Sinister Stage: A Ghost Story Romance and Mystery (Wicks Hollow Book 5)

by Colleen Gleason

  Sinister Stage

  A Wicks Hollow Book

  Colleen Gleason

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  A Note from the Author

  Updates!

  Also by Colleen Gleason

  About the Author

  For my own group of Tuesday Ladies, the #12TRT gals. Can’t wait for our next road trip!

  (Can I be Maxine?)

  Chapter One

  Welcome to Wicks Hollow

  Established 1889

  Population 8,201

  Her first sight of the familiar sign made her chest swell and her eyes sting.

  Home.

  She was home.

  As Vivien Leigh Savage navigated her snazzy new Honda Accord around a sweeping curve, she caught a glimpse of Lake Michigan beyond a fringe of pines, maples, and elms, sparkling cerulean and sapphire in the late July sun.

  We’re home, Liv.

  Her eyes stung a little more, and she blinked rapidly before they teared up so she couldn’t see.

  Home was a relative term, with layers and layers of meaning and emotion. But Wicks Hollow—which held few but potent and enduring memories, and where she’d only lived for hardly more than four short years more than a decade ago—was truly her home.

  There’s no place like home.

  She smiled and sang “Over the Rainbow” as she drove into town.

  Beyond the long curve was a little hill, and when she reached the top of it, the village sprawled before her: compact, colorful, and busy. The town was all quaint shops, charming restaurants and cafés, Victorian-era houses, neat sidewalks with flowerpots every few feet cascading with blooms, and lots of cars and people—although “lots” was relative to someone like Vivien, who’d just come from New York City, her new car filled with boxes.

  Wicks Hollow was a tourist haven, and June through July were the busiest, most crowded months of the year—as evidenced by the way the traffic slowed to a crawl as Vivien drove into the village. But once Labor Day came along, most of the tourists and summer-home owners abandoned the place, leaving the town mostly to itself.

  Small bungalows and little Victorians, along with a few ranches and condos, clustered together on those shady residential streets far from the tourist areas. That was where the locals lived and where Vivien had rented a small house for the time being.

  Things had changed radically since she’d left after high school—almost thirteen years ago—but at the same time, so many things had stayed the same.

  Orbra’s Tea House, owned by the grandmother of Vivien’s close friend Helga, sat downtown, precisely where it had been for nearly thirty years. The Roost, the biggest dive in the area, still perched on the corner of Pamela Boulevard (which didn’t resemble a boulevard at all) and Lacey Street. The new and used bookstore was in its same location—a rambling old Victorian set back from the street a little. Vivien remembered a warren of rooms and tottering stacks of books everywhere. It was a place where a book lover could easily get lost and spend buckets of money. There was a sign in the window:

  Author Event

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  TJ Mack

  July 31 3pm

  That was just over a week, and Vivien made a mental note to add it to her calendar, because now this was her town and she wanted to be part of it. Besides, she loved the Sargent Blue thrillers. She’d finished listening to the latest TJ Mack audiobook about the time she crossed into Ohio, then rapped, bee-bopped, and sang along with the Hamilton cast for the rest of the trip.

  Trib’s, a trendy artisan restaurant, was relatively new, but Vivien had been there several times over the years when she’d come back for visits. She knew the owner very well and had helped him get talented, chef-in-training summer interns through her contacts in New York.

  Hot Toddy, a darling coffee shop in a cottage with hot-pink shutters and mint-green siding, was relatively new—two or three years ago—and she was disappointed to see that Gilda’s Goodies, a fantastic vintage clothing shop, was still closed while in search of a new owner.

  Although Vivien had visited Wicks Hollow since she went off to NYU, just visiting wasn’t enough. Now she was home, permanently (she hoped).

  There is no hope—you are home permanently, she told herself, paraphrasing Yoda.

  Even if the bank didn’t come through with the loan, she was going to figure something out. It would just take longer than she planned. But she was going to open the theater for Liv no matter what.

  She hoped.

  There is no hope, dumbass, Yoda told her. There is only do.

  Right.

  Vivien navigated around tourists both on foot and in vehicle through the five blocks of the main route into town. She drove along Elizabeth Street, which eventually curved away from the nucleus of shops taking her less than a mile west to the small cove of Lake Michigan. A tiny marina there hosted no more than two dozen boats, and there were several small cafés along the water with bright umbrellas and perky flowers on the tables.

  She passed a charming little alley called Violet Way on the right and noticed that the old antiques shop down there seemed to have had a facelift and was fresh and sparkling—must be a new owner. Vivien smiled to herself, for she was now a business owner in the town. The excitement fluttering in her belly settled into a little queasiness.

  I hope I can pull this off.

  There is no hope, there is—

  “Yeah, I know, I know,” she said, unsure whether it was her own thoughts or Liv who kept lecturing her in the voice of Yoda.

  The winding two-lane road hugged the shoreline north, with a public beach, two small inns, a kayak, canoe, and bicycle livery on the left, and more small shops and a few private cottages on the right.

