Center Stage: Magnolia Steele Mystery #1 Read Free

I’d dusted my high cheekbones with a hint of blush and applied pale gloss to my full lips. A director had once told me that I had a face for movies—something he’d meant as a compliment—but I had no desire to have my face in the public eye any more than it already was. When I’d started acting eight years ago, most people couldn’t have named a Broadway star if their life depended on it. I’d taken a chance by accepting the role of Scarlett in Fireflies at Dawn , but the risk had seemed low . That would teach me.
    “Magnolia!” my mother shouted up from downstairs.
    “Coming!” I grabbed my jacket off the bed and slipped it on as I headed down the staircase. I stopped halfway down to look at the photos on the wall. They were still the same ones that had hung there ten years ago. A family photo of Momma, Daddy, me, and Roy, taken back when we were happy and complete. School photos of my brother and I that spanned all the way from kindergarten to senior year. But there was a new photo I hadn’t seen before—one of Roy and a woman in a white dress. A photo from the wedding he hadn’t invited me to attend.
    My stomach cramped at the reminder that I didn’t belong here and hadn’t for a long time. My family had moved on without me.
    “Magnolia!”
    I met Momma at the foot of the stairs. She was wearing the same monochromatic outfit I had on, minus the tie.
    “Let me look at you.” She grabbed my shoulders and looked me up and down before her gaze rested at the base of my throat. “You put your tie on by yourself. And it’s straight.”
    “I worked at a restaurant where a tie was part of the uniform. I got tired of asking the waiters to knot it for me.”
    Thinly veiled annoyance covered her face. “You could always get the boys to do whatever you wanted.”
    I rolled my eyes and headed out the front door. “I couldn’t help that, Momma.”
    “You can’t rely on men to solve all your problems, Magnolia,” she said, following behind me.
    “The very fact that I’m here with you now is proof enough that I know that.” Anger simmered in my chest. Her statement was also proof that she didn’t know me. Not anymore. I’d spent two lonely years in a city of eight million people, living with a roommate who didn’t give a shit about me other than if I paid the rent on time. I’d lost track of how many nights I’d cried myself to sleep that first year, wishing I’d never seen Ashley Pincher giving Maddie’s boyfriend Blake a blowjob. Wishing I hadn’t run into the woods to get away from him. Wishing I could remember what had happened after that, but also wishing that I could forget anything had happened.
    But wishing never got you shit.
    We both got into her car and she backed out of the driveway, then took off down the street.
    “There’s no need to get snippy with me.” Her mouth pursed as she gripped the steering wheel, staring at the road like she thought it would get up and walk away. “I’m only pointing out the obvious.”
    I held my tongue.
    “What happened with your debut?”
    “Do you want to know so you can gloat?”
    “Was it that bad?”
    “Worse.”
    “Want to talk about it?”
    Not really, but she was bound to find out, and I wanted her to hear my version first. “There was an . . . incident on stage. On opening night.”
    “What happened?”
    How much did I tell her? That I’d been living with the director for the past three months? That rumor had it I’d only gotten the part because I was screwing him? The thing that stung the most was that I’d really believed in the asshole. Griff had claimed to love me, and I’d hoped that I could learn to love him in return. That we could build something together. Griff, me, and the play. I had wanted that so much that I’d given him pretty much every penny I had for the sake of Fireflies at Dawn . Then, minutes before our opening performance, I’d caught him screwing my understudy.
    “I tripped on stage,” I said, opting to