Run Away ending explained: Aaron's shock killer revealed, what really happened to missing Paige and mind-blowing twist broken down
The twists just kept on coming!
Run Away is the latest in a long and brilliant line of Harlan Coben adaptations for Netflix, and the ending for the latest eight-parter definitely didn’t disappoint.
Fans of the best-selling crime writer will already know that he is the master of suspense and king of the unexpected twists. Just as you think the story is going in one direction, another shock keeps you guessing until the final credits.
Run Away focused on Simon Greene (James Nesbitt), the man who looked like he had it all. But when his daughter, Paige (Ellie de Lange), met a down-and-out boyfriend, Aaron (Thomas Flynn), who got her hooked on drugs, Simon’s worst nightmare became a reality when Paige went missing.
After months of searching for his daughter, a shocking sequence of events, including Aaron winding up murdered, led Simon to unearth bigger secrets than he could have ever imagined. From dark underground gang crime to a shocking spate of murders that had an unbelievable connection, Run Away had every element of a good crime drama ticked off the list.
But who killed Aaron? Where was Paige while she was missing? What is The Beacon of the Shining Truth? And how are all these things connected?
Here is everything you need to know as we unpack the Run Away ending…
*** Warning – spoilers for all eight episodes of Run Away below***
Run Away ending: Who killed Aaron Corval?
When Paige’s boyfriend Aaron wound up dead at the start of the series, it initially looked like a gang-related crime. Firstly, because of the way he’d had his throat cut and fingers removed, but also because he was a renowned drug user and worked for the local gang leader.
The question of who killed Aaron ran throughout the entire series. And as he wasn’t a man short of a few enemies, the list of suspects just kept on growing.
While gang crime was the first assumption, we then saw his neighbour, Cornelius, removing the murder weapon from the scene of the crime. Seeing him disposing of the knife in the local canal put him firmly in the frame. But only for a while.
Next, we were led to believe that Paige killed Aaron after he beat her black and blue. But although we saw her running away from Aaron’s flat covered in blood, this was just another red herring. It turned out she had just found Aaron already dead and had run away in fear.
Throughout the series, we also saw two hired killers, Ash and Dee Dee. They were working their way through a list of men given to them by Casper Vartage, a cult leader at The Beacon of the Shining Truth.
Aaron was also on their hit list, and although at the end of the series the police assumed Ash and Dee Dee had killed Aaron as part of their mission, that wasn’t the case. In fact, Aaron was the only doomed character in the series who didn’t get murdered by the hired killers.
The true killer revealed
At the end of the series, Simon begged Paige to reveal the truth about what really happened the night Aaron was killed.
She tried to lie that she killed him, but Simon saw through her fibs, and it turned out that Ingrid Greene, Simon’s wife and Paige’s mother, had killed Aaron. Ingrid knew that Ash was pulling Paige deeper into her addiction, and with him still alive, Paige would never have the chance to get clean.
Why did Ingrid kill Aaron?
When Paige came to her mum after Aaron attacked her, Ingrid knew she had to take drastic action if her daughter was ever going to turn her life around.
She told Paige to go back to rehab and focus on her recovery. She also told her to stay away from Aaron’s flat.
Ingrid then got her colleague and friend, Jay, to provide her with an alibi, and she snuck out of work and went to Aaron’s flat. She then made the murder look like it was gang-related after reading an article about it in the paper.
After the grisly deed, Ingrid went back to work. But what she wasn’t counting on was the fact that local gang member, Luther, saw her leave Aaron’s flat.
Run Away ending: Where was Paige when she went missing?
Paige had been in rehab for the majority of the time Simon and the police had been looking for her.
At the end of the series, Simon was shocked to find Paige at Ingrid’s hospital bedside. As he wrapped Paige in his arms, he noted how well she looked, and she revealed she had been in rehab and that Ingrid was the one who took her there.
Simon was shocked that his wife had known where Paige was the entire time, but Paige told her dad that she had made her mum promise not to tell anyone.
Relieved that Paige was okay, Simon apologised to his daughter for ever being judgmental or disapproving, and they made up. He agreed to take her back to rehab, but there was another shock coming his way. Paige admitted that Ingrid knew the rehab centre was good because she had been there herself when she was younger.
What was The Beacon of the Shining Truth?
The Beacon of the Shining Truth was a cult, led by The One, whose real name was Casper Vartage.
Casper was an abusive and controlling leader who was holding people against their will at Shining Haven. He had brainwashed men and women into giving all their money to the cult in exchange for living at the compound.
Hired killer, Dee Dee, was a member of the strange religion and believed it was her duty to follow Casper’s orders and kill people.
