Suspect Witness. Ryshia Kennie

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      Her thumbnail pinched into the palm of her hand.

      “Focus,” she reminded herself as the wave of homesickness, loss and despair washed through her. She took her mind from other places back to the moment and to reworking the plan. She couldn’t worry about family or friends or even cats; there was nothing she could do for them but stay away and stay alive.

      She looked at the closet, closed the doors and went through her list of defenses. The list was meager. She had pepper spray from a night market stall. Other than a self-defense course she’d taken with another primary grade teacher, she had little in her favor.

      As she thought through the events of the past few days, she realized that she had to get out of the country in a very short time. This escape was only temporary. She didn’t know how good the people hired to find her were, but she suspected they might be very good. They’d found the school she’d worked in, they’d found her new identity and they’d attempted to kill her.

      “Stay calm,” she reminded herself. But there seemed no end in sight and no one she could approach for help.

      She looked at her watch as if that would give her the answers that weren’t forthcoming.

      Her headache was escalating.

      She sat down on the bed. She’d run three quarters of the way around the globe and they’d found her. She’d changed her appearance yet again. And she’d been on a cash-only basis since leaving home. She needed to do more.

      She wasn’t sure where she was going next, but she knew what she needed in the short term while she was here.

      Her nails bit into the palms of her hands. She relaxed her hands and took a breath—panicking would get her nowhere.

      “Damn boyfriend dumped you,” she murmured with a laugh that held no humor at all. “And then along came Josh.” She hated every aspect of this story, from its very necessity to its needy woman overtones to using an innocent man—possibly toying with his affections. All of it was distasteful and all of it was necessary. She pulled a box of hair dye from her pack.

      Josh Sedovich, an easy man to reel in. She thought that without arrogance but instead with the thoughts of an attractive woman who knew she was attractive.

      She wouldn’t hurt him, just engage in some harmless flirtation—the illusion of a couple.

      She sucked in a deep breath. Her life was an illusion, an illusion that hurt.