Chapter Four
CALLIE
My father used to say, “The evidence of a true artist isn’t found on their newest canvas but on their smock.” And if that were true, then the three kids who’d taken over my studio were on the same trajectory as Picasso.
I suppressed a grin as Collin unknowingly smeared a dab of orange paint across his eyebrow with the back of his hand. He’d never been too interested in playing with my art supplies in summers past, not the way Corrianna had been, but his friend’s thoughtful remarks and increased curiosity seemed to be contagious. Brandon was a good creative influence. Who said peer pressure couldn’t be positive?
Surprisingly, Brandon had broken away from the pack today—riveted by the variety of widths and textures he’d found in my charcoal collection. I shot a secretive glance in his direction. Hunched on a stool, with dark, ashy smudges running the length of his fingers like gloves, the boy hadn’t lifted his head in over an hour—not even when Collin and Corrianna fought over whose landscape looked more lifelike. Brandon’s focus remained honed on the brisk strokes of his private creation. There was something different about him—something atypical. He was part of a category of people I understood well.
For the last week and a half, the boy I’d first considered to be surly and sullen had actually helped me unload box after box as we prepped my studio for summer. There’d been no shortage of questions as we worked either. But as quickly as he’d arrive each morning, he’d disappear in the afternoon. By 3:42 sharp.
The lively spark illuminating his dark eyes while he sketched captivated me so completely that I found myself encroaching on his space and peering over his shoulder.
An artsy robot with a rectangular torso and accordion hoses for each appendage balanced a stack of metal funnels atop his head. But while the expression of movement appeared comical, the robot’s bolted eyebrows translated annoyance and frustration. The satire was genius. “Wow, he’s fantastic, Brandon.”
The boy jolted at the sound of my voice near his ear.
“Sorry—I wasn’t trying to snoop.” Or maybe I was. “But I’m seriously impressed.” I touched the edge of his paper. “Your dude here is so expressive and animated. Have you taken art lessons before?”
Timidly, Brandon shook his head. “I’ve taken a few classes at my oma’s house in California, but mostly I just play around.”
Nah, my niece and nephew play around. What Brandon had created here was something else entirely.
“Are you talking about his robot?” Collin asked from the easel corner, brushing color onto a canvas. “He has a whole book of them. They’re awesome.”
“You do?” My gaze dropped to the sketchbook under his elbow. “Ah.” So that’s what he’d been hiding in there.
I could almost feel the heat rising off Brandon’s neck as his color deepened. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not,” Collin said matter-of-factly. “Our art teacher, Mrs. Mardel, told him he ought to enter a contest or something.”
“I would definitely agree with Mrs. Mardel.” Wholeheartedly. If this was what he came up with on the spur of the moment, I could only imagine what he’d created on his own timeline.
Brandon swept his hair off his forehead and seemed to take my measure. “Do . . . you want to see them?”
No part of me took his invitation lightly. The kid had been guarding his sketchbook like pirate treasure since I’d met him. “I’d be honored.”
A single nod, and then he shoved the book in my direction, giving me direct access into his most private of worlds.
The instant I cracked the spine open, I had to bite back the impulse to gush. Honestly, though, this kid!
Page after page, I fell more in love with his Mr. Robot—the entertaining antics and steely expression of his masculine features were beyond charming. A courageous blend of rigidity and charisma. Many of the sketches were in full color—while a few remained shaded in pencil.
“Aunt Callie, can you please tell my brother that clouds aren’t purple.” Corrianna’s self-righteous complaint turned my attention back to the easels at the far side of the room.
Regretfully, I returned Brandon’s sketchbook and thanked him again for allowing me to thumb through it. And then I addressed the two crazies. “And why can’t clouds be purple? That’s the thing about art, Cor. We all see and interpret the world differently. Your job as an aspiring artist is to paint the world you see, or maybe the world you wish you could see.” I moved the plans for my upcoming mural project aside and planted my bum atop the desk.
