Monarch Manor

by Maureen Leurck

  By Maureen Leurck

  Monarch Manor

  Cicada Summer

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  MONARCH MANOR

  MAUREEN LEURCK

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 2 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 3 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 4 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 5 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 6 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 7 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 8 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 9 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 10 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 11 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 12 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 13 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 14 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 15 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 16 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 17 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 18 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 19 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 20 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 21 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 22 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 23 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 24 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 25 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 26 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 27 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 28 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 29 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 30 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 31 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 32 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 33 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 34 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 35 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 36 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 37 - AMELIA

  CHAPTER 38 - ERIN

  CHAPTER 39 - AMELIA

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MONARCH MANOR

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Maureen Leurck

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1978-2

  Kensington Electronic Edition: August 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1978-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1978-6

  For Kevin and the kids

  CHAPTER 1

  AMELIA

  May 28, 1923

  Amelia felt complete when she was at Monarch Manor. She loved the butterflies that found sanctuary in the gardens, the veranda that protected the soft swish of the white wicker rocking chairs, and the summer cicadas that lulled her to sleep each night. But most of all, she loved that the estate rested on the shores of Geneva Lake. The water was a sparkling, magical beauty that pulled her near, and begged her to jump in.

  Yet that night it was much colder, and darker, than ever before.

  The black water swirled around her as she hit the surface. Her head went under first, followed by the rest of her body and her satin shoes. Her body had braced itself as she had gone over the edge of her father’s steam yacht, the Monarch Princesses, but she still felt the shock of hitting the surface. She quickly brought her head above the water, gasped, and screamed.

  “John! John!” She frantically splashed around, doing a furious twist and spin as she treaded water, her light pink satin shoes falling off and disappearing, far below the surface. Rain fell all around her, roughing up the surface of the lake, making it harder to see with the darkness of the night sky.

  “Help!” she called again for her five-year-old son, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. Her eyes scanned the surface of the water for any sign of his blond hair.

  She twisted around toward where the steam yacht still floated, and heard the distant shouts of the captain and guests still on board. The boat was strung with tiny white lights that glowed like fireflies against the water. A crack of lightning crossed the sky like a crooked branch from one of the maple trees that lined the shore, and the rain began to fall harder.

  And still, no sign of her son.

  In the distance, on the other side of the water, she could see Monarch Manor, lit up like one of the Chinese lanterns they had released into the air from the edge of the estate. The lanterns floated up into the cloudless blue sky as the wedding guests made silly wishes fueled by champagne, raspberry petit fours, and brandy.

  “For a never-ending barrel of ale and for the Chicago Cubs to win the World Championship series once again,” Randall Whittingham had said as he puffed on a cigar, which led to a chorus of laughter from the guests, dressed in their finest furs and dresses, and the most handsome tuxedoes.

  “For the bride and groom to be blessed for many years,” Amelia had said when it was her turn to release her lantern. She looked back and gave her sister Jane and her new husband, Edward, a warm smile. They lifted their champagne glasses in thanks, and the guests had collectively sighed.

  Of course, Amelia said her own silent wish—the real wish that lay in her heart, the wish that she couldn’t share with anyone. A prayer, really, more than a wish.

  Please. Please let John be safe. Tonight and forever.

  And from the dark water, she could see that the party still continued. The refreshment tent was decorated with twinkle lights and oak branches that wound around the support poles, providing cover to the guests below as they sipped their cocktails. A trail of lights connected the tent to the ice-cream station, where a white-gloved waiter handed out miniature sundaes in dishes shaped like her father’s beloved yacht.

  “John . . . John!” she weakly called into the night. All of her senses were both heightened and dulled at the same time—she could hear nothing in her ears but the rush of her own blood, but she knew if she so much as heard a whimper from him a mile away she would detect it. Her vision became a blurred sense of fairy lights peppered by the flashes of lightning, and she could smell the steam from the yacht nearby.

  It grew farther and farther away from where she thrashed on the surface as the captain unsuccessfully tried to turn such a large boat around in such a short time.

  She watched Monarch Manor and the yacht grow farther away as the waves pushed her toward the center of the lake, where the deepest water lay: The Narrows. Her arms burned from the effort of keeping herself above the water. The beading and crystals on the dress, hand-sewn in by her mother’s seamstress in Chicago, were like tiny anchors, pulling her down toward the bottom of the black water.

  She called out John’s name one more time, as the clouds opened up and rain fell in dark sheets, obscuring the view of her childhood home.

