Chapter 4

I took an overnight bus back to the town. Sixteen hours. I didn't close my eyes once.

I was afraid the box would be empty. Even more afraid that whatever was inside still wouldn't be enough to bring down Evelyn.

I arrived at Maria's house at dawn. She had grown so old she could barely walk.

When she saw me, her lips trembled for a long moment. Then she pulled me into a hug and burst into tears. "What took you so long!"

At that, I broke down too.

We held each other and wept, as if trying to pour out every tear we had held back for twenty years.

When the crying stopped, she dragged a rusted tin box out from under the bed.

"After Evelyn first looked over the paintings, your grandma felt that something was wrong. She said the woman looked at them like a wolf eyeing meat. So she hid the earliest sketches and receipts and brought them to me that very night."

I pried the lid open with a knife. Inside, wrapped in cloth, was the first draft of Madonna of the Red Rock.

Where each figure stood, how the hands reached, how many cracks ran through the red rock. Every detail was drawn with absolute clarity.

Beneath the sketch were old receipts for canvas and red clay pigment. The dates were a full ten years earlier than Evelyn's claimed creation date.

At the very bottom lay a photograph. In it, Grandma stood beside her old easel, both hands covered in paint.

Madonna of the Red Rock was already more than half finished.

Standing next to her was a young Evelyn. I recognized her immediately.

The "desert studio photo" Evelyn had been showing off for twenty years was cropped from this very picture.

She had cut Grandma out entirely and kept only herself.

Behind the photograph was a sheet of paper. Brother Miguel had written the statement in English, and Grandma's thumbprint was pressed beneath it.

"All the paintings in the shed were painted by Rosa Rivera. Evelyn Hart came to see them. If the paintings disappear, please give this box to Lina."

Below that, in shaky, crooked handwriting, was Grandma's own name.

I crouched on the ground, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the photograph. "If she already knew something was wrong, why didn't she hide the paintings too?"

Maria shook her head through her tears. "Twelve large paintings. Where could she have hidden them?

"She kept saying, someone as rich and famous as Evelyn would never just come and take them outright. Who could have imagined she'd actually do it!"

She could never have imagined that someone so wealthy and respectable would actually send a truck in the middle of the night to steal from her.

I took the tin box to the cemetery. The wooden marker had been worn nearly illegible by wind and sand.

I knelt down and pressed the photograph against my chest. "Grandma, I found the evidence.

"This time, I'm not going to beg anyone. I'm going to take your paintings back in front of the whole world."

On the ride back to the city, ads for Evelyn's launch event kept popping up on my phone.

Golden desert vistas, a white gown, and obscenely expensive music.

The headline read: How One Woman Discovered the Soul of the Desert.

It made me sick.

The place where Grandma had lived for decades was being described as untouched wilderness.

The old trailers, the crumbling church, the poor. All of it had been erased, just like in that photograph.

The next afternoon, the launch event began.

All three thousand seats were filled, and the event was streaming worldwide.

The narrator's voice boomed from the screen: "Twenty years ago, Evelyn Hart ventured alone into the desert. The first snowfall inspired her to create the Desert Madonna Series, works that would stun the world."

I nearly ground my teeth to dust.

Every road on that screen, I had walked as a child. But in the footage, there was no Grandma. No broken-down shed. Nothing.

The documentary ended. The audience rose for a standing ovation.

The host called out, "Please welcome Evelyn Hart to the stage for a lifetime achievement honor!"

Evelyn walked onto the stage smiling. I rose to my feet in the last row.

Chloe spotted me instantly and went pale. "Stop her!"

Two security guards rushed over and grabbed my shoulders. I clutched the tin box with all my strength and screamed, "Just one photograph! Let everyone see who she cut out of it!"

Every head in the audience turned.

The livestream camera swung toward me.

Evelyn stood beneath the stage lights, the smile frozen on her face.

Even across the crowd, Evelyn recognized the photograph I was holding up. It showed her beside my grandmother, the woman she had cropped out.