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

by Colleen Gleason

  Helga rolled her eyes, looking at her from over the car roof and its siren. “The party, of course. There hasn’t been a fight for a while—not since Trib found out his pastry chef had slathered whipped cream all over, and presumably licked, the new, very hot produce guy earlier that day. Watching two gay men having a catfight is something I could have done without.”

  “I miss Maxine’s party every year,” Vivien replied, walking across the road with the mask tucked under her arm. “Ever since I came to the one back in…what was it, four years ago, and she was trying to get me to hook her up with a tattoo artist? Remember that? She wanted me to bring one from New York, like I could put him or her in my suitcase or something. As if there aren’t any tattoo artists here in Wicks Hollow—or anywhere in Michigan.” She shook her head, happy to have a reason to laugh.

  Helga chuckled. “No one in the entire county is dumb enough to try to ink Maxine Took.”

  “True dat,” replied Vivien, digging out the key to her cottage.

  “What did she want tattooed on her, anyway?”

  “I think it was something like Exceptional and Eighty with a woman flexing her bicep…and this was three years before she was turning eighty,” Vivien said, shoving open the door. “That was pretty damned optimistic of her.”

  “That sounds like Maxine. And oh, VL, I just love what you’ve done to the place,” Helga added dryly, stepping inside the cottage. “Geez.”

  “I haven’t had time to finish unpacking. I’ve been a little busy, you know. And I’ve had to actually cook instead of ordering takeout, which is a real pain—”

  “Cooking is what most people do.”

  “Not people who live in the city.”

  “Well, you’re not in the city anymore, Dorothy.”

  Helga walked into the tiny kitchen, which had been done with happy blue and white tile on the countertops, probably back in the eighties, Vivien guessed. There was no island and about a square yard of counter space, and the cabinets were decades-old medium brown that might eventually be called “vintage” but were just plain ugly (in her mind) right now. Someone had put blue and white china knobs on them and hung matching blue curtains over the small window that looked into the backyard.

  “I can see you’ve been doing a lot of cooking,” said Helga, eyeing the single pot in the dish drainer and the one plate next to it.

  “I hate cooking,” Vivien replied, putting her keys, purse, and the Nutcracker on the kitchen table. “I love eating but I hate cooking. Food, glorious food!” she sang with a grin. “You know that’s my theme song— Hey, where are you going?”

  “Gonna check around a little.”

  “Check around for what?” Then it dawned on her, and Vivien put a hand over her middle as her insides sank. Her cop friend was making sure there was no one here lying in wait for her—or that no one had been here, vandalizing or stealing anything.

  “It’s really hard to tell whether someone’s come through and searched your things or whether you just dumped all this stuff on the bed yourself,” Helga called from the back of the cottage—which was near enough that Vivien could hear her sigh of exasperation.

  The bungalow was only five hundred square feet with two bedrooms, a single bathroom, and a compact living room/kitchen area, so it didn’t take Helga long to do her “checking.”

  “It’s not like I didn’t just move in three days ago,” Vivien retorted. “I’m still trying to figure out where to put everything.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it all out. Someday. Anyway, all clear,” Helga said as she walked through to the kitchen while Vivien just stood there, watching her home—and then her fridge—being invaded, for now her cop friend was poking in there too. “I can see you’ve been doing a lot of cooking with this entire apple and a sad-looking box of romaine. What the hell is this? A carrot? One carrot? Who buys one carrot? But at least you’ve got wine.”

  “I thought you were on duty till ten,” Vivien said when Helga pulled out the bottle of Viognier. “And you didn’t look in the freezer or the cupboards,” she added grumpily. “There’s frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese and ramen.”

  “The wine’s for you not me.” Helga handed Vivien a glass of the Viognier then plumped down on the beige and blue plaid sofa that looked like it had been on the set of Stranger Things. “Lord, that thing is creepy,” said Helga, eyeing the Nutcracker headpiece. “Tell me again why you have it.”