“Told you so,” Collin spat. “Looks like I’m a better visionary than you are.”
But when Corrianna stuck her tongue out, I slid down from my perch, ready to intervene before either of them started flinging paint or breaking easels.
“Hey now.” I slung my arms around their necks and pulled them close. “What’s my only rule while in the studio?”
Collin mashed his lips together while Corrianna’s guilty conscious played out on her face.
Finally, she sighed. “Not to make art into a competition.”
“That’s right,” I said. “So why don’t you both focus a bit more on your own work and less on each other’s, okay?”
Collin shrugged, and I planted a smooch on his pale cheek.
“Ugh,” he said with an eye roll. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“It’s in my job description. Deal with it.”
I’d taken two steps away from them when something cold and wet swiped across my cheekbone.
“Then you can deal with this,” Collin said, laughing.
I touched the spot, my fingertips slick with dark-purple paint. “Oh no you didn’t.”
Without missing a beat, I grabbed his paintbrush and brushed a streak across his forehead. Corrianna bent at the waist, gasping for air between high-pitched giggles. An opportunity I couldn’t let go to waste.
I marked her forehead as well.
She squealed and darted toward the palette of colors. Collin dipped his fingers in the red and green, Corrie in the yellow and blue. All too soon I found myself calling for backup, but Brandon did not come to my rescue. He was, however, cheering them on as they pinned me against the wall and wiped my face with all the colors of the rainbow.
“Mercy! Mercy!” I cried between swipes.
Cackling, the two finally stepped back to examine their handiwork. My face. They high-fived each other. Apparently, torturing their beloved aunt was the key to getting them to work together.
“Okay, okay. So now that you’ve had your fun”—I blinked hard, my eyelashes caked and sticky—“you both better go clean yourselves up at my place before your mom gets back from the store. I don’t even want to think about what she’d do to me if she saw you like this.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I heard a car door slam in the distance. Clem was home. Without a hint of hesitation, the two hightailed it out of the warehouse. Like the warning on a box of matches, we all knew my sister’s wrath wasn’t something to mess around with.
Sure, I probably resembled a Goosebumps character, but at least Clem’s kids would be out of Dodge.
From somewhere beyond my makeshift studio, Collin’s voice carried on the summer breeze. My ears perked at his unusual tone.
He was talking to someone.
Someone not his mother.
And then he was skidding to a stop inside the warehouse, his skin still paint-splattered and his eyes wide with panic.
“Dude . . . your dad’s here!”
Brandon’s head snapped up from his sketch work, his stool clattering to the cement floor as a man with storm-gray eyes passed over the threshold. The man’s tense, towering frame relaxed slightly the instant his gaze landed on—
“Brandon.” A word teetering on the edge of authority and . . . relief?
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” The man crossed his arms over his chest, the short sleeves of his navy polo exposing the tan line above his biceps. “Wrong question, Son.”
Tension crackled in the air as something unspoken passed between them. For a heartbeat, Brandon’s usual steel-trap expression fell away and guilt shrouded his features. “I can explain.”
But the man—Brandon’s father—shook his head. He seemed about as interested in his son’s explanation as I was in Clem’s meal-planning tips. “The camp director already did.”
He rubbed a closed fist to his forehead as if trying to gather his thoughts. He turned slowly, his keen eyes skimming the contents of my recently unpacked work space.
And then his gaze stilled. On me. I could almost see the logical part of his brain whirling as he worked to process my mosaic face mask.
I stepped toward him, smiling brightly, hand outstretched. “Hello there. I’m Callie Quinn, Collin and Corrianna’s aunt. You must be Brandon’s father?”
“Davis Carter,” he said dryly. He eyed my offering, and I pulled my hand back to wipe the glistening mess onto my smock.
“I’m afraid you caught us after a family bonding moment. But as you can see, your son was smart enough to stay out of the war zone.”
Not even the teeniest hint of a smile registered in his ashy eyes. I understood now who Brandon inherited his sense of humor from.
