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

by Colleen Gleason

  “Well, she is your biggest client. And her voice is so amazing,” Helga said. “I just loved her in Wicked when I saw her in Chicago. Too bad you couldn’t get her to do Elaine Harper…”

  “I know. I really do like her—and she is so very talented—even though she is a little high-strung. But, ugh, she thinks just because I’m in Wicks Hollow that I’ve fallen off the face of the earth.” Vivien shook her head. “She was really upset when I told her I was moving, but I don’t need to live in her zip code to do my job. After all, I’ve been working with Tanya Rheim out of L.A. for years. Anyway, Louise should be happy—I’ve got a line on her doing some paid posts for…”

  She trailed off when she saw the way Helga was looking at her—with that don’t even try lying to me—I’m a cop look.

  “What?”

  “You should be playing Elaine Harper,” said Helga. Then she just looked at Vivien, whose expression must have said it all. “Do we need to order another glass of wine to get through whatever this is?”

  “I’m thinking a whole bottle,” replied Vivien. “Ugh.”

  “We’d probably better get some food too, then,” said her friend, and flagged down a server.

  And then, being the patient, pragmatic, close-to-perfect friend she was, Helga settled back and waited for Vivien to talk.

  It took a few minutes for Vivien to figure out how she was going to unload everything, then she decided to just start at the beginning and walk her friend through the upheaval of her life.

  “The phone call yesterday was from the bank with the final approval on the loan,” she said, then raised her almost-empty glass in response to Helga’s congratulatory toast. “Yes. I am very excited.”

  “You should be, but you don’t look it, VL. I know you’re probably a little scared and nervous. Look, we really need something like the Stage here in Wicks Hollow, and who better to make it happen than Vivien Leigh Savage? You’ve got the name, the experience, the contacts—and you’re basically a local girl. A child actor who never went off the deep end. The Olivia Dee Theater is going to be great, girlfriend.”

  Vivien gave her a sad smile. The child actor who never went off the deep end—despite her tragic life.

  She hadn’t known Helga when she and Liv were in their “heyday,” such as it was. In fact, Vivien hadn’t met Helga until she and her mother moved permanently to Wicks Hollow, five years after Liv died and right when Vivien was about to start high school.

  Helga, who had already been taller than everyone in their freshman class—and most of the sophomores and juniors as well—and seriously sensitive about it, had been assigned as Vivien’s mentor for the first day of school. They hit it off, and feeling like misfits, they’d clung together like Jack and Rose on the scrap of wood through the stormy years of high school. Fortunately, neither of them had been dumb enough to let go of the scrap of wood that was their friendship.

  Therefore, Helga didn’t know how close Vivien had actually come to being a child actor who went off the deep end, so to speak, because by the time she got to high school, her Gran had made certain Vivien, at least, was in therapy. Her mother was a different story.

  “I appreciate your confidence,” Vivien said. “Thank you. But I’m actually not so worried about that. The business plan is solid, and my goals for the year are achievable. The bank wouldn’t have approved the loan if they didn’t think so too. But something weird happened at the theater yesterday.”

  Helga leaned forward as Vivien described her experience walking into the theater, the sudden burst of light, and then the glowing words on the wall after.

  “You should have called me,” Helga the Cop said flatly. “Right away.”

  “I… Well, I thought about it, but it seemed pretty benign, all things considered, and—”

  “Benign my ass. You were alone in the theater, the lights came on, and there was a threat painted on the wall? That’s not benign—”

  “But wait, there’s more,” Vivien said, then settled back in her chair as the server arrived with a full bottle of the Sancerre. There was a pause while their glasses were refilled and they agreed on a pizza to share—Trib’s famous Wise Guy—and then they were left alone again.

  “So I got out of there, went to my car, and then decided I wasn’t going to be chased away from my own business. And I went back inside and…there was nothing there.”

  “Nothing there meaning no lights?”

  “Nothing there meaning no words painted on the wall. And no lights either.”