  “I’m going to display it at the theater as a relic from shows gone by,” Vivien replied.

  “Having that thing in my house would give me nightmares.”

  “It’s the Nutcracker! From a ballet. It’s not like it’s the mask from Halloween.”

  “If you say so.” Helga didn’t sound convinced. “All right, so I’ve got maybe another twenty minutes before I have to go back out on patrol—there’s a live band playing at the gazebo by the beach from seven to nine, and it’s ripe for drunk and disorderly—so let’s get on with it. Give it to me: high-level overview. Quick, so I can give you my two cents’ worth.”

  Vivien sighed and set the wine aside. She didn’t want it right now. All she really wanted was to lie down and sob herself to sleep, or binge something light and airy on Netflix. Maybe she’d dig up My Fair Lady or one of the best musicals ever: Hairspray. She deserved it—it had been one upside-down, ugly, emotional day.

  But she gave Helga the basics, sparing herself no mercy over her actions both eleven years ago and recently with Jake.

  “So what I’m hearing you say is that you freaked out when Jake told you he was leaving—leaving you, basically. It was sudden and unexpected and it probably reminded you a little bit of Liv, didn’t it?” Helga said in a soothing, knowing voice.

  “When did you turn into a psychologist?” Vivien grumbled, but she couldn’t deny that what her friend said had hit the right button.

  “Part of cop training, babe. I did a workshop on hostage negotiating a while back, too.”

  “Well, I’m not holding any hostages, but you might be right about it,” Vivien replied. “About me equating him leaving to Liv dying.”

  Had she ever thought about it that way?

  No. She’d blocked it all off because it hurt too damned much. And so she’d focused on the “cheating” part of Jake’s actions, not the leaving part, because the cheating part was cut and dry and easy to understand, easy to hold against him.

  The leaving part was a lot more nebulous.

  “Not just Liv, but your mom too.” If Helga had been wearing glasses, she would have been looking at Vivien from over the tops of them like Blanche from Grease.

  “And Mom, too. Geez,” Vivien said, tipping her head back against the chair. Her mother had been in and out of rehab for the last twenty years and was currently sober…but who knew for how long. “She didn’t die, but she sort of left me too, didn’t she? I mean, I knew I had issues with abandonment, but—”

  “You were only ten when it happened, right? That shit leaves a deep scar at any age, but at ten? Losing your twin suddenly and without warning? Not only your twin, but your career and life as you knew it—right?”

  Vivien’s eyes were stinging and she blinked rapidly. “Why did it take me eleven years to figure that out?”

  Helga heaved a sigh, then rose. “Because you’re human. And humans protect themselves from hurt.” She came over to the chair, and Vivien stood to accept her tight, heartfelt hug.

  “This is cop training too, you know,” Helga said, giving her one last squeeze before stepping away. “But that doesn’t mean when I go all emotional and anxious you won’t be able to do this for me.” She grimaced. “I have to go, Viv. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yes. Thanks. I’ll be fine. Really.”

  Helga nodded and went to the door, but she paused and gave Vivien a meaningful look. “Lock up tight. I know it’s warm tonight, but at least put a wedge in the windows so they can’t open too much, all right? I’ll drive by or have someone drive by every h
alf-hour until I’m off. Hey! Why don’t I go get Butch? I was going to pick him up anyway—he likes to go on patrol with me at night. He can stay with you instead.”

  Vivien loved Helga’s dog—a big, super-friendly, but ferocious-sounding German shepherd—but she didn’t want the extra hassle, nor even to have to wait up for Helga to return. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m just going to go to sleep. I’m not worried, really. There are houses on all three sides, and these lots are tiny, so they’re close enough to hear anything—and I’ll leave all the exterior lights on and lock the doors and wedge the windows and keep a baseball bat next to the bed,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “All right. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock?”

  “Yes,” Vivien replied, then did as directed and locked the door behind Helga. She finished securing the tiny house as promised, made sure the lights were on outside—front and back—and climbed into bed at five o’clock in the afternoon without even checking her email.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jake decided to stake out the theater.