Davis continued to study me as if I were an abstract painting at an art gallery, his expression firm and contemplative. And perhaps more than a touch confused. Without a word, he rounded my workstation and planted his palms on the end of the table opposite his son.
No wedding band encircled his ring finger. And I had zero question as to why. The man’s dazzling personality didn’t exactly scream emotionally available.
Brandon hadn’t moved. He stood ruler-straight, clutching his sketchpad while his gaze darted between his friend and his father. All the while, Collin remained uncharacteristically quiet. Whatever was going on here, the boys were obviously in cahoots.
Davis’s clean-shaven jaw ticked like a frenzied pulse beat. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about this?”
Brandon said nothing.
“I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Again. And still, you managed to find another way to deceive me.” Hurt underlined the anger in his tone, and something inside me ached to know what had happened.
With each passing second, the stale studio air seemed to thicken, making the silence even more unbearable. I couldn’t stand back and observe this train wreck for one more heartbeat.
I moved toward them. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but—”
Davis’s razor-sharp focus sliced me open. “I would hope not—although I am curious why his presence here day after day didn’t raise any red flags for you.”
Wait a minute. Was he putting me on trial now? “Red flags? He’s a school friend of Collin’s. And it’s summertime. His hanging out here seems like a much better alternative to him sitting at home playing video games while his parents are at work.”
“Parent,” Davis corrected harshly. “And he wasn’t supposed to be at home playing video games. He was supposed to be at day camp. Nine to four. Monday through Friday.”
Collin and Brandon shared another one of their suspicious glances—a look I’d seen since my arrival in town. Their secretive conversations, their obsession with time, and their tight-lipped responses to personal questions finally made sense. Collin had aided and abetted his friend’s escape like a seasoned criminal.
“Collin.” I lowered my voice to mimic my older sister—a.k.a. Master Parent, Clementine Taylor. She’d perfected the tone of disappointment sometime between my middle and high school years. It was easy enough to recall.
“It’s not his fault.” Brandon’s first spoken words. “Collin was just trying to help me.”
If possible, the man’s jaw clenched tighter. “Encouraging you to lie to your father is not a help.”
“Hey now.” I lifted my palms. “I don’t think we know who was encouraging whom to do what here—but obviously, Collin owes you a huge apology.” I shot Collin my best attempt at a mom glare.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carter,” Collin said, his voice wobbly. “And I’m sorry, Aunt Callie.”
I acknowledged him with a nod. “Head inside, Collin. We’ll need to talk to your mom when she gets home.”
My nephew glanced back at Brandon again, torn between obedience and loyalty. Head hung low, he exited.
After several long exhales, Davis simply said, “Get to the car, Brandon.” The defeated sigh that escaped him roused a long-repressed instinct. I wanted to reach out and crush the guarded stranger into a bear hug and recite one of my sister’s never-give-up pep talks. Yet I was pretty sure those could only be given and received by one parent to another . . . and I couldn’t even keep a cactus alive, much less offer advice on child-rearing.
Brandon looked from me to his father. “Dad, I—”
“Get to the car. Now.”
“Fine. It’s not like you ever listen to me anyway.” Brandon swiped his sketchbook off the table and rushed toward the doorway, slowing only when he neared me. “Sorry, Callie.”
Those two words hit my chest dead center.
I watched the boy shuffle across the yard until I heard Davis make his way to the door.
“Uh, Davis?” I said, uncertain of what my next words should be.
His eyes wandered my face again.
“I probably shouldn’t interfere, and I realize I haven’t known Brandon very long, but he’s been a huge help around here. All those empty boxes over there”—I pointed to the corner—“he unpacked them and helped me set up. Also, and I’m sure you must know this, of course, but he’s incredibly talented. Today he sketched with my charcoal for close to two hours without breaking concentration. Maybe art could be a—”
“You’re right,” he said with such coldness the hairs on my arms stiffened. “You probably shouldn’t interfere.”