No, that couldn't happen. She was a fugitive from the FBI, wanted for three murders and he was gone. Disappeared somewhere, sometime as though falling through a bottomless pit in her memory. How could she have forgotten him? How could her mind misplace someone she had loved so much? Maybe the old folk's home in New Hampshire would give her an answer.
On the back of the brochure she found something she hadn't noticed in her hurry to escape from Hershowitz's room. Beneath the phone number, the killer had underlined three digits: 2207. That must be a room number, Samantha thought. She wants to make sure I find whoever lives there.
What kind of sick game is this? she wondered. What kind of twisted mind would do this? Samantha must have done something terrible to this woman to drive her to commit these murders.
A scenario played out in her mind. Stacey, Andre's former girlfriend, wanted to get revenge for stealing her man. But why wait over twenty years, after Samantha lost Andre? That couldn't be the solution. There must be another reason, one hidden by her faulty memory.
"We're almost there," the pilot said. The plane began to descend closer to the trees below until Samantha braced herself for the inevitable crash. The little plane skimmed over the trees and a field of black cows roaming a pasture.
Past a barn lay a strip of asphalt like the one in Indiana. The plane came down on the asphalt hard enough that Samantha had to brace herself against the instrument panel to keep from smashing into the windshield. The young pilot whooped as he brought the plane to a stop. "Well, you know what they say about landings," he said.
"What?"
"Never mind. We're here. St. John's, New Hampshire. After you get done visiting your grandma, maybe you and I could have dinner? I've got to fuel up and start back in a few hours, but I'm sure we could-"
"Sounds good. You find somewhere and I'll meet you."
"But how-"
"It's a small town. I'll find you." She kissed the pilot on the cheek and left him blushing in the cockpit. The tiny airport didn't have a rental car agency, but a farmer promised to give her a ride in his pick-up truck.
"Going up to the home?" he asked as he started the truck.
"Yes. My grandmother hasn't been feeling well. I thought maybe a visit would cheer her up," Samantha said.
"Couldn't hurt. We don't get so many visitors now that the school closed. Whereabouts you from?"
"Dallas."
"That's a long ways. You must be tired. If you're looking for a place to stay, my wife and I have a room to rent."