CHAPTER 430: CHAPTER 430: NEIGHBOR

This is an ordinary residential area, so ordinary that it can even be considered poor.

Cameron Grant was originally handling business at the studio with Sharon Shaw. As soon as he got out of the car, he saw Quinn Lockwood park her car at the entrance. Before he could approach her, Quinn left again.

Cameron initially thought she must be planning on going home to rest and not going to the office, but he noticed her direction was neither toward the Sinclair Family’s residence nor the Lowell Family’s.

Out of concern for Quinn, Cameron hesitated but ultimately decided to follow her. He promised himself that if she weren’t in any danger, he would immediately leave, without invading her privacy.

But given the current situation, Cameron naturally couldn’t just leave.

He couldn’t understand why Quinn would come to such a place, or why she would walk into an old house that had been burnt to ruins.

This wasn’t like Savannah Lowell at all.

In the past, Savannah Lowell had detested places associated with poverty and avoided interacting with the poor. Cameron racked his brain but couldn’t figure out how Quinn knew about such a little place.

This was a place she shouldn’t have been able to encounter.

Or perhaps it was a location needed for her filming? Cameron considered this, and his face, filled with deep skepticism, calmed slightly.

He had just lifted his leg with the intent to approach and greet Quinn when he saw her jogging after a medium-built middle-aged woman.

"Aunt Willow, is that you?" Quinn followed behind Aunt Willow, looking as if she had seen someone she had longed to meet, her eyes radiating both fragility and brilliance.

Aunt Willow stopped in front of her house, about to take out her keys to open the door, when she heard someone calling her. The voice was unfamiliar, one she had never heard before.

"Hello, do you... know me?" Aunt Willow turned around, mildly surprised at the sight of Quinn.

It was a face she had never seen before.

Aunt Willow scrutinized Quinn, noting her expensive outfit, and merely standing there she exuded a noble aura of an upper-class individual. This only heightened Aunt Willow’s confusion, further cementing that she didn’t know this girl at all.

"Oh, I know you. I-I was a classmate of Quinn Lockwood. A long time ago, when I came looking for her, I saw you once. She told me you were Aunt Willow." Quinn, overwhelmed by the agitation of meeting her former neighbor, momentarily forgot she had a new body and blurted out Aunt Willow’s name.

Fortunately, she had prepared such an excuse for unforeseen circumstances where she might slip up, otherwise, she might be mistaken for a real estate scam agent or something similar.

Upon hearing this, Aunt Willow’s dubious expression finally dissolved. She looked at Quinn with a polite smile, then sighed deeply.

"You were Quinn’s classmate, how nice."

"Seeing you is like seeing Quinn. She’d be around your age, with similarly round eyes and long eyelashes, very beautiful." Aunt Willow observed ’Savannah’, increasingly feeling her resemblance to Quinn, not just in clear and charming looks but more in the aura they exuded.

Quinn’s hands tightened at her side, her teeth biting down on her lip to control the emotion threatening to burst forth.

"Quinn, she... it’s been so long, and you’re the first to come see her. You must have been close at school, right?" Aunt Willow glanced at the ruins not far away, her eyes dimming as painful memories surfaced.

Quinn swallowed hard, then nodded. Her voice was mildly choked, but it wasn’t very apparent: "She was my... best friend, I miss her greatly."

"Good child." Aunt Willow lovingly touched Quinn’s hair, the gesture tender and indulgent as if truly mistaking the stranger before her for Quinn.

"Truly, the heavens didn’t recognize her worth; Quinn was such a good child. At such a youthful, blossoming age and yet... such an accident occurred. You don’t know how big the fire was that night, how by the time someone noticed the fire at their house, the whole building had been engulfed. The rescue team struggled but couldn’t get in... "

Aunt Willow spoke as her eyes reddened.

Quinn was a child she had watched grow up. She was adorable and sensible. Aunt Willow never had children and almost regarded Quinn as her own daughter.

"Aunt Willow..." Tears welled faintly in Quinn’s eyes, and her voice broke completely. She raised her hand to hug Aunt Willow before suddenly remembering something, letting her hand fall in desolation.

Beyond endless sorrow, Quinn’s eyes also flickered with seething hatred.

Logic dictated that from ignition to blaze would take some time. Their house wasn’t particularly secluded; beside Aunt Willow’s home, there were two other neighbors. It was implausible that no one noticed something was amiss during the fire.

Quinn’s hand at her side clenched tightly, fingernails digging into her flesh, leaving bloody marks unnoticed by her.

Of course, people wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong.

Because Ariana Lynch hadn’t left room for the fire to ignite slowly; every corner of their yard had been drenched in gasoline!

It only needed the tiniest spark to ignite.

"I’m okay, just a bit reminiscent of Quinn and Ysanne, her sister." Aunt Willow lowered her gaze, gently wiping away tears from the corners of her eyes.

"Ysanne was also someone afflicted by fate. As a helpless woman, she’d raised Quinn alone, and just when she should have been enjoying life, instead... "

"Alas, let’s not talk about these sad topics." Aunt Willow waved her hand, her emotion evidently overcome by sorrow to an unbearable degree.

Regarding the Lockwood family’s affairs, she rarely mentioned them. Not that Aunt Willow didn’t wish to reminisce, but because each recollection left her heart feeling achingly hollow.

Such an innocent, adorable child; such a gentle, kind woman—how had they ended up with no remains at all?

Cameron Grant stood beneath an elm tree not far from Quinn, witnessing the entire conversation and her peculiar reactions.

While he felt regret and pity for the deceased Quinn, Cameron was also especially puzzled.

"Child, come in and sit with me at Aunt Willow’s. I just got back from the market with some groceries; if you don’t mind, stay and have a meal with me." Aunt Willow shook the basket of groceries she held toward Quinn.