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I run as if I’m back in elementary school, convinced this will be the year I’ll take first in the hundred-yard sprint. I never placed higher than fifth, and even that was pure effort and zero skill. I find that old willpower now as I sprint down the lane.

I turn the corner onto the street… clogged with traffic and pedestrians, and I’m a woman running for her life. Someone shouts. Car tires squeal. No one stops me, though. No one tries.

I run until I see an alley. I veer into it, duck behind a bin, wobble for a moment, and then double over and puke. I keep retching until nothing remains. Then I stand there, one hand braced against the brick.

At first, I think my free hand is clutching my stomach. Then I look down to see it clamped against the spot where the knife went in ten years ago. My breath comes fast, as if I’m back there, newly stabbed, struggling to breathe, my lung nicked by the knife.

I’m going to die.

The thought flashes, and even in the riptide pull of that memory, I know it’s no longer true, but I still feel it.

I am in that moment, stabbed in an alley, thinking I’m going to die.

Back then, what flashed before my eyes wasn’t a collage o f my life.

It was regret. A parade of regrets, starting with “Why the hell didn’t I see this coming? ”

Well, for starters, in a sane world, crazed movie-star fans don’t knife people for kissing their idol.

I stand there, struggling for breath, hand pressed to that spot, slipping in and out of a world where I feel blood soaking my blouse, a world where I am certain I will die in a dirty alley behind a dive bar.

I did not die, obviously. A coworker heard my scream and came to my rescue.

She called an ambulance, which took me to the emergency ward for surgery.

She also called the police, who decided I’d been mugged.

Forget what I said. Forget that my colleague – bless her – argued like a woman possessed, insisting she’d heard my attacker ranting about Colt Gordon.

Nope, I was just mugged by some junkie, and now, attention whore that I was, I wanted another fifteen minutes of fame.

When the police accused me of that, I’d laughed so hard I’d ripped my stitches.

This was the last straw for Mom, proof that I couldn’t just wait it out and my life would miraculously return to normal.

No one wanted Lucy Callahan teaching music to their kids, so I’d been working sustenance jobs that barely paid rent on a crappy apartment.

I deserved better, she said. So she withdrew fifty grand from her retirement savings and came up with the Europe plan.

I could have argued. I didn’t because all I could see was the carousel of regrets that had danced before my eyes. It was time to move on and move forward.

So I did. If I’d died in that alley today, I would no longer have seen regrets. My life truly would have flashed before my eyes, all the precious things I’d lose – my mother, Rome, my music, my friends, Marco.

I’m already losing them. I’m not sure I can recover my music career after this.

Some of my friends will drift away. Marco…

I have hope there, but he’s only dipped his toe in the roiling cesspool of Internet hate.

It will get worse for him. Much worse. And Mom?

My mother will never forsake me, but I’m no longer eighteen and living at home.

She’s regained her old life. I might never lose her love, but if I must, I will step away from it to protect her.

I stand at a crossroads here, and I keep going back to that moment when I thought my attacker was a cop, and I had been relieved. Ready to turn myself in.

What’s the alternative? The realistic and unvarnished alternative? Keep running? Keep hiding?

What if it’s more dangerous out here than in there?

I close my eyes, and I remember being thrown against a wall, the man breathing in my ear, threatening to…

I don’t know what he threatened.

Didn’t the knife answer that, Lucy?

He said something about me being valuable. Was there a bounty on me? He’d known who I was. He’d followed me to…

I pause and roll back the film to that encounter in the alley. I’d surprised him. I still can’t see his face, but when I focus hard, I realize that his “hat” had been a hoodie. A white male in a hoodie. That’s all I saw. He’d been coming down the alley and seemed surprised to see me.

He’d known me, though. He’d said…

No, I’d said my name. I’d thought he was a cop, and I said I was Lucy Callahan. That’s when he mentioned the bounty…

Bounty? I snort under my breath. No, he’d said I was valuable.

He could have been following me. He could have been in the crowded deli when he saw me sneak out the back and circled around to cut me off.

I surprised him, so he had to act fast, throwing me against a wall at knifepoint because he knew exactly who I was, and someone wanted to make sure I was turned over to the police… or never turned over to the police.

Option two, though? He was just a guy in an alley, not unlike the one from yesterday. I surprised him, and he saw the chance for easy money. Throw me against the wall and spout crazed nonsense about me being valuable.

