Page 30 of Beautiful Exile

A few dozen search results popped up, all having to do with Arden’s art. There was her website and another local site I’d seen before but hadn’t dove into called The Collective.

I clicked on that link. The homepage was artfully done, and the site read,A home for the arts in Sparrow Falls where all are welcome.

Something about those words hit. They landed in a way that made me long for that kind of sense of belonging. There were countless photos of gallery showings and classes, even what looked like a mural project in downtown Sparrow Falls.

I clicked on the tab that readArtists in Residence. There were four. Hannah Farley, Isaiah Reynolds, Arden Waverly, and Farah Whitman. It looked like they all showed there, and some had studio space at The Collective, as well.

It looked like an amazing community center of sorts, but one specializing in art. A banner on the site caught my eye.Save the Date. A Fundraiser for Youth Programming at The Collective.

I clicked on that next. It looked like they were planning a show and auction to raise money for expanding their programming foryoung artists. I quickly typed the date into my phone and made a mental note to stop by the gallery and check it out.

Exiting out of The Collective’s home page, I moved on to the next hit. There was article after article about Arden’s creations, but they were all eerily similar. None had a photo of her or even an interview. They called her a reclusive artist who refused every interview request.

I went through about two dozen of the same sorts of articles before my eyes started to burn. I leaned back in my chair and glared at the screen. It wasn’t as if Arden had Banksy-level fame, but her art was getting picked up by bigger and bigger galleries, even some important collectors. I recognized the names from my mom’s involvement with the art world.

Just thinking it had a burn flaring in my sternum. She would’ve loved Arden—her talent and her fire.

But Arden’s art wouldn’t give me the answers I needed. I tried to think back to what Cope had shared about his siblings over the years. He’d walked me through how they’d all come to be with the Colsons: he and Fallon by birth, Shep by adoption, and Rhodes, Arden, Kye, and Trace, through fostering. I knew Arden had come to live with them at a fairly young age.

Twelve. I was almost positive that was how old she’d been. I plugged in new search parameters, setting the years to a few before and after that twelve-year mark.

Endless results popped up, but none of them were myArden.Mine.It was such a ridiculous thought. She could barely spend fifteen minutes with me.

I combed through the search results a second time. Nothing. I tried slightly different terms. Still nothing.

Finally, I broadened the search window and found an article in theSparrow Falls Gazette.Art Show by Local Youth Phenom. I clicked it, quickly reading the piece. It talked about the local gallery that was putting on a show for fifteen-year-old Arden Waverly. But again, there was no picture, no interview, and barely any identifying information about her.

I sank against the leather chair. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing about Arden Waverly before this article.

She was a ghost.

And that begged one question.

Why had she needed to disappear?

11

ARDEN

My truck’sengine purred as I slid to a stop at one of the three traffic lights in Sparrow Falls. I remembered Boston traffic, not well, but it was there in the recesses of my mind. How my dad would complain about getting stuck in it for hours on his way into and out of the city. And now I complained when there were three cars in front of me.

I liked the simplicity of life here. The way no one seemed to be in too big of a rush. My gaze flicked to a man walking down the street, a camera around his neck. He wasn’t familiar. My brain automatically tried to place him, attempting to flip through memories to see if he was someone who’d tried to hurt me or worse.

I was constantly playing that game. It got harder during the summer months with the influx of tourists. Instead of recognizing a good seventy-five percent of folks in town, it went down to fifty at best. And I was left assessing every new face I came across. The only problem was that the man who’d pulled all the strings was still a faceless ghost. Only his voice haunted my nightmares.

A short honk sounded behind me, and Brutus let out agrumble of annoyance. It was the polite version of honking because the light had most definitely changed. I eased off the brake, giving Mrs. Peterson behind me a wave of apology.

My stomach twisted. Just one more thing to add to the pile of evidence that my brain was a messed-up place. Always playing tricks on me. It was the same reason I’d bolted from having sandwiches with Linc like a scared doe.

The twisting sensation shifted to annoyance and then anger. That wasn’t me. I didn’t run away. Not since that night almost fourteen years ago. That was the point of the endless training with Kye, the reason I had Brutus, so I didn’t have to be afraid.

I drove past Sutton’s bakery, The Mix Up, and my stomach rumbled. I’d be stopping there on the way home, even if it would feel a little bittersweet now that she and Luca were in Seattle with Cope. I passed The Pop on my right and made a plan to get a burger tomorrow. It was good to know what food was coming next.

Just before I reached the edge of town, I flipped on my blinker and turned left. The Collective was set back two blocks from Cascade Avenue, but it was still close enough for tourists to meander into the gallery. And that two-block distance from the main street meant it had been a hell of a lot more affordable, even for such a large space.

And we needed large. A gallery space with plenty of natural light. Studio space for the artists. Studio space for classes. And I had a vision for making it even larger, but we needed an influx of cash first. I was fine funding the lion’s share of it from my art’s proceeds, but to be sustainable on a larger, community-wide scale, we needed more donations than I could provide. I just hoped the fundraiser was the start of that.

As I turned onto the side street, I saw that most of the parking spots were already full.Tourists.I hoped like hell they were at least purchasing some things from the gallery to offset my parking issues.

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