  Helga frowned. “I’m not going to ask if you’re sure because, duh, I know you are, but…wow. That is concerning. I want to see it.”

  “I figured you would. I’ve come up with several possible explanations—that’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about since yesterday,” Vivien confessed.

  “Have you been back there since?”

  Pursing her lips, feeling like a coward, Vivien shook her head. “No. I had some work to do—other work; you know I’m keeping a bunch of my clients, and I didn’t even check my email on Monday when I was driving here, which is why Louise has her panties in a twist—and so I haven’t been back inside the theater. I had a good excuse,” she added with a self-deprecating smile.

  Helga nodded sagely. “All right. I’ll go with you after dinner. It’ll still be light till at least eight thirty.”

  “I’m not worried about the dark,” Vivien replied. “This all happened yesterday morning. And that’s not all of it.” She sighed and poked at the half a cracker that was left over from the Brie appetizer.

  Her friend watched her carefully but said nothing.

  Vivien sighed. Ugh. “So there was a guy running by who happened to see me come bursting out of the theater, rush to my car, and then sit in it, and when he was coming back around from the end of the street, he saw me going back in through the side door. So he came over to see if everything was okay.”

  “A creeper?” Helga’s mouth went flat.

  Vivien had to shake her head, though she was sorely tempted not to. “No. It turns out…it was Jake.”

  Helga’s hazel eyes were uncomprehending, then confused, then hesitant. “Jake…? As in your ex, Jake, the supreme, cheating asshole—from when you were at NYU?” She squinted and tilted her head. “Here in Wicks Hollow?”

  “Yup. What’re the chances?” Vivien said, then she started to get annoyed. “What are the freaking chances that not only would my college boyfriend, the one who—well, a guy I was pretty damned serious about—that he would not only be here in Wicks Hollow, now, but be running past right after I had the freakiest experience of my life?”

  Helga was shaking her head. “Girl, you’ve got some really bad luck. Some effed-up juju.”

  “I know, right? How? How does this happen?”

  “So…what happened? Did you talk to him? Was he civil? Were you civil?”

  “He was… Well, he was Jake. But older. Just as cocky.” Just as hot. “Civil, I guess, but cocky.”

  “What is he doing here?” Helga’s question was obviously rhetorical, but unfortunately, Vivien had the answer.

  “Here’s the best part,” she said in defeat. “I’m pretty sure Ricky—Juanita’s friend who’s going to be in the show—is Jake’s dad.”

  “No. Way.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “Jake’s actual name is Elwood DeRiccio. Ricky’s name is Fabrizio DeRiccio. Apparently the family has a problem giving their sons normal-sounding names.”

  “Well, I kind of like Fabrizio—”

  Vivien nearly snarled at Helga, who lifted her glass to drink quickly—probably to hide a smirk. “That’s not helping.”

  “Elwood? But you call him Jake? I don’t— Oh, I do get it.” Helga chuckled. “Elwood and Jake Blues—the Blues Brothers. Yeah, if I had to pick a name, it would be Jake instead of Elwood. ‘We’re on a mission from God!’” She giggled a little. Apparently, the wine was going to her head. It was a good thing Helga could
walk home, or she’d be the one texting for a ride from a cop friend.

  “I guess they started calling him Jake in middle school when he unequivocally told his friends and parents he wouldn’t answer to Elwood. I can’t blame him. Can you imagine the nicknames they would have come up with in middle school?”

  “Well, at least his friends knew their pop culture,” Helga said, still smirking behind her glass.

  “You’re still not helping.”

  “Right.” Helga snapped her expression back into a sober one. “So your Jake—the infamous lying, cheating dickwad—is Ricky’s son,” Helga mused aloud. “Bummer. He’s really hot. And—because I’m not sexist or overly preoccupied with looks—he also seems like a nice, solid guy. I’ve met him a few times, just briefly. Once there was a little car crash in town and he happened to be nearby. He was really calming, helping a pregnant woman who was involved in the accident—”

  “He’s a doctor. He’s supposed to do that kind of stuff,” Vivien growled. Then sighed. She was an adult. She could be more magnanimous. “Yes, he’s really nice. And can be super sweet. And charming. And then he turns into a—”

  The pizza arrived at that moment, and Vivien became wholly distracted by how hungry she was and how amazing the pie looked—and smelled. Topped with smoked mozz, caramelized onions, and sausage, along with a spicy tomato sauce, the Wise Guy was one of Trib’s most popular pizzas.