  It was a little bit of a detour to go this route, but Vivien needed to take in all of Wicks Hollow, all of her town, her home, her memories on this important day—this commencement of the rest of her life.

  Remember the time we had ice cream sitting on the pier and you had a double scoop of strawberry chunk and I had a double of chocolate and we tried to trade one scoop each?

  Her eyes stung and her mouth twitched sadly as she remembered how hers and Liv’s ice cream scoops had all ended up in the lake with four decided plops, leaving them with empty cones.

  “We can buy new ones,” Mom had said, her eyes bright and shining. “Now that the two of you are off and running! Just this once, though…we can’t have our little actresses getting chubby.”

  “Now, Josey, let’s not put that sort of pressure on them,” said Gran, shaking her hat-bedecked head. The brim was so broad that it offered enough shade for both of the girls if they stood close to her, which they did whenever they could. “They’re only children.” She wrapped her arms around each of the twins and hugged them close. “Very talented, but children nonetheless.”

  So the second time, Vivien and Olivia had each ordered one strawberry and one chocolate scoop each—and sprinkl
es—and they ate them on sugar cones while sitting on swings in the park across from the lake. They both had tummy aches after, but it had been worth it.

  That was one of the two most vivid memories Vivien had of Wicks Hollow from when Liv was alive—likely because that had been a monumental day for the Savage twins. At age eight, Vivien Leigh and Olivia Dee Savage had just been cast as Oliver in a national touring revival of the musical. After playing smaller parts in Annie and The Sound of Music, it was their biggest, most demanding role yet, and Mom was over the moon.

  Now, Vivien cruised along the lakeshore and thanked her grandmother for the millionth time for being such a stabilizing influence during those early years…and beyond. Gran had helped to balance the pell-mell, frenetic drive of the twins’ mother with reality, and that, Vivien knew, was surely the only reason she was still alive, relatively sane, and not an addict—except when it came to ordering carry-out.

  I miss you, Gran.

  Gran had died nearly a year ago, having been in an assisted living center just outside of Wicks Hollow for about seven years. Vivien had visited her as often as she could get away from New York, and called regularly when she couldn’t. Which was probably more than her mother had done. Not that she was judging—she truly wasn’t. Mom was actually doing pretty well right now.

  Vivien could almost hear Liv: Don’t think about Mom right now…don’t ruin your homecoming.

  “Our homecoming, Liv,” Vivien said. “We’re home.”

  So Vivien put aside thoughts of their mother and continued driving just out of town on the north side, where the road curved away from the big lake. Her moonroof was open and the windows were down, and she could smell the distinct scent of lake from the breeze coming off the water as it mingled with the soft humidity of a Michigan summer.

  Home.

  If she kept going straight, she’d drive a couple more miles until she reached the southern tip of Wicks Lake—a long, narrow inland lake that attracted just as many summer visitors as the big lake.

  Instead, she turned east onto Blueberry Road—barely two miles out of town—and that was when her heart really began to squeeze and her chest felt tight and anxious, and the butterflies went crazy in her stomach. Her palms slicked damp over the steering wheel and she had to start taking the long, deep, slow breaths (in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four-five-six-seven) her yoga teacher had taught her to help stave off an anxiety attack.

  She breathed and refocused her attention above the road at the bluff that overlooked Lake Michigan. Several houses dotted the tree-studded, rolling hill, all spread out and partially obstructed by more trees. There was a tiny bungalow, a newer-looking mansion, a white clapboard farmhouse. But one stood out because it was an anomaly: a slant-roofed ranch that had been built in what she thought of as Brady Bunch style. It didn’t fit the otherwise contiguous look of the hill, but it must have one hell of a view.

  The thoughts and the distraction had calmed her, so by the time she turned into the parking lot near the end of the dead-end road, Vivien wasn’t feeling quite so ill.

  But now she was in the parking lot, facing the building, and there it sat: the Wicks Hollow Stage.

  The theater had been closed since the early nineties, and the parking lot was strewn with broken glass and grass growing between cracks in the concrete. The building itself, made from brick and constructed around 1900, was in excellent shape—Vivien had made certain of that.

  Back when they visited Wicks Hollow as young actors, she and Liv had been fascinated by the idea of a cute little stage plopped down in the middle of their grandmother’s tiny town.

  They were used to performing all of their shows in large, imposing, thousand-seat theaters in busy, loud cities. This minuscule venue was strange to them, their young minds imagining how different it would be to arrive at and leave a place like the Wicks Hollow Stage. But they both loved coming to visit their grandmother, and for obvious reasons, the theater that lived there captured their attention and imagination.

  The building had been for sale at the time (in fact, it had never been taken off the market for as long as Vivien had known about it, with the same weathered sign hanging crookedly from the front for decades), and on a whim, Mom had insisted they take a look at it.

  “Just for kicks,” she’d said, her eyes bright with promise and prospect, and probably dollar signs as well, but Vivien had been too young to notice that part. The girls were nine by then and had just been cast as Young Cosette in Les Misérables, had sung live at the Tonys, and the world was the Savage Sisters’s oyster.

