Chapter 4 - The Public Enemy
I stared at the television screen in pure horror.
Mark had flipped the narrative entirely.
He had intentionally stabbed himself to frame me for attempted murder.
The police report I left on the bed was now completely useless.
Mark had undoubtedly destroyed it before the police arrived.
I was no longer just a runaway wife.
I was a highly dangerous, wanted fugitive.
I quickly left a twenty-dollar bill on the table and rushed out of the diner.
I found a truck driver pumping diesel gas near the back of the lot.
I offered him five hundred dollars in cash for his old, beat-up sedan parked nearby.
He took the money without asking a single question and handed me the keys.
I drove aggressively toward the state border, desperate for a safe place to hide.
I pulled over at a massive rest area and bought a cheap burner phone from a vending machine.
I dialed the only person in the world I still trusted.
It was my old college roommate, Emma, who worked as a defense attorney in Cincinnati.
"Emma, it is Claire," I whispered into the phone.
"Claire, oh my god, I saw the news, where are you?" she asked frantically.
"I am safe, but Mark is completely lying, I need your help," I pleaded.
Emma gave me an address for an abandoned industrial warehouse on the edge of the city.
She promised to bring me fresh clothes, a new ID, and legal paperwork.
I drove for two hours, my hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
I pulled into the dark warehouse parking lot and saw Emma's familiar car waiting.
I walked up to her window, feeling a massive wave of relief wash over me.
The window rolled down slowly.
Emma was not smiling.
May you like
She pointed a black, silenced pistol directly at my chest.
"Mark said you would call me, Claire."