  But Helga wasn’t quite as easily distracted from things Vivien would rather left undiscussed. Probably the cop in her. “I think it really bites that you have to deal with Jake showing up while you’re trying to get the theater open. I know how much he hurt you.” But instead of staying on that topic, Helga went down another path she had no idea was even worse. “So…you’re really not going to be onstage for the show?”

  “No.” Vivien’s response was short and sharp.

  Helga did that bird thing she did where she tilted her head and looked at Vivien with a penetrating expression, as if her friend was a worm Helga was about to drag, kicking and screaming, stretching and undulating, from the soil.

  Maybe the wine was going to Vivien’s head too.

  “You’d be perfect to play Elaine Harper. You’re a local celebrity, it’s your theater, named after your sister… It seems so obvious you should be in the inaugural production. Why not?” The humor that had been dancing in Helga’s eyes was gone, and Vivien suddenly felt as if she were in an interrogation room with the steely-eyed cop.

  She started to respond, but suddenly, horribly, her throat closed up and a thick lump settled there. Her eyes stung. The words wouldn’t come. She shook her head soundlessly and looked away.

  “All right. I’m sorry for asking.” Helga pressed a comforting hand over Vivien’s. “I just want you to know I’m here if you want to talk. When you want to talk.”

  Vivien nodded quickly, then turned her attention to carefully cutting off the tip of her piece of pizza.

  It was silly. She was a fool. She had to get over the memories and move on. Not just Jake—not even mostly Jake.

  But not today.

  Not now.

  Chapter Five

  “Pop! What the hell are you doing up there?” Jake stumbled from his Lexus and bolted toward the house, heart surging into his throat. “Get the hell down from there!”

  “You watch your tongue, young man,” snapped his seventy-seven-year-old father, who was crawling along the roof of his house.

  A ladder that had seen far better days was leaning drunkenly against the gutter.

  “Pop!” Jake grabbed the ladder with both hands—which was at least more helpful than clutching his head and tearing his hair out; something he’d wanted to do more often than not lately when it came to his father—and looked up in trepidation as his hardheaded, idiotic remaining parent blithely continued his task of crawling along the edge of the roof and clearing out the gutter. The ladder shifted a little in Jake’s grip, indicating how not stable it had been when his pop had ascended it and climbed onto the freaking roof.

  Thank God I came by. A rush of cold sweat erupted over him as he imagined what might have happened if he hadn’t…

  Pine needles, leaves, and other debris tumbled to the ground as Fabrizio DeRiccio stubbornly ignored him and inched along, tossing the detritus from the gutter like he was sowing seed.

  “Pop, please. I can do that. Let me do that.” Short of climbing up there and muscling his far-too-frail parent to and down the ladder, Jake was helpless to stop him, and he barely controlled the terror in his voice.

  “Now look here, sonny, I’ve been doing this— Whoa.” Pop lurched a little when his hand missed the gutter and flailed in midair for a sec. It wasn’t enough that he lost his balance, but it was close enough that Jake nearly fainted.

  “That’s it. I’m coming up to get you right now,” he said, starting up the ladder. If he had to drag his dad back down he would, dammit, because there was no way he was going to watch Pop fall off the goddamned roof.

  “All right, all right, put a sock in it, Elwood,” grumped Pop. “I was about to take a break anyway. It’s almost lunchtime.”

  Jake didn’t take a full breath until his father’s feet were on the third rung from the bottom—except when he nearly fainted (again) as Pop’s foot missed the second rung as he was lowering himself back down onto the ladder from the edge of the roof. The roof!