  He didn’t know what else to do, but he needed to do something.

  He didn’t have to work tomorrow, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to sleep tonight, so he packed himself a cooler with a sandwich, some water, and an array of snacks, charged his tablet, and was just about to leave when his friend Baxter texted him.

  The message was short and to the point: Sup?

  Jake hadn’t been in Wicks Hollow all that long, but he’d been there long enough to meet and befriend the town’s brewmaster: Baxter James, the creator of Baxter’s Beatnik Brews—also known as B-Cubed.

  It helped that Jake had been sitting at the Roost with his pop for lunch back in March when Bax brought in a case of his latest creation, broke a bottle when he accidentally dropped the case on the counter, and ended up cutting himself on a piece of glass while trying to fish it out of the box.

  Though Jake was generally most useful when looking at images of fractured bones or organs with shadows or other abnormalities, he was certainly able to butterfly up a deep cut without breaking a sweat. His payment had been half a case of the latest B-Cubed (the Straw Lager) and a two-hour mutual rant about Star Wars and how Disney had ruined the franchise (this topic came about because of the vintage poster from Return of the Jedi, which was hanging on the wall of the Roost along with that of about fifty other eighties movies).

  Going on a stakeout. Want in? Jake texted back to Baxter.

  His friend definitely wanted in.

  So, fifteen minutes later, Jake and Baxter pulled into the theater parking lot in Jake’s car, taking care not to drive where the glass from Vivien’s vandalized Honda had been, and settled in the darkest corner behind the theater. If anyone cruised by, or even pulled into the parking lot, Jake and Baxter wouldn’t be noticed unless the newcomer drove all the way behind the building.

  Jake had given his friend the short version of what was going on—after all, it wasn’t a secret that Vivien’s windshield and headlights had been smashed, since she’d filed a police report—and explained that they suspected someone had been making their way in and out of the building. And since there’d been an incident today, he thought whoever it was might want to come back and remove evidence.

  “If I can catch the bastard red-handed—or at least see the asshole, even if he gets away—that would shut this down pretty damned quick,” he concluded. And he was more than happy to have company, just in case things got ugly.

  In fact, if Jake could have gotten into the theater, they would have waited inside to surprise the culprit…but, of course, he didn’t have a key. He also realized he didn’t have Vivien’s phone number to ask her to borrow a key. Even if it was the same cell phone number she’d had back at NYU (which was possible, as he still had the same one himself), he’d deleted it from his phone years ago.

  Nor did he know where she was living or staying in Wicks Hollow. He supposed he could have asked any of those questions of Baxter, but pride won out—because how awkward would it be for Bax to find out Jake was doing all this and he didn’t even know how to get in touch with the woman he was doing it for?

  It was around ten o’clock, not long after the sun had set, when they rolled down the windows, turned off the car, popped open their first set of beers (of course Baxter had brought appropriate supplies), and waited to see what would happen. Jake had thought far enough ahead to bring a cool little bug zapper device that the gadget-happy Mathilda had sent him, and he set it on the console between the two front seats. The fresh air with its pleasant breeze was great, but the rabid mosquitos were not.

  “So…why’re we doing this again?” Baxter asked as he lifted the beer to his mouth. He was a good-looking guy of about thirty with a neatly trimmed mustache, goatee, and a tight-cropped Afro. He was almost always dressed like he was going to a dinner club in neat button-downs tucked into creased chinos or dressy jeans.

  “Ah,” Jake began, then figured he owed it to Baxter to spill some of the details. “Well, Vivien and I used to date about eleven years ago when we were both at NYU. So I kind of know her, since we had a thing.”

  “A thing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seems like one of you still might have a thing,” Baxter said, grinning around the mouth of the brown longneck then taking another sip.

  Jake scoffed, but neither confirmed nor denied it. He guessed it was pretty obvious anyway, since he was spending his Thursday night sitting in a dark parking lot watching over an empty building. All in the name of love.