In the Run Away ending, the police discovered numerous people being held against their will. Some were even confined in huge storage containers as a form of ‘solitary confinement’.
At Shining Haven, everyone had been given a new name, cutting them off from any connection to their old life in the outside world.
Run Away ending: How was the spate of murders all connected?
As well as Ingrid and Simon’s search for their missing daughter, Run Away also centred around a spate of murders. Hired killers Dee Dee and Ash received a list of men to kill from cult leader Casper Vartage.
Casper knew he was dying and so his two sons, The Visitor and The Volunteer, would inherit his ill-gotten millions and carry on his work at The Shining Truth.
The only issue was, Casper had slept with many women at the cult, most against their will, and fathered many children.
Read more: All the stunning Run Away filming locations for Netflix series
In the cult, they believed male blood was superior, so Casper’s many daughters couldn’t inherit his fortune. Over the years, Casper illegally had 14 of his sons adopted, telling the mothers their babies were stillborn. A woman called Alison covered up the paperwork at the adoption agency she worked for. The men were none the wiser that they’d been born in a cult.
Fast forward many years, and Casper, trying to protect his cult and fortune, paid Dee Dee and Ash to kill his sons so they couldn’t lay claim to his money.
They carried out each killing differently. One looked like suicide, another resembled a robbery gone wrong. The common thread: an innocent man, punished for the identity of his biological father.
What happened to Elena Ravenscroft?
Elena (played by Gavin & Stacey’s amazing Ruth Jones) was a private investigator and very highly regarded in her work.
She was working for a very wealthy man called Sebastian Thorpe, who was trying to find his missing son, Henry. She was very good at her job and soon found her path crossing with Simon Greene when it emerged that one of the last people to contact Henry before he vanished was Paige.
It turned out Paige was talking to Henry through a DNA website, and he was a half-brother of Aaron.
Elena’s hunt for the truth led to her connecting the murders and disappearances of various males. She joined the dots and worked out that the men were all adopted.
Using her PI skills, she worked out that the men were all half-brothers. And that they had got in touch with one another through a genealogy site. However, as she got closer to uncovering The Shining Truth, she put a target on her own back.
How did Elena die?
Knowing she was about to expose the cult, Dee Dee acted fast. She posed as a friend of Alison’s girlfriend Stephanie, who Elena was trying to track down. Alison was the woman who had illegally fudged the paperwork for the illegal adoptions for Casper.
However, Elena’s hunt for the truth led her into a trap when Dee Dee promised to take her to Stephanie. Instead, Dee Dee got her in a car, took her phone away and led her into a log cabin. There, hired killer Ash was waiting. The pair shot Elena and buried her body in some woods by a lake.
In the Run Away ending, the police discovered Elena’s body, leaving everyone devastated that her work had led to her death.
Run Away ending explained: what was the shocking final twist in the series?
As always with Coben’s work, there was a huge twist at the end of the series. Just when it seemed all the loose ends were tied up, the show delivered one last bombshell.
Simon admitted to Paige that he knew Aaron wasn’t her boyfriend, but actually her half-brother. Paige was shocked when she realised her dad had worked it out. He explained that the penny dropped when he went to see her rapist, Doug Mulzer. Simon admitted that Doug had told him that when Aaron was attacking him in revenge for raping Paige, he’d shouted at him, “No one hurts my sister!”, as he’d pummelled him half to death.
Aaron being Paige’s sibling and not her boyfriend also explained why Paige was searching DNA websites. And why she was the one to track down Aaron in the first place.
Simon told his daughter that the separate mattresses at the flat had been a giveaway. Then he’d found a photo of a pregnant Ingrid from years ago. He told Paige that he’d realised that she was standing in front of The Shining Truth cult logo.
Paige admitted that she knew she had another sibling after taking a DNA test at uni and found Aaron online. She explained that she had confronted her mum about having another child. However, the cult told Ingrid that her baby was stillborn. Ingrid also told Paige that she’d escaped the cult and checked into rehab.
But this meant that Ingrid hadn’t just killed someone to save her daughter; she had unknowingly killed her own son.
Does Ingrid ever discover Aaron is her son?
Paige begged her dad not to tell Ingrid the truth about who Aaron really was. However, Simon was adamant that there weren’t to be any more secrets.
Paige pointed out that if Ingrid knew she had killed her own child, she would never get over it. This was a secret too huge to share.
The Run Away ending saw the family having dinner together. As everyone ate, Simon and Paige shared a knowing look across the table – an understanding that this was a secret that would go no further.
So, that’s that! Now discover how the Run Away TV series differs from Harlan Coben’s book – there are some key changes.
Read more: Harlan Coben series: Lazarus creator’s English-language mysteries from Safe to Missing You
