Critical Instinct(6)

She didn’t doubt herself. Each stroke was purposeful and distinct. Each color fitting the way she envisioned it in her mind.

Paige had always felt like an outcast, a misfit. Except for when she was painting.

Painting had always been part of her life, even before her mother, the only parent Paige ever had to speak of, had died when she was six. Paige had been separated from her two sisters just after her mother’s death. Because there had been no immediate family to claim them, the three were sent into the foster care system.

And then, despite the social worker’s extended efforts, no foster family could be found to take all three troubled young girls together. Paige, and her sisters Adrienne and Chloe, were not only traumatized by the loss of their mother, but each seemed to have some sort of special need, or special something, that was obviously going to require a lot of attention.

Their mother had called it their special gifts. Adrienne and Chloe could hear things other people couldn’t. Paige could see things. Colors.

It wasn’t like they had superpowers or were psychic or anything. Paige and her sisters’ minds just seemed to be more sensitive and receptive to different things.

Of course, when you were talking about triplet six-year-olds with that sensitivity, who’d just lost their mother, it came across as plain old trauma. And a lot of extra work. No foster family had been willing to take that on, so Paige and her sisters had been separated.

Once Paige had lost her mother and sisters it had been painting where she’d found solace. And she’d been finding solace there ever since.

Paige knew she painted colors and scenes no one else could see. That fact no longer gave her a moment’s pause. She wasn’t sure why she could see the colors that surrounded people, but she’d always been able to. Painting them had come naturally.

Growing up she’d tried to tell one of her foster mothers about the colors. But her child’s limited vocabulary, coupled with her foster mother’s busyness, had left Paige unable to explain. Over the years she had learned that she saw things other people didn’t and to leave it at that.

Most of the time people’s colors were beautiful to her, and always so very unique. Especially the children she’d been concentrating on lately. The hues were a joy, a comfort. Paige loved painting their auras for the same reason she loved the giant windows that made up most of her living room. Because she couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of it all.

Adults’ colors were more complicated. Generally more muddied. And although Paige preferred the clarity of children’s auras, she occasional liked the complexity of adults. Give Paige a strong woman —balancing work, family, love, and play— and Paige could almost guarantee a final painting that may not be beautiful, but would compel you to look. Then look some more.

But some people were surrounded by dark auras. Paige didn’t paint those, didn’t even try. The dark was too painful to paint. Most of the time it was too painful to even look at.

By the time Paige finished the painting of Brett, the sun was going down. She stepped back to look at it in the dwindling light, pleased with what she saw. It was beautiful. Breath-taking really. She knew her agent would want her to include it in next week’s show.

Paige had no plans to do that. She didn’t know what it was about this painting, but it compelled her. The same way the man himself compelled her.

She was attracted to Brett Wagner. Not in a freshman’s high-school-crush way, but in a full-grown-woman-attraction way.

The thought both befuddled and delighted her. She was uncomfortable around him, but not in the same way she was uncomfortable around most everyone else. Her discomfiture with Brett had nothing to do with fears for her physical safety and everything to do with those butterflies in her stomach that she thought she would never feel again.

So no, she wasn’t going to let her agent have this painting. Putting it on display at the show would be like displaying her own attraction to Brett.

It was something she just wanted to keep to herself. To let anyone else know, even Brett —especially Brett— would just make her too unbearably vulnerable.

The phone ringing from over at the door drew her attention from the easel in front of her. She answered it on the third ring.

“Ms. Jeffries. It’s Jacob at the front gate. Just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for the day. Tom is here and is taking over. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Jacob. See you then.”

Paige often thought it was ridiculous that people paid so much for her paintings. Honestly, she was going to paint whether they sold or not, so she would’ve given them away. But the great thing about her paintings fetching such a hefty price tag was that it enabled her to provide for her needs in an ample way.

One of her biggest needs in the last two years had been to feel safe in her own house. Paying for full-time security to guard the gate and monitor the grounds so she had that need fulfilled had been well worth the salary of the guards. She was often terrified when she stepped foot out of her house, but rarely within it. No one was getting through the gate without her being notified.

Paige hadn’t set foot out of her house without security or some sort of entourage for the two years since her attack. It was too hard, too stressful, watching over her shoulder every second. Always afraid. She returned much more exhausted than when she’d left.

So mostly she stayed home. She had friends, a few important close ones that came to visit. And her sister Adrienne, who lived in California with her FBI agent husband, also came by a couple times a year. Her other sister Chloe too, although not as often. Paige was glad to have reconnected with her sisters as adults.

Between her small group of friends and her sisters, Paige’s personal life was as active as she wanted it to be. The thought of dating had never even crossed her mind.

Until Brett Wagner walked in her front door earlier today, his large form causing wariness in her, but not fear. And the touch of his hand for the first time making Paige want to step closer rather than immediately rush away. And those soft brown eyes that hadn’t looked at her like she was crazy despite what he had to suspect.

Maybe Paige was finally starting to move past her attack.

Now if she could just stop drawing dead women in her sleep.

She knew the Portland PD was frustrated by her inability to remember anything helpful. She’d seen her attacker’s face, she knew she had. But she couldn’t remember it. She’d worked with a police sketch artist, a therapist, hell, even a hypnotist to try to gather the details out of her mind. But all Paige could remember were the colors that had surrounded the man. Blacks and grays swirling like a steaming vat of evil.

Paige wrapped her arms around herself as she began to shudder. She could remember the colors surrounding the man to the smallest detail. To this day could paint them if someone asked. But somehow “steaming vat of evil” hadn’t provided sketchable results for law enforcement.

Not to mention the man had hit her in the face so many times that seeing out of either eye had been nearly impossible.

Paige pushed that thought from her mind quickly. Nothing good came from dwelling on the physical violence she had endured. She knew that as fact.

It was probably time to stop thinking about the attack altogether. For good. It was time to let Portland PD off the hook. It had been two years. There was no reason to think they were ever going to find any new leads about her attack.

Paige wanted her attacker behind bars. Wanted to know there was zero chance she would run into him if she stepped foot out of her house.

But the man was probably never going to be caught. He probably wasn’t anywhere near this area any longer. Her attack had been an isolated incident.

Without a description, they’d never catch him.

Every time the Portland PD had to send a good detective like Brett up to her house to talk to her, there was another case —a more active case that had the possibility of being solved— going ignored.

Paige would call Melissa MacKinven and tell her not to put any more undue pressure on the department. It was time. Past time.

And maybe she could talk to Brett Wagner again, but not about anything concerning her case, or weird drawings in her sleep, or violence. They would talk about… whatever normal people talked about.

It had been so long since she had been on a date she couldn’t even remember what that was any more.

Plus she wasn’t sure that someone as handsome and confident as QB Wagner would even want to go out with her. He was witty and engaging and brave. Paige, on the other hand, was not.

Not any of those things.

She was quiet by nature, introverted. She often was so caught up in painting that she forgot basic things like brushing her hair or eating full meals, for days at a time. She wasn’t witty and fun like her sister Chloe or beautiful and tough like her sister Adrienne.

Paige was just mousy. In all the literal and figurative senses of the word: plain, afraid, in a constant state of mental scurrying, darting around looking over her shoulder.

Paige doubted someone like Brett Wagner would be interested in her for very long.

She rinsed her brushes in the sink in her studio and returned them to their rightful places, examining the canvas she’d just finished. It truly was beautiful —his colors were beautiful— but she wouldn’t think about Brett any longer. She’d just be thankful she had the painting. It would have to be enough.