Cooper Mall

Episode 4, Born to Run.

Greg Costa spent 10 years chasing Margot Freshwater, trying to stitch together the three decades she lived in hiding.

He had scraps, paperwork, old applications, secondhand memories, pieces of a life, but never the full picture.

Yet he kept looking.

And finally, the trail led him right up to her front door.

And up until now, you've mostly heard about that search.

You're probably wondering what Tanya was doing all those years.

I was too.

Before we get to that, I think we need to sit with what makes Tanya's story unusual.

In most people's lives, 30 years go by collecting the small, ordinary moments that make up a life.

You fall in love.

You have kids.

You struggle with bills.

You change jobs.

You suffer losses.

You celebrate the wins.

It is the slow, uneven rhythm of becoming a person.

Tanya lived all that too, but she lived it with a secret that sat right behind her rib cage.

She lived three decades of milestones knowing her past could find her at any second.

To survive it, Tanya ended up making a set of principles for herself, some rules to live by.