"We lost our parents when we were young. A neighbor took us in after that. Mrs. Hursh was really good to us. She was a music teacher. That's when Laura learned how to play. She started with the piano and then moved to the violin. She was a natural. I had zero talent. But then the county caught up to us being on our own and we got split up for three years. It was the longest three years of my life."

"How old were you?"

"Fourteen. After high school, we managed to find our way back to each other. Laura got a scholarship to NYU to study music, and she told me to come with her. I could sleep in her dorm room and go to community college, get a job."

"So, you were in New York," I said, another piece of the puzzle falling into place.

"It was probably the worst place we could have gone. More trouble found us, and we had to scramble to survive."

"Did that trouble involve a robbery and the death of a security guard?"

Rachel started at my question, her gaze narrowing on mine. "Why would you ask me that?"

"Because Mom was sending cash to the guard's family for a long time. They didn't know why, but I think it's because she had something to do with that robbery."

Rachel shook her head. "That's not true, Brynn. Your mother didn't have anything to do with that."

"Then why would she have been secretly sending money to the security guard's widow and child?"

"She met the widow and the little boy at a community center where she was performing. She heard their story and thought it was incredibly sad. When she had some extra cash, she decided to help them."

"Really? That’s the connection?"

"Yes."

I wasn't sure I bought her story, but I needed to know more. "Getting back to New York, when did you leave the city?"

"After Laura graduated from college. We decided it was time to start over somewhere new."

"Why? What happened?" As she hesitated, I added, "My father told me yesterday that he isn't my biological father, that when he met my mom, she had two kids who were three months old at the time. My mom said she had me when she was twenty-two, so that seems pretty close to the time she'd be graduating from college and living in New York."

"She was living in LA when you and Dani were born," Rachel said.

"Were you with her?"

"For some of the time, but not when she met your father. I remember how happy she was when she called to tell me about him. She said she was making a new family, and I was really happy for her."