  Gran got the key from the realtor, so it was just the four of them walking into the dim old theater.

  “Kinda creepy,” Mom said, rubbing her arms, looking around in disappointment. “And it’s a dismal mess.”

  Her daughters didn’t notice. Vivien remembered running down the main aisle and up onto the stage without hesitation, Liv right on her heels. Without any communication, they immediately launched into “I’d Do Anything,” then went on to “Tomorrow” and then “Be Our Guest,” including the dance routines they knew and ones they made up on the spot.

  Giggling, laughing, dancing around, singing at the tops of their lungs so their voices filled the space, echoing into every corner, the two of them owned that stage in the dark, empty theater in a way they’d never done in front of hundreds of spectators.

  Then they sat on the edge of the stage, panting happily, and chattered to each other.

  When we’re rich and famous, we’re going to come here and do free shows for all our friends, Viv said. I’ll play Nancy in Oliver! and you’ll play Belle, and we’ll have so much fun.

  We’ll make the theater big and bright and beautiful and everyone will come even from New York to see us! And Gran can sit in the front row for every show, Liv added with shining eyes.

  The idea flourished and became an anchoring sort of fantasy, something that gave her and Liv roots and a sort of mooring to cling to—a stable, harmless dream—during the crazy days of performing, traveling, touring, rehearsals, auditions, fittings…

  They were at the top of their game, their mother was fond of saying, and in the twins’ heyday, Josey Savage believed the sky was the limit.

  And then Liv had died and everything changed.

  Vivien never told Gran about her dream to return to Wicks Hollow and reopen the theater in honor of Liv and their shared dream, but it was Gran who unwittingly made it possible when she bequeathed Viv a small chunk of money.

  It didn’t make her rich by any stretch, but it was enough for Vivien to outright buy the abandoned stage…which would soon be known as the Olivia Dee Theater. She was picking up the keys from the realtor tomorrow, whom she’d known back in high school.

  Tomorrow, tomorrow, she hummed.

  And if—when—she got the loan from the bank, she’d be able to put it back to rights for performances.

  As Vivien looked at the building that was now hers, the culmination of years of wishes and dreams now at hand, she smiled through her tears and pushed away her nerves.

  We’re gonna do this, Liv.

  Welcome home.

  Chapter Two

  “I am not going to play a dead body in the window seat,” said Helga van Hest. “Whoever plays Mortimer would break his back lifting out my giant self. He’d collapse there right onstage, die from a heart attack, and that would be the end of Wicks Hollow Stage’s—I mean Olivia Dee Theater’s—production of Arsenic and Old Lace.

  “You’d have to refund tickets, and all those renovations on the old place would be for nothing. You’d file for bankruptcy and move back to New York in shame, and I’d never see my best friend again.”

  Vivien chuckled at her friend’s rant as she snatched the last lemon blueberry scone from right beneath Maxine Took’s greedy fingers.

  The foiled eighty-one-year-old Maxine snarled under her breath, but Vivien ignored her. You had to if you wanted to get anything accomplished when you were sitting at Orbra van
Hest’s tea shop, where Maxine and her posse—known as the Tuesday Ladies—reigned supreme.

  It was barely eight in the morning on a Tuesday in mid-July, so the glut of tourists who filled Wicks Hollow to bursting were still sleeping in at their bed-and-breakfasts, boutique inns, RVs, or lakeside cottages…which meant Orbra’s Tea House was nearly empty.

  This morning, only Maxine Took, her best partner-in-crime Juanita Acerita, and Orbra herself were present from the Tuesday Ladies group. Helga, the granddaughter of the tea shop proprietress, and Vivien were the only other people in the café at the moment.

  She had an appointment at ten to finally get her keys for the theater (she’d done the closing remotely while packing up in New York), and had been too antsy and excited to wait at her rental home until then. Plus, she was also expecting a call from the bank, and she needed a distraction to calm her nerves.

  “You’re six feet, two inches of gorgeousness, not a giant, Helga, and I’m pretty sure Baxter could handle wrangling you out of the window seat. Have you seen him lately? He’s not the skinny dork he was back in high school.” Vivien grinned.

  “Baxter James is playing Mortimer Brewster?” Maxine exclaimed, spraying moist crumbs from the scone she was still eating. The greedy old crone clearly hadn’t needed the one Vivien had swiped. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t think you’d care,” replied Vivien slyly. She knew exactly how Maxine Took worked. “You said you were too busy to do the show—”

  “Well, I just cleared my calendar,” said Maxine, thumping her cane for emphasis. Her brown eyes blazed from behind thick bottle-bottom glasses, and not one of her iron-gray hairs fluttered with her movement. Vivien suspected it was because it was a wig, although she (and everyone else) didn’t know for sure. It could just be an entire can of hairspray. “Can’t make a damned decision if you don’t give a person all-a the information right out front, can I?”