Chapter 3: The Evidence They Tried to Erase
For several seconds, I stared at the login history.
The unfamiliar device had accessed my email at 9:42 a.m.
I had been standing beside Mrs. Alvarez's cutting counter at that exact time, trying to figure out how to afford enough satin.
My laptop was still open in my bedroom.
My phone was beside it.
The house had been empty when I left.
At least, I had thought it was.
I checked the security details again. The login came from the same city, using a browser I didn't recognize.
Someone had opened my competition emails, accessed my design folder, and deleted the attachment containing my original concept.
My hands began to shake.
I immediately changed my password and enabled two-factor authentication. Then I checked the trash folder.
Nothing.
I searched the cloud backup.
Nothing.
I checked the version history of the design document.
The file had been removed from the shared folder.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
“No,” I whispered.
“You don't get to do this.””
I wasn't sure whether I was speaking to Brianna, Vanessa, or the entire universe.
I had six days to finish a dress and prove my own innocence. Now I had less than twenty-four hours to convince the committee that I was the rightful designer.
I opened the sketchbook again.
The original drawings were still there.
My mother's handwriting was still there.
And on the inside cover, in my own handwriting, I had written the date I first began designing the white-and-blue gown.
Four months earlier.
It wasn't enough by itself, but it was something.
I took photographs of every page, making sure the dates and construction notes were visible. Then I searched my phone for pictures from the weeks when I had been working on the gown.
There were hundreds.
A photograph of the first bodice mock-up.
A close-up of the butterfly embroidery.
A video of me testing the crystals under different lighting.
A picture of my mother's old bracelet beside the stones I had removed from it.
I uploaded everything to a new folder and sent a copy to an email account Brianna didn't know existed.
Then I called Simone Reed.
“I found evidence that someone accessed my account and deleted my original submission.””
Her voice became serious.
“Do you know who?””
“I have a suspicion, but I can't prove it yet.””
“Don't make accusations you can't support, Nia. Bring the evidence you do have tomorrow.””
“I will.””
“And one more thing,” Simone said.
“The person who contacted us has requested a formal review of your entry.””
“Who requested it?””
“I can't give you that information over the phone.””
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Does the person have to attend the review?””
“Yes. If the dispute concerns ownership, both parties may be asked to explain their claims.””
I looked at the empty hanger.
“Then I hope they come.””
I spent the next hour organizing the evidence.
At the bottom of my desk drawer, I found a small envelope containing the original fabric receipts. Mrs. Alvarez had written my name on each one because I had asked her to keep the records for my portfolio.
I scanned them.
I photographed the sketches.
I saved the messages in which I had described the gown's design to a classmate.
Finally, I opened the folder containing the competition's original rules.
One sentence stood out.
All registered designs remain the intellectual property of the named entrant unless an independently verified transfer of ownership is submitted.
I read it twice.
Brianna could wear the gown.
She could lie about making it.
She could even convince Vanessa to support her.
But she couldn't legally transfer the design into her own name simply by putting it on.
I printed the rules and placed them inside my folder.
Then I returned to the sewing table.
The burgundy gown was waiting.
Its bodice had taken shape, but the inner seams were uneven. I had to remove one entire panel and recut it because the fabric stretched differently from the remnants Mrs. Alvarez had given me.
I worked slowly, reminding myself that rushing would only create more problems.
At seven, someone knocked on my door.
“Nia?”” my father called.
I froze.
My father, Robert Carter, worked long shifts as a maintenance supervisor and usually returned home after dinner. He had been in another state for work when Vanessa and Brianna took my gown.
I hadn't told him about the slap.
I hadn't told him about the deleted files.
I had barely spoken to him since he left.
“Come in,” I said.
He opened the door and stopped when he saw the fabric covering my table.
“What happened to the white gown?””
I lowered my eyes.
“Brianna took it.””
His expression tightened.
“What do you mean, she took it?””
“Vanessa told her she could wear it. When I tried to stop them, Vanessa twisted my wrist and slapped me.””
For a moment, my father looked as if he hadn't understood the words.
Then he stepped closer.
“She hit you?””
I nodded.
He sat on the edge of my bed and rubbed both hands over his face.
“Why didn't you call me?””
I almost laughed, but it came out as a broken breath.
“Because you were working. Because I didn't want another fight. Because every time I tell you something Vanessa does, you say you'll talk to her when things calm down.””
He looked at me.
“I didn't know it had gotten this bad.””
“You didn't ask.””
The silence that followed was heavier than any argument.
My father had never been cruel to me. He paid the bills, attended school meetings when he could, and remembered my birthday.
But after marrying Vanessa, he had slowly withdrawn from the parts of my life that made her uncomfortable.
When Vanessa criticized my mother's old sewing machine, he told me not to take it personally.
When Brianna borrowed my tools and returned them broken, he told me siblings had to share.
