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When a stormy Heritage Festival ends in murder at a restored train depot, café owner Poppy James must untangle art, ego, and a very deadly history along the Whistlestop Line. Poppy comes to Easton Springs to pour coffee, cheer on the grand reopening of the old rail station, and maybe enjoy a quiet weekend with historian boyfriend Theo, bestie Nadine, and her trouble-sniffing beagle, Midsip. Instead, a locked parlor, a dead councilman, and a missing masterpiece turn the Heritage Festival into a crime scene. With the town’s future riding on the unveiling of the moody painting Station at Dusk, everyone has something to hide. The fussy registrar “tidies” the guest book until the timeline blurs.The security chief insists no one could have slipped past his patrols, and the elegant art restorer treats suspicious scraps of history like trash. As storm-flooded roads trap the guests inside, Poppy’s cozy instincts collide with a dangerous pattern of forged art, buried doctrine, and carefully edited truth. If Poppy can’t unmask a killer before the festival ends, a murderer will walk free—and the Whistlestop Line’s true story will vanish behind a very permanent curtain.
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