Sinister Stage (Wicks Hollow #5) - Colleen Gleason

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

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