The House On Sugar Plum Lane. Judy Duarte

      When Ronald Paige, the listing agent, answered the phone, she introduced herself and said, “I was driving on Sugar Plum Lane and spotted your sign in front of an old Victorian. Is there any chance that I could take a look at it now?”

      “Sure, but I’m clear across town. At this time of day, it could take me a half hour to get there. Do you mind waiting?”

      “Not at all.” Her mother had waited for years to uncover clues about the woman who’d given her up. What were a few minutes now?

      In the meantime, she returned to the front porch and took a seat in the old wicker chair, which creaked in protest of her unexpected weight. She’d no more than stretched out her legs and placed her hands on her knees when a boy riding a bicycle slowed to a stop near the walkway. He wore a green T-shirt with a Star Wars stormtrooper on the front and a pair of faded black jeans. She guessed him to be about ten or eleven.

      “Are you going to move into this house?” he asked.

      Oh, no, she wanted to tell him. She owned a nice little two-bedroom townhome with an ocean view, a place where the homeowners association made sure the grounds were parklike and the buildings stayed in good repair.

      Instead, she said, “I’m thinking about it.”

      “You got kids?” he asked.

      “A little girl. Her name’s Callie, and she’s five.”

      “Oh.” His expression sank, as though a girl in kindergarten didn’t come close to being the kind of kid he’d been asking about.

      Still, she welcomed a human connection to the house, to the neighborhood, and said, “My name’s Amy. What’s yours?”

      “Danny.” He nodded toward the blue Victorian next door. While not one of the newly refurbished homes on the street, it was still in much better shape than Mrs. Rucker’s. “I live over there.”

      She nodded, as though he’d imparted some information she’d have to file away.

      “Do you know anything about the people who used to live here?” she asked.

      “Yeah.”

      When he didn’t elaborate, she prodded a bit. “Were they nice?”

      “It was a she. And yeah, she was really nice. But she went kind of crazy.”

      That wasn’t a good sign—genetically speaking. “What do you mean?”

      “She got old.” He shrugged and threw up his hands in a you-know-how-it-is way.

      Was he talking about Alzheimer’s or dementia or something else?

      “It’s like her brain wore out and quit working,” he added. “One day, she came over to our house at lunchtime, but she was still wearing her nightgown, and it was all dirty and torn. She hadn’t combed her hair, and it had stickers and leaves and stuff in it. We think she was down on the Bushman Trail.”

      Amy didn’t question his use of the word “we.” Instead, she asked, “The Bushman Trail?”

      He nodded to the left again, toward his house and beyond. “That’s what me and my friends call the canyon over there. It runs between our houses and the park.”

      She imagined he was talking about a common area, a preserve of some kind, and a place where the neighborhood children hung out and played.

      “Ellie was all crying and scared. And so my mom called the police.”

      Amy stiffened. “What happened to her?”

      “She said her house was surrounded by hippies. And that they were piping marijuana smoke into her vents, trying to get her hooked on drugs.”

      “Was someone bothering her?”

      The boy—Danny—shook his head. “Nope. The police checked it out, but they didn’t find anything wrong. And they didn’t think anyone had hurt her. But they took her to the hospital. And that’s why she doesn’t live in this house anymore. She can’t be left alone.”

      Poor woman.

      “Well,” the boy said, “I gotta go.”

      Amy offered him a smile. “It was nice meeting you, Danny.”

      “Yeah. Same here.”

      Then he pedaled down the street.

      Amy settled back in her seat and waited. About twenty minutes later, a white Ford Explorer drove up and parked behind her Honda. The driver, a tall, slender man in his late forties, climbed out and made his way toward her.

      “Ms. Masterson?” he asked, reaching out a spindly hand. “Ron Paige.”

      “Call me Amy,” she said, trying to shed any association with Brandon. Then she placed the rose on the dusty, glass-topped wicker table next to her, stood, and closed the gap between them. “Thanks for making time to show me the house.”

      “No problem.” He led her to the front door, where he fumbled with the lockbox. “I hope you can overlook the yard. I just got this listing last Monday and had planned to hire a landscaping crew to come out and clean it up. But, well, my wife and I had a baby a couple of days later, which set me back at work.”

      “Congratulations,” she said.

      “Yeah, well, it’s number three for us. So it’s not that big a deal.”

      Her heart tightened at the comment. She knew how hard Grandma Rossi had tried to have a child of her own, how crushed she’d been with each miscarriage, how blessed she’d felt when she’d finally adopted Amy’s mom, Susan. Babies had always been considered special in the Rossi family.

      In fact, that was one reason it had been difficult for Amy to understand why her mom would be so desperate to find her biological family, when the people who’d raised her had been so kind, so loving.

      “I can’t explain it,” her mom had said when she began the search. “The urge I have to find them—not just my birth mother, but the family—is almost overwhelming.”

      Amy hadn’t understood her mom’s quest back then, but she felt compelled to honor it now—as a tribute, she supposed.

      “Here we go,” Ron said as he opened the door and stood back to let Amy enter first.

      When she stepped through the threshold and onto the hardwood flooring, the scent of dust and memories accosted her, as well as the hint of herbs and spice.

      For a moment, she took another whiff, trying to detect a scent that could be marijuana, which she’d had more than one occasion to smell in the dorm hallway when she’d attended Cal State. She came up blank, though, and was almost disappointed that she couldn’t give Mrs. Rucker’s story a little more credibility.

      “Are you interested in a purchase?” Ron asked. “If so, I’m sure we can have it emptied for you by the time escrow closes.”

      Emptied?

      Amy scanned the living room, where a brown tweed sofa was flanked by two plants that had died from lack of water. She spotted a fairly new television, an antique piano that took up the east wall, a hand-carved fireplace mantel that bore family photos, and a beige recliner.

      A worn leather Bible sat on a lamp table, next to a china cup and saucer. She couldn’t help noticing a slight stain in the cup that had once held a brown liquid, and she wondered if it had been coffee or tea. Not that it mattered.

      Still, Mrs. Rucker had left some of herself behind, and Amy found herself curious about the woman’s preferences, by the things she’d chosen for comfort.

      As the Realtor continued to give her a tour of the house, both upstairs and down, Amy felt compelled to spend more time in each of the rooms than was appropriate, even if she’d truly been in the market for a house.

      For the strangest reason, she’d been