Who Killed Aaron and Is Paige Still Alive?

On Jan. 1, Netflix debuted yet another show that captivated viewers right up to its final seconds.

Run Away — based on author Harlan Coben’s 2019 novel of the same name — follows Simon Greene (James Nesbitt) as a father desperately looking for his daughter, Paige (Ellie de Lange). His search leads him to find her high on drugs alongside a troubled young man named Aaron (Thomas Flynn), who is later found murdered.

Before Simon can bring Paige home, she runs away once again, and he becomes the prime suspect in Aaron’s death, pulling him into a dark underworld of secrets, cult connections and buried family truths.

But that initial twist was far from the drama’s only curveball. Prior to the show’s release, Coben warned fans that they were in for “an emotional roller coaster.”

“I think maybe more than any other series we’ve done, it will keep you off-balance and guessing,” the author told Tudum in January 2026. “You’ll think you have the answer several times — but you don’t. Hang on for that last-minute shocker.”

Here’s everything to know about the Run Away ending, including who killed Aaron and whether or not Paige is still alive.

Warning: Run Away spoilers ahead!

Why did Paige run away?

Over the course of the series, Simon learned more about how his daughter lost her way after starting university and fell into addiction. He uncovered that Paige was sexually assaulted at school and started hanging out and taking drugs with Aaron soon after.

Though Paige kept her assault and addiction a secret from her father, she did tell her mother, Ingrid Greene (Minnie Driver). The final episode revealed that Ingrid then set Paige up at a rehab facility where she sought treatment herself when she was younger — another secret Simon was kept in the dark on.

Is Paige still alive?

Yes, Paige is still alive. In the series finale, she reappears at the hospital to visit her mother, who is in a coma after she was shot while confronting her daughter’s drug dealer, Rocco (Marcus Fraser).

There, she tells Simon that she ran away after discovering Aaron’s dead body because she thought the police would suspect her. Paige revealed that she had gone back to rehab and had been sober for almost a month.

Who killed Aaron?

Though detectives conclude that assassin cult members Ash (Jon Pointing) and Dee Dee (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) were the ones who killed Aaron, Paige revealed that the real killer was Ingrid.

In a shocking twist, she tells her father that this was her second visit to rehab and that her first ended with Aaron forcing her to relapse after he snuck into the facility and injected her with drugs. After he assaulted her in a jealous rage, Paige once again sought help from her mother, who told her to return to rehab — but before she went, she returned to Aaron’s apartment and found his dead body.

Paige tells Simon that Ingrid had killed him to protect her. Though he promises his daughter he won’t reveal that he knows the truth, Simon confronts his wife after she comes out of her coma. Ingrid confesses and also reveals that Rocco shot her because he knew she had murdered Aaron and was afraid he was next.

What is Ingrid’s final secret?

Ingrid survives her coma and the family returns home, attempting to get back to normal. Though his wife promised him “no more secrets,” Simon discovers one more massive piece of the puzzle in the final scenes of Run Away.

While talking to Paige, who’s home from rehab, he tells her how he learned that Aaron was not his daughter’s boyfriend but her half-brother. It turns out that Ingrid had given birth to a son while she was in a cult called Shining Haven, and that, though she had been told he was stillborn, he really had been given up for adoption.

Ingrid escaped the cult after giving birth and went to rehab. Paige begs her father not to tell Ingrid that he knows the truth — and the series ends with the family sitting around the dinner table, seemingly ready to move on.

But whether Simon will be able to keep this new information to himself, only time will tell.

“Right at the very end, I look down the lens as if to say, ‘What do I do now?’ ” Nesbitt told Tudum in January 2026. “I like that ambiguity because it isn’t all a happy ending. How could it be?”