In the driveway he saw only Pop's truck and the rusty hulk of Mom's station wagon. Pop must have taken the car with Samantha. He would be pissed if he found out Joseph had taken the truck, but there wasn't time to wait for Pop. He found Pop's spare keys in the toolbox under the kitchen sink and then hurried outside to start the truck. He backed out of the driveway and turned onto the road towards Seabrooke.
When he passed the welcome sign, he checked to make sure Sheriff McCovey wasn't anywhere in sight to bust him. The last thing he needed right now was to get detained by the cops and have to explain why he'd taken the truck. Then Pop would find out and ground him, forcing him to sleep in one of the guest rooms to cut him off from his equipment. He couldn't afford those kinds of delays now.
As he passed by Designs by Suzie, he slowed to get a look at a redheaded boy arguing with a fat girl. Joseph remembered owning a Spider-Man shirt like the one the boy wore. He'd worn it every day during the summer when he was ten after Pop let Mrs. Schulman take Joseph to see Spider-Man 2 in Ellsworth. As for the fat girl, he could have sworn Mom had worn a turquoise dress like that in a picture taken from when she was pregnant with him. These kids must be Samantha's cousins. He was tempted to pull over and ask about her, but he didn't want to reveal his intentions.
Instead, he accelerated down to the corner, finding an empty parking spot behind Grossman's Pet Store. He looked around again to make sure no one noticed he'd driven the truck into town. He nearly fell out when he saw her in the mirror.
Samantha sat across the street at a table of Barb's Grill. Even with her face covered by her hands there was no mistaking that bronze skin of hers in a town like Seabrooke. He wanted to race across the street to ask her what the problem was, but he couldn't take the chance of making a fool of himself again. He watched her for a few minutes in the rearview mirror, until Barb the owner of the café came out to shoo Samantha away. Joseph ducked in the driver's seat, his entire body shivering.
Minutes went by without anyone knocking on the door or window. Joseph finally got the courage to sit up and look out the rearview mirror. Samantha was gone. He sighed with relief and then opened the door. He considered looking for her to make sure she was all right, but told himself not until his experiment was complete.