  CHAPTER 2

  ERIN

  Present Day

  I never really thought about the things that people leave behind when they die. And by things I don’t mean people or treasured family heirlooms, but the small pieces that inhabit junk drawers, like souvenir coins and old refrigerator magnets. We know those things are worthless, yet we can’t seem to throw them away, so they get stashed away in a domestic purgatory, stuck somewhere in between trash and treasure. There they stay until it becomes someone else’s duty to decide what we should let go.

  I was never more keenly aware of this small piece of human nature than on the warm Octob
er morning when I slid a silver key into the door of my grandmother’s house in Powers Lake, Wisconsin, and surveyed the enormous amount of stuff inside. Even from the front porch, I could see that she hadn’t thrown away anything in the years before she died.

  I took a small step inside, narrowly avoiding a six-foot-tall metal knight standing at attention in the foyer. I remember once when I visited her as a child I had asked her where she had gotten it, as I didn’t imagine they were for sale at the nearby Tobin Drugs. She had smiled and whispered, “Garage sale.” Of course, at eight years old, I hadn’t thought to ask why.

  “Why, oh, why,” I muttered under my breath as I slowly turned around, my eyes widening at the three china cabinets filled with porcelain figurines in the living room, and the jungle of dusty plastic plants decorating every corner of the dining room.

  In the coat closet, I found boxes stacked end to end. I gingerly peeled back the flaps of the closest cardboard box, and the top nearly crumbled in my hands. Inside was a pile of wire hangers, haphazardly stacked on top of one another, knotting into a small metal sculpture that would certainly never be dismantled.

  “Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me,” I muttered as I fanned my face with my hand, to no avail. Even though it was autumn and the Midwest weather had already begun to listen to the whispers of winter in the early-morning hour, the warm air in the house hung motionless and stale.

  I was about to pick up the box of Joan Crawford’s favorite things and begin a pile for trash when I heard my mother’s voice boom across the front yard.

  “Erin, my love! Where the hell are you?” My mom, Mary Ellen, trudged into the house, her black boots marching across the linoleum floor with a satisfying click clack with every footstep. She wore ripped blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. Under her arm she carried her motorcycle helmet. She turned to close the front door and jumped when she saw the knight.

  “Every time. Every. Time,” she said with a sigh. She looked up at the ceiling. “Mom, I know you’re laughing right now.” She rolled her eyes before she walked over and gave me a tight hug.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the familiar scent of her earthy leather jacket mixed with the sweetness of her Marilyn Miglin perfume, a combination that could not have been more quintessentially my mother. I had seen her at my grandmother’s funeral two weeks prior, although it felt like longer. Right before she turned eighty, my grandmother had died peacefully in her sleep, her hair still in curlers and her housecoat hung on the bedpost.

  “Ready to work?” I said as I swept my hand around. “Grandma definitely didn’t slow down her ‘collections’ at any point.” I hadn’t been in her house for a few years, as she preferred to visit us at our house, ninety minutes south in Illinois. I think she was worried my twins would break something. Which, given even the most cursory glance around the house, was a likely scenario.

  “Well, let’s stop screwing around and get to it, huh?” My mother’s Wisconsin roots showed in every vowel pronunciation, and I fought back my usual urge to tease her about it.

  We looked at each other and shrugged before I headed toward the coat closet and my mother went into the living room to start tackling the cabinets stuffed with Precious Moments figurines.

  “I don’t think this is what the estate sale company meant by ‘valuable items,’ ” I said as I opened up a box of pens and a half-used pad of paper. I flipped through the filled pages. “Apparently, Grandma was very meticulous about saving her grocery lists.” I closed the box and slid it into the hallway, into the ever-growing pile of boxes marked Trash.

  “Listen, hon: Just keep going. As I told you yesterday, we need to get through everything, as hard as it might be.” Her lined face softened for a moment as she surveyed her childhood home, but she shook her head and turned her attention back to the porcelain figures. “Man, she never really collected this stuff until after I moved out. And for that I’m glad. I can’t imagine growing up in a house with this many . . . eyes.” She frowned at a figure of a child holding binoculars.

  “For sure. Although I shouldn’t talk. I have boxes and boxes in my basement filled with random junk, too,” I said. “I’m sure Katie will be so sad she’s missing all of this.” My younger sister, Katie, had moved to New York the year before, to take a job in public relations for a major media outlet. Which meant she escaped family responsibilities exactly like this one. Unmarried, no kids—and no desire for any of the above—her life could not have been more different from mine. Even the finality of a mortgage terrified her, let alone the milestones of suburbs, school, house, twins, husband, and car payments that seemed to dominate my world.