  “I went to high school with Vivien, you know,” Baxter told him. “She was ahead of me by one year. She and Helga van Hest—you know, the blond cop who’s built like an Amazonian goddess?—were tight.”

  “You mean the hot blond cop who’s built like an Amazonian goddess? Yes—I’ve met Helga. And she and Vivien are still close.”

  “Right. Anyway, I didn’t know Vivien at all back then, but I knew who she was, of course. Everyone did.”

  “I can imagine,” Jake said.

  “Biggest celebrity we ever had in Wicks Hollow—but she just kept to herself. I heard rumors—she had a twin, right?”

  Jake nodded. “Yes. Liv—Olivia—was her name. They shared roles in stage plays and musicals because of child labor laws limiting the number of hours young children can work. Being identical, they could swap out whenever necessary. I think they had a song that was kind of a hit too—she didn’t like to talk about it much. I barely got it out of her that they sang together live at the Tonys one year.”

  “Her sister died before she moved here.”

  “Yes. Car accident. They were supposed to go to a costume fitting, but Vivien was sick, so she stayed home, and Liv and her mother went without her.”

  And she never came back, Vivien had said when she told him about it. She was my best friend, my soul mate—and then suddenly I didn’t have a twin or a best friend or a costar anymore.

  “Their mother had minor injuries—which eventually helped lead to an addiction to painkillers and alcohol—but Liv died at the scene.”

  Baxter made a sound of sympathy and stared out into the darkness, the beer settled, forgotten, between his legs. “She was, what, fifteen? At least, that’s how old Vivien was when she moved here—to get away from the memories, I gather.”

  “No, she was ten when Liv died. There was a period of mourning and adjustment after, of course—and lots of press over the tragedy, from what I understand—and then her mother wanted her to keep going with her stage career. Sounded like she pushed Vivien pretty hard for the next few years, and it didn’t work. VL—you know, Vivien Leigh—didn’t want to sing or dance or act without her counterpart. I got the impression she had serious anxiety about going onstage. So it was after that—after she was done with that career—that she and her mother moved here to be near Vivien’s grandmother. I guess her father died when she was really little, so she never knew him.”

  “Well, t
hat explains why Vivien never went out for any of the plays or shows here,” Baxter mused aloud. “When we were in high school, I mean. Everyone thought it was weird that a big-name actress didn’t want to hog the stage—but she didn’t. Not even in the chorus or bit roles. Melody Carlson claimed it was because Vivien was too stuck-up— That was her term, dude; I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before,” he added when Jake snorted. “Anyway, Melody Carlson—who was always the lead in all of the shows and had all the big choir solos—said Vivien wouldn’t try out because she thought she was too important to be in a pitiful high school or community theater show.”

  “Well, I guess things worked out just fine for Melody Carlson, then,” said Jake, imagining a sly-faced girl with a mouth pinched in jealousy and dagger eyes.

  “Trust me, Melody wasn’t anything spectacular onstage. I played opposite her a few times—not that I’m talented either. Small town, small school, small pool of talent…I’m guessing Melody was just relieved Vivien didn’t steal her limelight. Melody still lives here in town, in fact. She’s the music teacher at the elementary school. Got divorced a few years ago, I think.”

  Jake considered that information for a minute, then said, “I don’t know anything about this Melody, but you don’t think she still has a hard-on for showing up or harassing Vivien, do you?”

  Baxter shook his head. “Nah. I can’t see it. Over a high school rivalry from almost twenty years ago—a rivalry that never even happened? But you never know.”

  “That’s the truth. I’ve seen enough X-rays to know that people do strange things for strange reasons all the time. Case in point: I once got an image—came in from the ER, of course—that showed a ballpoint pen inside someone’s urinary bladder.”

  Baxter whipped his head to gape at Jake, a horrified look on his face. “Really?”

  Jake nodded. “Yep.” He shook his head. “I didn’t ask…didn’t even want to know.”