"Take it down," someone shouted as the lights hit the canvas. A red cloth fell and the room closed around the painting like a single held breath. Cameras leaned forward. Phones rose. The Summit Gallery hummed with the kind of breathless attention that paid bills and decided reputations. "Alivia," a woman in a navy suit said from the front row. "This is inflammatory." Alivia Bray smiled at the woman without politeness. "Then you'll find it expensive to look away." "Watch your language in front of donors," the gallery director said, low and urgent. "Gustaf is in the courtyard. He isn't—" "Donors?" a photographer cut in, laughing. "She painted a dress. It's a dress." "It's not a dress," someone near the back said. The whisper moved faster than the cameras. "That's Lexi." "Lexi who?" a reporter asked, leaning toward Eldon Harper before his badge had a chance to announce itself. Eldon didn't answer. He watched the painting with the attention of someone who reads crime scenes like weather. The girl in the red dress sat on the canvas slumped against a blur of trees, her hair a dark smear against a pale face. The red was a color that refused to be polite. "You painted that night," Eldon said, letting his voice cut through the cameras. Alivia's smile sharpened. "I painted what I saw." A chorus of questions rose, all the same: Where? When? Why now? The first handful landed on Alivia. She met