Auntie Wang sounded breathless when she answered. “This is much more complicated than I can tell you on the phone. I spoke to Carmen Crowe. She’s the right age, and though she’s aged not so gracefully, I can tell she’s the one in the photo with your mother. I told her all about you.”

Quinn’s heart was beating fast. “So now what?”

“She was very resistant at first. I thought she was going to shut me down. But she finally said it was time to talk. I think this is it, Quinn. She wants to meet with you today. Just you, though,” Auntie Wang said. “She said she’ll take you to someone who will give you the answers you need.”

Immediately, Quinn knew Maggie wouldn’t go for that. But her gut told Quinn that Wang was onto something. This might be the lead she was looking for. She felt more excited about it than she had even about this so-called connection who hadn’t shown up. This woman—this Carmen Crowe—had known her mother back in the day. They looked very close in the photo. And if that was the case, then she had to know something about Quinn—and her birth father too.

“Call her back and tell her that I’m not coming alone. I’ll have my best friend, Maggie, with me. If she doesn’t like that, then she can hold on to her secrets.”

Of course Quinn didn’t mean that, but she could bluff as well as the next person. And she wasn’t going anywhere without Maggie.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Auntie Wang said. “You be here at half past five. I told her to pick you up from my house.”

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Only minutes after Quinn and Maggie arrived at Auntie Wang’s house, Carmen Crowe arrived in an extended cab pickup truck. After quick introductions and an awkward pause, they were on their way.

“It’s not my story to tell,” was the only thing Carmen would say when Quinn and Maggie peppered her with questions before they’d gotten in the truck and after, on the way up the road to Hana.

“I find it totally ridiculous that you know something and won’t give us some insight on what Quinn is about to face,” Maggie said from the back seat.

“It’s fine,” Quinn said. “Let’s just get there, and then we’ll sort it out.”

Carmen gave her a grateful look, then thankfully put her eyes back on the road. The road winding through the Upcountry was just as dangerous as Quinn remembered from when she and Liam had taken it.

And the woman wasn’t the best driver. She drove with both hands on the wheel, leaning forward as though she could barely see the road. A few times she pulled over to let someone go around her, refusing to pick up speed.