  I carefully spun around like I was a caterpillar building a cozy cocoon, unsure of what to go through next, when a chest in the corner of the dining room caught my eye. It sat under a secretary desk covered in antique eyeglasses. The metal and leather box had a healthy layer of dust on top and was guarded by a metal hinge worthy of a tetanus shot. “Open sesame,” I said. Gingerly, I lifted the rusty latch up and opened the chest, praying that a family of mice hadn’t somehow found a way to make it their home.

  I exhaled when I saw it was empty except for a yellowed envelope full of black-and-white photos on the very bottom. I was about to pull the pictures out of the envelope when my phone’s alarm went off.

  “Shoot,” I said as I saw the time. We had been there for over four hours, and I was due to relieve my mother-in-law, who was watching my twins after school. “I need to run,” I said to my mom as I shoved the envelope under my arm. She tossed the box of old cable bills into the trash pile and we walked out on the front porch to lock the door.

  “How are my favorite kiddos?” my mom said as she kicked a leg over her Harley in the driveway.

  “Great. Same. Crazy,” I said as I put my sunglasses on. “You should come and visit soon. They would love to see you.”

  She nodded. “I would love to. After we get this place ready for sale.” She gave one last glance toward the house, a white ranch with black shutters and peeling paint on the siding, before she revved her engine and turned north toward East Troy, thirty minutes north in Wisconsin. She and my father had moved back to Wisconsin three years before, after my mom retired from her position as a history professor at Loyola University in Chicago, citing the need for open roads for her bike and a desire to stoke her passion for ice fishing.

  I waved good-bye, and it was then that I realized I still had the envelope of black-and-white photographs in my possession. “Guess you’re going on a road trip,” I said as I tossed them into my passenger seat and pulled my car onto the highway for the ninety-minute trip home.

  * * *

  “Did you get cheese pizza, Daddy?” Charlotte asked. She followed my husband, Luke, into the kitchen, skipping behind him with her blond braids bobbing up and down like Pippi Longstocking.

  “You know it,” I heard Luke say from the kitchen. “Erin,” he called, “bring Will in here!”

  I stood in the foyer and saw Will staring out the front door at the pizza delivery guy getting back into his car. I knelt down next to Will and rubbed his back. He was getting so tall but still seemed so fragile. “Do you want some pizza, Buster Brown?” I had called him that nickname since the day he was born, five years ago. We had planned on naming him Ryan, but the instant I saw him I knew his name was Will. I always said that he chose his name, not me. Good thing he chose one we loved.

  Will didn’t turn to look at me. His eyes stared blankly out the window, his mind retreating to some small corner of his existence like a mouse hiding in a wall. “Do you want pizza—yes or no?” I firmly patted his back, trying to bring him back. Concrete questions were always better than open-ended ones.

  He slowly turned toward me, his multicolored eyes looking through me like I was nothing but a window in between him and the wall. His sister had eyes that were a light cornflower blue, but Will’s eyes changed nearly every year—sometimes gray, sometimes brown, occasionally
green. His mouth twisted to the side as he lifted his fist and made the sign for “yes,” while softly humming.

  I smiled and grabbed his hand and led him into the tiny kitchen of our one-hundred-year-old house. Luke and I had bought the house four years earlier, when the twins were barely walking. He wasn’t sure about the uneven floors or the scary basement that had a concrete floor and a plethora of wolf spiders, but I instantly fell in love with it. I loved that the wooden baseboards were wider than anything you would see in a McMansion, that the closet under the stairs was only about five feet tall, and that the moldings in the family room were hand-carved. Yet most of all, I loved the large trees that surrounded the house—nothing like the wimpy juvenile trees planted around the teardowns that peppered the neighborhood. It was small, but it was perfect. “Like our family,” I remember cheerfully saying at the closing as Luke half-rolled his eyes. My assumptions at the time were that if we had a beautiful home only easy, perfect things would happen there.

  In the kitchen, Charlotte was already pawing at a slice of cheese pizza. I led Will to a seat next to her, and Luke put a slice of pizza in front of him.

  Will looked at the pizza and screeched in delight, clapping wildly. I meticulously cut it into tiny bites and put a fork in his hand. He threw it on the floor and started to scream, fists flying in the air in frustration. Charlotte expertly leaned away to avoid being hit as she took another bite of pizza, a sauce ring forming around her mouth.

  I placed my hands over his and firmly asked, “What’s wrong? Are you thirsty? Do you want water?” He warbled, and I turned toward the fridge, silently admonishing myself for not making him look at me and request the drink via a sign or gesture. Next time, I promised myself.