I winced. In New York, I was still best known as a hysteric or a pawn or, maybe the worst, a co-conspirator—someone just as cynical as Matthew who had accepted her role in the whole mess. “Mil, I work at a spa. Not sure how much of a professional I am anymore.”

“Nonsense. You’re brilliant and you know it. You head on up, and I’ll get us some iced tea.”

As I made my way through her house, I braced myself for disappointment. Back up that narrow, creaking stairway, wallpapered in a faded blue floral, into the little square of a bedroom with its chenille spread. I stood in front of the closet and held my breath.

But as I brought the paintings out of the closet, propped them up along the wall of the bedroom to look at them in the light, I felt the same thrill, the same hum of purpose in my chest. The artist’s use of color was extraordinary, vivid and unexpected and strange. The painting Mil had mentioned, the demolition of the Traymore, showed clouds of gray dust lined in neon pink. It seemed to hint at the garishness to come, the blaring neons and gaudy mirrors, the pandering, hypersexed billboards. One of the paintings of the diving girl was done exclusively in shades of blue, invoking a somber, melancholy impression. Even her perfect smile was shaded a lovely, sad periwinkle. A smile full of secrets.

After several failed attempts to dredge up anything remotely relevant via Google, I decided to go to the Atlantic City public library before my next shift at the spa. Someone had to know something about this painter—Atlantic City is too small a town to hold that kind of a secret. Someone would recognize the signature or point me to a tiny vanity-press book about local artists. I asked the librarian on duty who I could talk to about the paintings. I told her I thought that the painter might be working from photographs, at least for some of the paintings, given the time span they covered.

“Well, I’m afraid that due to the latest round of budget cuts, the woman who maintains our archives is now only here on Mondays and Fridays. She’s the expert, but maybe I can help?”

I scrolled through the images on my phone: the Victorian ladies on the promenade, the portraits of the soldiers and nurses, the sleek chrome-accented cars of the 1920s, the first Miss America contestants in home-sewn costumes—until I found several shots of the signature. The woman squinted at the screen, then frowned.

“I’ve never seen anything like these before. Where did you say you came across them?”