Quinn thought of her inheritance and now knew how her mother had accumulated such wealth and hidden it for so long. It must’ve been Helen’s money, invested from the time Quinn was a small child.

“I don’t think she used much of it,” Quinn said.

Carmen said they tried with all they had to find Beth and Nama. Carmen even went to Beth’s family. She didn’t tell them their daughter had Nama, just said she needed to get in touch, but they claimed they hadn’t heard from her. Her mother had the letter that Beth had left them, saying she was going out to make her own way, and then nothing else. Her father said he hoped she never came back, that she was just a drain on his bank account.

Helen hired investigator after investigator, but they couldn’t find any trails leading to Beth or Nama.

“Obviously, since now we know you’ve been in school and work, and even have a driver’s license, she did away with the documents that Helen provided her and arranged for new birth certificates and social security numbers,” Carmen said. “So she definitely used some of the money.”

“But when Beth wouldn’t bring her back, why didn’t Helen tell Jules her daughter was still alive?” Maggie asked Carmen right before they arrived at Maria’s house. “She could’ve at least given her that.”

“Yes,” Quinn added, still unable to connect with Jules as her mother but feeling pity for the woman anyway. “Why make Jules suffer even more?”

“Because unless Helen could deliver Nama back to Jules, her daughter would hate her forever. She’d helped her disappear and now was nowhere to be found. It was better to let her think the girl drowned. Not only that, but I was complicit. I had found the girl—you, I had found you!—and I tried to end the battle with the Rocha family, only to become part of something that could get me thrown in prison forever. Helen thought her family had done enough damage to ours without adding more to it. She was also convinced that the curse was the reason we couldn’t get to you, and it was stronger than our will to find you.”

“You were afraid of involving the authorities,” Maggie said. “Of going to prison.”

“I was more afraid I’d never see you alive again,” Carmen said, taking her eyes off the road to look at Quinn.

“Please don’t. That girl isn’t me. She was Nama,” Quinn said. She felt as though she were awake in a dream—or some sort of nightmare. She wondered about Jules, the woman who was her first mother, and felt a small rush of guilt that she didn’t feel any sort of longing to see her or know her.

“Maybe they should take a DNA test,” Maggie said. “What if Quinn isn’t even Nama?”