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“What was that like?”
“Peaceful. No one knowing who I was. No one knowing all the bad things that happened to me.”
“Sounds more like being a fugitive,” Jeff says.
“I guess,” Sam replies. “Only I didn’t do anything wrong, remember.”
“So why hide?”
“Why not?”
When Jeff can’t think of a good response, silence ensues, broken occasionally by the sound of cutlery scraping against plates. It makes me nervous, and before I know it, my wineglass is empty. I refill it before offering more to the others.
“Sam? Refill?”
She seems to intuit my nervousness and smiles to put me at ease. “Sure,” she says, gulping down the rest of the wine in her glass just so I can pour more into it.
I turn to Jeff. “More wine?”
“I’m good,” he tells me. To Sam, he says, “And where have you been living these days?”
“Here and there.”
The same answer she had given me. One that doesn’t satisfy Jeff. He lowers his fork to give Sam a cross-examination stare.
“Where, exactly?”
“No place you would have heard of,” Sam says.
“I’ve heard of all fifty states.” Jeff flashes a friendly smile. “I can even recite most of their capitals.”
“I think Sam wants to keep it a secret,” I say. “In case she wants to return there and live in anonymity.”
Across the table, Sam gives me a grateful nod. I’m looking out for her. Just like she said we should do. Even if, in this case at least, I’m just as curious as Jeff.
“I’m sure she’ll tell us eventually,” I add. “Right, Sam?”
“Maybe.” The hardness in Sam’s voice makes it clear there’ll be no maybe. Yet she tries to sandpaper her tone by adding a joke. “It depends on how good dessert is.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Jeff says. “What matters is that the two of you finally got the chance to connect. I know it means a lot to Quinn. She was really broken up about what happened with Lisa.”
“Me too,” Sam says. “As soon as I heard about it, I decided to come here and finally talk to her.”
Jeff tilts his head. With his shaggy hair and big, brown eyes he looks like a spaniel faced with a bone. Hungry and alert. “So you knew Quinn was in New York?”
“Over the years, I kept tabs on both her and Lisa.”
“Interesting. For what reason?”
“Curiosity, I suppose. I liked knowing they were doing okay. Or at least thinking they were.”
Jeff nods, looks down at his plate, pushes the linguini from one side to the other with his fork. Eventually, he says, “Is this your first time in Manhattan?”
“No. I’ve been here a few times before.”
“When was your last visit?”
“Decades ago,” Sam says. “When I was a kid.”