.

I listened uneasily to her labored breath , my hand ran up and down the skin  could touch throught he beige satin. The moment itself felt veryy right but, the fact that I was enjoying it the very idea that I felt at ease and as if we were just two normal people made it so I couldn't enjoy the moment.

"This feels wrong." I finally admitted to her. I was glad she was facing opposite me, her head resting on my shoulder, I wasn't sure how she would take it.

"What do you mean ?," she asked cautiously pulling her body off of mine and kneeling so we were eye to eye. "I like being with you."

"I know and I love being with you but, how can we just lie here when everything is going to hell out there ?," I questioned, "Shouldn't we be doing something ?  I mean if he finds us we're dead or atleast I'm dead."

Adeline reached for my forearm and made a shallow attempt to pull me out of bed.

"Come on" she said, "Follow me." 

I took her hand and we walked over to the little balcony -- the only luxury in this sorry excuse for a hotel.

"Does that look like hell to you ?" she asked pointing to outside. 

Only there was nothing to see outside the normal outside. There was nothing but the ocasional person walking probably to the grocery store or some minial job. It never ceases amazes me how oblivious people are to each other

"Listen, Sam" Adeline said, "I get that you're afraid--"

"I'm not afraid," I interjected. I was lying

"Okay, well still, I know you are concerned . . . but we can't keep thinking about him every minute of everyday. We are going to figure this thing out soon enough and we will get everyone back together and set everything back the way it should be. I know it's hard -- to try and get along in normalcy when your life is falling apart but I've done it and let me tell you it gets easier." She said, "The world is still going on out there and we still have to be apart of it"

This was th 3rd time she hinted how she  wanted to tell me about her past. I wasn't ready to here it but, I decided to take her bait.

"Tell me" I said, "About the other . .  . women."

 " There was Mildred she was a flighty teenager but, she did win the Willow Heights High Prom Queen,  and of course there is Jana, she was a nanny in Cedar Valley." She talked about them as if they were old friends or classmates and not what they really were. " There was also Sara, Joy, Diana all of them were good wives in Pineville, Cypress Point and Redwood  Isle and of course . . ." 

And then it came to me. I didn't hear the rest of what she was saying because I realized the next step in our future actually lay in her past. I had been so concerened with not wanting to know about her past that I didn't realize the signifigance it held.

"Where did you put the briefcase ?" I asked her as I headed back to the room and threw all our now useless stuff out the closet

"You can't keep looking at that thing there is nothing there," She said, "Have you been listening to a word I said lets rest for tonight and  think on this tomorrow."

" I just, realized something " I said to her as my hands landed on the persistently cold leather of the briefcase.

"All those towns you mentioned Willow Heights, Cedar Valley, Redwood Isle, Pineville, Cyprss Point, they are all named after trees." I explained

"I could have told you that . . . what does that have to do with anything ? It's probably a coincedence or another one of his things." She said.

"Yeah but, it's not just any trees it's those trees. I think I know how we can  end this crazy manhunt."

I finally found the book and stuffed it under my arm. I stood up and turned to Adeline who had been standing over me the whole time. I reached my hand around her waist and brushed my lips against hers she understood the cue and  leaned in and kissed mine.

"What do you know ?" she asked, genuinly curious. I knew she was fustrated by my inablitly to speak thoughts at the same time I got them and put them in an sensical order

"Everything we need to know, is in the forest." I said

She stared at me incherently but, then a smile crept across her face. 

She understood too.

I thought that was the beginning of a journey to the end for all of this but, it only turned out to be just another beginning.