The threat of the Cheyenne Sheriff’s office hung heavy in the air. We knew Silas wasn’t bluffing.
“We need to fight this,” I said to Grayson, my mind racing. “But how?”
Grayson took my hands. “There’s only one person who truly knows Silas’s schemes. My Great-Aunt Clara.”
“Your aunt?” I asked, surprised. “What could she know?”
“Clara worked backstage for years,” Grayson explained, his gaze distant. “She saw everything. Knew how Silas operated.”
He motioned towards the rough-hewn table. “Silas has done this before, Maria. He’s always preyed on artists, especially women. He sees them as assets, not people.”
We packed a small bag. The journey to Great-Aunt Clara’s was long, the snow-covered roads treacherous. Grayson’s sturdy wagon cut through the drifts, the only sound the rhythmic crunch of runners on ice.
We arrived at a small, cozy cabin nestled deeper into the Medicine Bow foothills. Smoke curled from its chimney, and a faint scent of pine needles and baking bread greeted us.
Great-Aunt Clara was a small woman with bright, knowing eyes and a network of wrinkles around them that hinted at a lifetime of observation. She sat by a roaring fire, knitting a scarlet scarf.
She gave Grayson a warm hug, then turned her keen gaze on me.
“So this is the singer,” she said, her voice gravelly but kind. “I heard about the Cheyenne spectacle.”
I felt a blush creep up my neck. “Silas orchestrates his public image carefully.”
Clara chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “He always did. Caim too. All flash, no substance.”
She gestured for us to sit. “Silas has a pattern. He sweet-talks artists, promises them fame, then buries them in contracts that steal their future.”
Grayson nodded. “He tried it with Mama, before she found Papa. He almost got her to sign away her portrait rights.”
Clara leaned forward, her knitting needles resting in her lap. “Your mother, Maria, she was a smart one. She saw through him, eventually. But not before he got his hooks into a few others.”
“What kind of hooks?” I asked, a cold dread coiling in my stomach.
“He’d forge documents, mostly,” Clara revealed, her eyes hardening. “Change the terms after they’d signed, or claim expenses that never existed. He even faked property deeds for theaters that were already mortgaged to the hilt.”
She looked directly at me. “Your mother’s inheritance, the one hundred thousand dollars? Silas engineered Caim’s public rejection. If Caim broke the engagement, the inheritance clause tied to your marriage became void. He intended to seize it.”
My blood ran cold. It wasn’t just about my career; it was about outright theft. Silas had planned this all along. The public humiliation, the broken engagement, it was all part of his scheme to steal my mother’s legacy.
Clara stood, her movements slow but deliberate. “I kept records. Old ledgers from the touring companies we worked for. Proof of Silas’s handiwork, dating back years.”
She walked to a sturdy wooden chest in the corner, its surface scarred by time. The air thickened with the weight of her past.
“My old bones remember,” she murmured. “Silas Oakridge never changes his spots.”
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