  By the time Pop stepped onto the grass, Jake had himself under control. While he wanted to lambaste the idiot for doing such a crazy thing—why else had he moved to freaking Wicks Hollow if not to help his parent with this kind of stuff?—he knew that was not the way to handle his hotheaded Italian father.

  Because he was sort of the same way.

  At least Jake saw reason once in a while—unlike Fabrizio. His mother always said the two of them were as identical as two cannellini beans. But Jake was a little more grounded—at least, he liked to think he was. Medical school and residency did that to a guy.

  Not that he’d felt all that grounded when he ran into Vivien Leigh Savage of all people yesterday.

  What were the damned chances?

  Damn. She’d looked good. Different—her whisky-blond hair was much longer than it had been back then, brushing past her shoulders now, and there was a little more definition to her features than before, and she was clearly upset about something—not just seeing him, he figured…

  Vivien Leigh Savage. Here in town, presumably permanently, since she was the owner of the theater.

  What was he going to do about that? Nothing…or everything?

  He shook his head and followed Pop into the house, where, ostensibly, his dad was going to eat lunch. But Jake was almost certain his father’s hand was trembling a little. Maybe his rock-headed pop had learned a lesson, nearly taking a header off the top of the damned house.

  Maybe not.

  Probably not.

  “I got tuna salad,” said Pop, rummaging in the fridge. “You want some?”

  “Sure.” Jake was about to sit down at the table to eat when his father turned around holding jars of mayo, capers, and pickles, along with a small container of chopped onion.

  “Well, get the tuna out of the pantry, will you,” snarled Fabrizio. “Ain’t gonna make it itself, Elwood.”

  “Right.”

  No one called him Elwood anymore, thank God. In middle school, he’d loathed his parents for giving him such a horrific name (in Jake’s opinion, horrific first names ran wildly in the DeRiccio family—Fabrizio being case in point, and his grandfather had been Aldobrandino). It didn’t help that until he hit sixteen, he looked like a short, dark-skinned Italian frog.

  Thus, Jake had heard every ugly twist on that name in fifth and sixth grades—Frogwood, Smellwood, Tinywood, Elweird, and more—and it wasn’t until the older sister of one of his loyal friends called him Jake over the summer between sixth and seventh grade that he got past the name-calling.

  The fact that she’d watched The Blues Brot
hers and given him the coolest nickname ever—along with the fact that she was tall, blond, and seventeen—made Ashley Grifton his goddess forever.

  He still thought about her fondly, even though the one time he’d worked up the courage to ask her out—when he was sixteen—she’d turned him down flat.

  “Don’t splash the juice every-damned-where,” grumbled Pop when Jake came over to drain the tuna at the sink. “Makes it stink. Rinse it down the sink, too.”

  “I will,” Jake said calmly. Since when had his father become such a nitpicky micromanager?

  He knew the answer to that, unfortunately: since Mom died.

  Ten minutes later, they were sitting at the small kitchen table eating tuna on whole grain—a shocker in itself, because throughout his entire life, Jake had lived through the ongoing battle between his parents about bread. It was always Mom wanting her husband and children to eat more whole-grain breads, and Dad insisting that the crusty white Italian bread his mom used to make was the only bread worth eating.

  Which was probably why Jake had developed a hobby, he supposed you’d call it, of making all kinds of bread. Crusty Italian bread. Sourdough. Whole-wheat, onion rye, olive bread. Ciabatta. Focaccia. He’d even tried his hand at pumpernickel.

  So he couldn’t help needle his pop. “Guess you’ve developed a taste for whole-grain bread, huh?” Jake said with a sly smile. “After all those years. Look at all the sunflower seeds in this one slice. Yum!”

  His dad curled a lip at him. “Was the only thing at the grocery store.”

  “Yeah, right.” Jake grinned and took a gulp of the iced tea he’d poured.

  “Besides—you haven’t brought me any of yours for a while.”

  “I haven’t made any, but I’ve got some ready to bake tomorrow,” Jake replied. “Been working on the main bathroom, you know? The tile’s on backorder, of course.”