mailbox, strengthening Evie’s belief that Mr. Smith is testing her.

Evie consults Devon, her tech ally, via coded Instagram. He confirms the woman’s identity at the coroner and suspects the crash wasn’t an accident. He urges Evie to run; she refuses and resolves to finish the job while feeding Mr. Smith just enough shipment intel to give Ryan a chance. Before she can reset, police arrest Evie on a material-witness warrant tied to Amy Holder, a woman from a prior job. With attorney Rachel Murray managing the room, Evie learns that Evelyn Porter has been built out for years with IDs, tickets, and digital crumbs—a durable identity Mr. Smith can weaponize. Evie triggers a Hilton Head favor and is released under conditions to meet Atlanta detectives on Friday.

An origami swan appears on her nightstand: photos of Evie with Amy and a phone number. On the call, Mr. Smith admits he staged the crash and demands contents from a specific safe-deposit box; he sets a handoff at an Atlanta hotel and threatens to flood police with more evidence if she refuses. Evie burns the note and decides to act. She departs with Ryan—an unpredictable move against Mr. Smith—while coordinating dead drops and messages to Devon.

On the road, Evie leverages a past Florida job: she visits Coach Mitch Cameron, rattles him, and plants a device to mirror his phone. Through it, she learns Mr. Smith communicates via coded posts on a King Harvest fan message board. In Nashville, she reconnects with Devon, who shows surveillance of George, a familiar courier now shadowing her. Devon also finds new Atlanta Police evidence: a clear video of a woman in Amy’s hotel room just before a fatal fire.

Back at the motel, Evie overhears Ryan secretly meeting George about Atlanta and Amy Holder. At dawn, she finds her original intel drop—meant for Mr. Smith—in Ryan’s bag and flees, concluding Ryan has deeper access to Smith’s pipeline than she knew. She plants files at a doctor’s office as part of her counterplan while Devon’s Coach Mitch gambit finally exposes Mr. Smith’s true identity.

Flashbacks catch up: six months earlier, under the alias Regina Hale, Evie surveilled Amy Holder for Mr. Smith. After Amy publicly taunted her, Smith escalated orders. Evie removed Amy’s belongings from a hotel room, then set a fire staged as an accident. On a tense call, she told Smith nothing was recovered and then went straight to a Wells Fargo branch. These events seeded Smith’s suspicion that Evie kept leverage for herself.

In Atlanta, Rachel moves the detectives’ interview to a hotel. When they present the incriminating video, Evie identifies the woman as Lucca Marino and leans on Devon’s planted records and a FaceTime alibi from NFL player Tyron Nichols. Satisfied, the detectives let her go. Outside, George intercepts Evie and forces her to a bank to open the safe-deposit box.

Inside the vault, the box holds only an origami swan. Evie reveals she knows the truth: George is Mr. Smith—Christopher Smith—and the box never held what he feared. Amy’s cache proves he has been skimming from the Connolly crime family whose business he services. Evie has already sent those files to Victor Connolly and arranged this rendezvous. Outside, the Connollys collect Mr. Smith. Evie slips away to a safe house where Devon greets her—and Amy Holder walks out alive, confirming the murder was a long con designed to flush Smith’s leverage and identity.

In the debrief, Evie, Amy, and Devon lay out how Amy’s death was faked using a Jane Doe and how Amy’s sister Heather and niece Sadie were relocated beyond Smith’s reach. They reflect on earlier tests (like the Fort Worth painting heist) that revealed Smith’s methods, and on how prodding Coach Mitch and calling in Andrew Marshall’s favor helped trigger Smith’s exposure. Devon’s early read suggests Ryan’s involvement with Smith was limited to business dealings; why Smith fed Ryan certain intel remains murky. The team disperses, and Evie vows to quit the life.

Months later, Evie returns to Ryan’s house. They finally compare notes: Smith fed Ryan doctored proof that Evie was stealing from him, while Evie admits she altered shipment data to blunt Smith’s takeover plans. They reconcile and settle into an honest rhythm. On Thursdays, Ryan goes to East Texas; Evie works from a secure office Devon set up. She and Amy now monitor the King Harvest message board that once carried Smith’s orders, and Amy, using the Porter name, calls Evie Miss Smith—a wry nod to who controls the game now.