True to Me - Kay Bratt Page 0,55

didn’t need a distraction. That Maggie would want to make a long visit out of it, and Quinn wasn’t in a state to entertain. At the time, she’d felt he was right.

It wasn’t fair to Maggie, though. Quinn knew her best friend would’ve been comforting. Not demanding.

Quinn sat up and swung her legs over the bed. She picked up her phone and found Maggie’s number.

When she pressed it, she prayed that Maggie was still as forgiving as she’d been back in the day. Every spat they’d ever had was short-lived; Maggie’s personality was one that didn’t hold grudges.

It rang only once, and then a voice came on telling Quinn the number had been disconnected.

Damn. She needed to talk to someone. And if it couldn’t be her mother, then she wanted it to be Maggie.

Maggie had always known what to say. What to do. While Quinn tended to slink into the corners around others, Maggie was the exact opposite and was never afraid to be outspoken or take a stand for them both. Maggie was their mouthpiece, if Quinn really wanted to be honest with herself.

She went to her laptop and brought it to the bed. She pulled up Maggie’s email address and wrote a quick message telling her to please call as soon as possible, that the last number she had was disconnected.

The whoosh from hitting “Send” was followed up immediately by a chime that signified a new email. It was the message to Maggie, rejected as undeliverable.

What was going on? Maggie had changed her phone number and her email address?

Now that was strange.

Quinn stood and went to her bag. She dug through a side pocket until she found her address book, then returned to her cross-legged position, the laptop beside her.

The address book had been through many years and was barely staying together. Quinn was never without it. You never knew when your phone might get stolen, or you might lose it and have no way to contact anyone. You might even lose your laptop at the same time. Then what would you do?

Her address book was her next lifeline.

But because Quinn didn’t have any family other than her mom, and barely any friends from the past, her book was mostly full of professional contacts, with just a few acquaintances scattered in. And passwords. Many, many passwords.

Quinn flipped through the pages.

There was Lea from the hotel in Houston. They’d gone for drinks once. And Rosalind, their social media manager for the hotel. Quinn had thought they were friends for a while, until she kept seeing girls’ night out pics on Instagram and realized she was never invited.

She kept going past a few more pages as she looked for a name that might sound comforting to her.

None did, until she got to the Ds.

Dalton.

Grace Dalton, to be exact. Maggie’s mom.

She figured it was as good a time to call as any. It rang once. Then twice.

“Hello?”

It was Grace. Quinn would recognize her voice no matter how many years went by.

“Hi, Mrs. Dalton. It’s Quinn,” she said.

There was a pause.

“Quinn? Quinn Maguire?”

Well, how many Quinns did the woman know?

She always was a bit foggy. In an endearing way.

“Yes, it’s me. Quinn Maguire. How are you?”

“Oh, honey, I’m fine. Other than the arthritis in my hips that is keeping me down. I don’t venture too far from home now. How are you?”

“I’m—well, I’m okay. Listen, I’m trying to get ahold of Maggie, but the number I have has been disconnected. And I tried email, but that didn’t work either.” Quinn tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. Now that she was talking to Grace, the memories were flooding in, and she wanted to talk to Maggie more than anything she’d wanted in a long time.

Grace hesitated again before replying.

“Quinn, I can’t give you her number,” she said, her voice sad.

Quinn felt stunned for a moment. Maybe Maggie knew about her mother dying and was angry at her?

“Oh, well . . . okay, I guess,” she replied. She wasn’t sure how to ask why without inspiring the woman to say something that might put Quinn in an even worse emotional place than she currently was. “Can you tell her I called?”

“Of course,” Grace said. “It’s not you, Quinn. It’s, well . . . it’s everyone. She doesn’t want anyone to have her information.”

Now that was weird. What was going on with Maggie?

“Is something wrong, Grace?” Quinn couldn’t not ask. And in her worry, she forgot to address her respectfully.

“I’ll tell her