When I complained that Vanessa treated me differently, he promised to speak to her.
And then he went back to work.
Now he looked at the unfinished burgundy gown as if he were seeing the consequences of all those small compromises at once.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
I swallowed.
“I have a competition meeting tomorrow. Someone accused me of stealing my own design, and my original submission was deleted from my email.””
His head lifted.
“What?””
I explained everything.
The stolen gown. The photographs sent to the committee. The deleted attachment. The unfamiliar login.
My father listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he stood up.
“Show me the account history.””
I turned the laptop toward him.
He studied the timestamps, then the device information.
“Do you have a backup of the original sketches?””
“Yes.””
“Receipts?””
“Yes.””
“Photographs of you making the gown?””
“Hundreds.””
He nodded slowly.
“Then we start there.””
For the first time in months, I felt that someone was standing beside me instead of asking me to make myself smaller.
My father took photographs of the bruising around my wrist, asking permission before he touched my arm. He helped me save copies of the evidence to a separate drive and wrote down the times of the suspicious account activity.
Then he looked toward the door.
“I'm going to speak to Vanessa.””
“No.””
He stopped.
I had spoken so quickly that we both stared at each other.
“If you confront her now, she'll know we have the login history. She might delete something else or make up another story.””
My father considered that.
“What do you want me to do?””
“Come with me tomorrow. Let the committee see the evidence. And please don't let anyone take my new dress.””
He glanced at the burgundy satin.
“Is that what you're making?””
I nodded.
He moved closer to the table.
The sketchbook lay open beside the pattern pieces. He stared at the wine-red gown, studying its unusual neckline and the layered skirt.
“Your mother would've loved this.””
My throat tightened.
“I don't know if I can finish it.””
He rested a hand on the back of the chair.
“Then we'll figure out what you need to finish it.””
I didn't ask him to sew. He had never learned.
Instead, he helped me organize the workspace, carry the cutting table closer to the light, and sort the crystals I had salvaged from the stolen gown.
For the next two hours, he stayed in the room while I worked.
Sometimes he asked questions.
Sometimes he sat quietly.
And sometimes, when I caught him looking at the bruises on my wrist, I could see how badly he wished he had noticed sooner.
At ten, he went downstairs to make tea.
I was finishing the inner bodice when I heard raised voices in the kitchen.
Vanessa.
Brianna.
My father.
I couldn't make out every word, but I heard my name.
Then Vanessa shouted, “You are not going to turn this family against me because of a dress!””
My needle stopped.
My father answered, his voice low but unmistakably firm.
“This isn't about a dress. You put your hands on my daughter.””
A chair scraped across the floor.
Brianna said something I couldn't hear.
Then Vanessa laughed.
It wasn't a nervous laugh.
It was the same cold sound she had made after slapping me.
“You think you know what happened?”” she demanded.
“Ask your precious daughter why she never told you what she did first.””
I stood so quickly that the chair struck the wall.
What was she talking about?
I stepped toward the door, but before I could open it, my phone buzzed.
An email had arrived from Simone Reed.
*URGENT: PRELIMINARY REVIEW MATERIALS RECEIVED.*
I opened the attachment.
It contained a photograph of my white-and-blue gown on a mannequin, along with a signed statement claiming that Brianna had designed it herself.
Below the statement was a photograph of a handwritten sketch.
My stomach dropped.
The drawing looked almost identical to the earliest version of my gown.
The same butterfly placement.
The same curved line across the bodice.
The same cluster of flowers near the left hip.
But the signature at the bottom wasn't mine.
It belonged to Brianna.
I stared at the screen, unable to understand how she had obtained a copy of my earliest design.
Then I noticed something in the corner of the photograph.
A strip of blue paper.
The kind I used to label the pages of my sketchbook.
I opened my drawer and pulled out the notebook.
I flipped through the pages until I reached the original drawing.
The blue label was missing.
Someone had torn the corner from the page.
I checked the inside cover, where I had written the date.
The page was still there, but the lower edge had been cut away.
My fingers went numb.
Brianna hadn't merely stolen my gown.
She had taken pieces of my original sketches, altered the evidence, and submitted a false claim.
And she had done it while I was away from home.
Downstairs, Vanessa's voice rose again.
“Brianna has a right to protect herself. If Nia wants to accuse us of something, she can explain why her own drawings were found in Brianna's room.””
I heard my father say, “What drawings?””
Then came the unmistakable sound of a folder being dropped onto the kitchen table.
I hurried to the doorway.
My father stood beside the table, holding several sheets of paper.
Vanessa had gone pale.
Brianna stood behind her, clutching the stolen gown against her chest.
On the top sheet was a photograph of my sketchbook.
But the drawing wasn't the white-and-blue gown.
It was the wine-red dress I was making upstairs.
The photograph had been taken less than an hour earlier.
May you like
And beneath it, someone had written a single sentence:
*Nia Carter stole this design, too.*