Two ends of the spectrum with a million possibilities in between.

I don’t know what just happened. I only know that, in fleeing once that deli manager called the police, I could have been stabbed in an alley.

I also know that I am in no mental shape to deal with life as a fugitive.

I’m a mess, cold sweats and nausea and nightmares and now actual flashbacks in broad daylight.

Turn yourself in, Lucy. Call Thompson, and let him take his shot. Or find another lawyer. It’s the media you truly fear – the implosion of your life – but the longer you run, the more you risk it anyway.

My phone vibrates, startling me. I thought I’d felt it earlier, but I’d been a bit busy, running for my life, and tumbling into flashbacks and throwing up in alleys. Speaking of which…

I gaze down at the vomit pooled by my feet and stride onto the street before checking my phone.

It’s PCTracy. I exhale in relief. Well, I wanted to turn myself in, preferably with Thompson’s help. Here’s my chance.

LlamaGirl: I’m here.

PCTracy: Good. What happened?

I hesitate. The encounter in the alley still has my stomach roiling, but I don’t see the point in telling him about it. I keep remembering the doubt and mockery of the police after that knife attack ten years ago. If I’m not sure what happened, I should keep it to myself for now.

LlamaGirl: I got out of there as fast as I could.

LlamaGirl: But now I’m thinking I shouldn’t have run. I should turn myself in, right?

When he doesn’t answer, I realize what I’m doing.

LlamaGirl: Sorry. I’m asking you for advice on a decision I need to make myself. I don’t believe I’ll end up in prison. Well, not for longer than it takes to set a bail hearing if they even go that far. There’s no actual evidence against me, right?

Again, he doesn’t answer, and I exhale at that. Okay, PCTracy wasn’t disagreeing with his silence. We’ve disconnected. I’ll go to my hotel room and wait–

PCTracy: Where are you right now?

LlamaGirl: On a street, catching my breath. I’m not sure where the nearest police station is, but I can look that up. I just need a lawyer.

Hint, hint…

PCTracy: Yes, you do. Right now, though, are you someplace safe and private where we can talk?

LlamaGirl: What’s up?

PCTracy: You returned to your hotel room yesterday morning, right? After finding Isabella?

LlamaGirl: Right.

PCTracy: Did you see any sign of disturbance?

My heart pounds.

LlamaGirl: Someone had broken in. I should have mentioned that.

PCTracy: It’s fine. But you noticed the room had been entered. Did you notice anything else?

LlamaGirl: I took my clothing, thinking someone might have left evidence on it. Took my toiletries and tech. I don’t think anything else had been–

Shit. Oh, shit. The memory slams back, the thought that’s been niggling at me since yesterday.

My towel. The one I used in the shower that morning. I’d just gotten out when Isabella texted, and I’d tossed it on the chair as I hurried to blow-dry my hair and get ready.

The towel had been on the chair with my dirty clothing when I left to see Isabella.

It was not on the chair when I returned. I grabbed my clothes, and the towel wasn’t there.

PCTracy: The police found a bath towel stuffed into the vent.

PCTracy: It had Isabella’s blood on it.

LlamaGirl: I didn’t do that.

PCTracy: Of course not. No one is going to commit a murder, stuff the towel in a hotel vent and leave it behind when they flee. The problem right now is that it’s forensic evidence. The police claim to have more, but I don’t know what that is.

LlamaGirl: You’re saying I really could go to prison for this.

PCTracy: I can’t answer that without knowing the other so-called evidence.

The towel isn’t enough. The texts were obviously sent from a linked device.

That can be tracked. Someone let the killer into your hotel room.

That leaves a trail, and once I can prove someone got access, all evidence found in there becomes inadmissible.

LlamaGirl: You sound like a lawyer:)

PCTracy: Just too much time working for them. You do need a lawyer, like you said. As for turning yourself in right now, if that is what you want to do, then I will help with whatever you need.

LlamaGirl: But you wouldn’t recommend it.

PCTracy: My honest advice is to stay out until I can find enough proof to make the DA think twice about proceeding with charges. But that’s easy for me to say. I’m not in your shoes.

LlamaGirl: Just give me data. Pros and cons.

PCTracy: I don’t think there’s significant danger in you staying free a bit longer. Could it harm your case? No more than it already has, to be blunt. But clearly, we’d argue that you were frightened.