“Run,” the young man said, bleeding out in her bed, and so she ran. Down the fire escape, through the alleys, to the storage locker she’d rented under an assumed name and a false ID to the car with out of state plates and the cache of gasoline she kept on hand for emergencies. There was a long knife in the glove compartment, for whatever that was worth; more useful as a tool than a weapon, but then no private arsenal would help, anyway. Trying to fight would only slow her down.
She’s three states away by nightfall, sleeping rough under an overpass a mile away from the car, before she takes a moment to check the news. There’s nothing, not that she expected much, nothing in the police blotter, either. Either no one has found his body yet—entirely possible; god willing they won’t until her rent stops coming in or the smell gets too bad—or his death wasn’t interesting enough to warrant any official or public concern, or it’s being suppressed, or he isn’t dead at all and this was all just an elaborate ruse to get her out and away. She can’t be sure, but it doesn’t matter, anyway; if someone wants her out of the way so badly she wants out of the way, too. Better to up stakes and skedaddle.
That’s what she tells herself, anyway, but maybe she’s just delusional. Maybe that just what she wants herself to think. She’s tricky that way.