The House On Sugar Plum Lane. Judy Duarte

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      To the Ellie Ruckers in my life:

       Emily Astleford, Emelie Johnston,

       Betty Lou Astleford, and Ethel Dunlop.

       Your love and prayers for me over the years

       have been a real blessing.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      A Reading Group Guide

      Discussion Questions

      Chapter 1

      The vintage Victorian house, with its dingy gray walls and faded white shutters, stood as a battered monument to days gone by, to family secrets silenced by the passage of time.

      Which meant what? Amy Masterson asked herself as she sat curbside in her idling Honda Civic and studied the three-story structure where her mother’s biological family had once lived. That her search began and ended here?

      She shut off the ignition, grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, and climbed from the car. Then she headed toward a cracked concrete walkway littered with leaves from a massive old elm that grew in the front yard.

      A FOR SALE OR LEASE sign sat by a weathered picket fence, but she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to invest in a home like this. Not unless it was a crew of handymen with more time than they knew what to do with.

      She paused long enough to note the neglected structure that loomed before her, its windows shuttered tight from the ravages of wind and rain and sun. She did her best to look beyond the chipped, cracked, and faded gray paint of the shingled exterior, as well as the once-white gingerbread trim now yellowed with age, and tried to imagine what the house had looked like in the fall of 1966, when her mother had been given up for adoption as a newborn.

      But Amy had always been more practical than her mom, more realistic, so she wasn’t having much luck looking past the neglect. In fact, any imagination she’d been able to conjure gave way to an eerie and inexplicable sense of grief.

      Not just for the house, she decided, but for the family who’d never known the baby girl who’d grown up to be a loving wife and mother, a talented pianist, and an amateur artist who’d died before her time.

      Amy continued up the sidewalk, where the smell of dirt and decay mingled with a hint of rain in the autumn air.

      Several old newspapers lay water damaged and unopened on the porch, but she stepped over them as she made her way past a well-worn wicker chair to one of the narrow windows that flanked the front door. There she cupped her eyes and peered through the dust-and grime-shrouded glass.

      There wasn’t much to see on the inside, just an umbrella stand and an antique table with several photographs resting on a crocheted doily.

      From what she’d gathered in her research, Eleanor Rucker, who had to be well into her eighties now, still owned the place. But she certainly wasn’t living here any longer.

      Had she died, taking the secrets of the past with her?

      Amy pushed away from the window and straightened. She’d come too far to turn around and go back home to Del Mar without any more answers than she’d had when she started out that afternoon.

      But now what?

      As she walked across the lawn and along the side of the house, the overgrown blades of grass tickled her ankles. The plants and shrubs that grew along the property line were as shaggy and neglected as the rest of the landscaping.

      She rounded the corner to the back of the house, unsure of what she was trying to find. A clue, she supposed, as to why her mother had been given up for adoption. And maybe, in the process, she’d get a feel for the kind of people the Ruckers were—or had been.

      Warm and friendly? Cold and withdrawn?

      Her gaze fell on an overgrown rose garden at the back of the yard, withered and dying. It must have been pretty in its day, when whoever had lovingly tended it by pruning and fertilizing the plants had taken time to sit upon the wrought-iron bench that rested under the shade of a maple, to feel the warmth of the sun, to inhale the fragrance of the colorful flowers.

      On one rather large and unruly bush, a single yellow rose still bloomed, providing a hint of what the garden could produce with a little TLC. Mindful of the thorns, she plucked the flower, its stem scrawny and easily torn away from the branch, to take back to her house and put in water. Something told her the gardener wouldn’t mind.

      Then she turned her back on the deserted rosebushes and made her way toward what she guessed might be the kitchen window.

      At five feet four, she wasn’t tall enough to see inside, so she searched the grounds until she found something on which she could stand.

      Near a gardening shed, which was even more dilapidated than the house, she spotted an old wooden crate. She carried it back to the window, turned it upside down, then used it as a step so she could peer through the glass.

      An olive green refrigerator and a bulky old white stove, the kind June Cleaver might have used, took up one wall, while a small wooden table and four chairs adorned the other.

      A teddy bear cookie jar sat on the counter, and she couldn’t help wondering if it had ever been filled. If so, what kind of treats had Mrs. Rucker made to keep in it? Homemade oatmeal or chocolate chip? Maybe she only purchased the packaged kind sold in grocery stores.

      Susan, Amy’s mother, had what she’d called “an incurable sweet tooth” and had always favored snickerdoodles. For that reason, Amy had surprised her with a homemade batch of the sugar-and cinnamon-covered cookies just a couple of weeks before she died.

      “They’re wonderful,” her mom had said. “Thanks, honey.” Yet because of the havoc the cancer and chemo had wreaked on her appetite, she’d only managed to eat a couple of bites.

      Odd how that particular memory would cross her mind now, Amy thought, as she returned to the front yard, where she glanced again at the Realtor’s sign: FOR SALE OR LEASE.

      She owned a townhome in Del Mar, which was part of the pending divorce settlement, so she certainly didn’t want to buy or rent another place. But perhaps she could feign interest in order to