It might cost her her life, but at least she’d die fighting the forces that had killed her mother.

She finished her tea, packed her things, and went down to the lobby. No one was at the desk. She’d paid for the room in advance so she walked outside and hailed a cab.

There was no one she could trust now. She knew that. She was alone, and would be for the rest of her life.

If Igor had turned on her, all the resources she’d put in place were compromised.

And if they’d found out she was trying to reach Lance, then maybe there was a breach on the American side too.

“Where to?” the cab driver said.

She needed to create some distance. The search for her would begin in Manhattan.

She needed to get away from the city, buy herself some time to think, and figure out her next move.

The driver looked at her in the rearview. He looked out the window at the seedy hotel she’d come out of. He looked at her bare feet and ripped dress.

“I’m not working, Romeo.”

He raised his hands in protest. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I need to get out of here,” she said.

“How far do you want to go?”

“Not far. Queens. And I need to go to a Walmart.”

“There’s a Target in Flushing.”

“That will do. Take me there.”

She ignored the driver’s ramblings as they drove. On their way to the Queensboro Bridge, they passed the entrance of the Four Seasons Hotel.

It seemed like a lifetime had passed since she’d checked into the hotel. She would have liked nothing more than to go back up to her room and sleep for three days.

But she couldn’t.

Even driving by it felt reckless.

In Flushing, the driver dropped her off at the Target. She went inside and bought ordinary clothes and sneakers, some snacks, a cheap phone and laptop, and some more medical supplies. She changed her clothes in the store’s fitting room.

From there she caught a cab to Flushing’s Chinatown, where dozens of seedy hotels were ready to rent her a room without ID. She had clean ID now, clean credit cards, but the less she used them, the better. Cash was always safer.

She found a place called Lucky Lodgings and went inside.

“What’s the price?” she said to the Chinese woman at the counter.

“Hundred a night.”

“Do the rooms have their own bathrooms?”

“Some of them, but they’re taken.”

“I’ll give you two-hundred if you can find me one of those.”

The girl went into the office and came back with some keys. ”Room 404,” she said. “Take the stairs.”