Critical Instinct

by Crouch, Janie

  “Yes. I still claim to have drawn the picture three weeks before the photograph was taken.” Although she didn’t know why she still kept claiming that when no one was ever going to believe her.

  Hell, she’d drawn the picture herself and still didn’t believe it.

  Paige could see that Brett didn’t know what to do with that information. He tried a different tactic.

  “You make your living as an artist now right? So you draw for a living?”

  “No, I paint. Believe it or not, I’m not really very good at drawing. Colored pencils are definitely not my specialty.” She preferred bold oils.

  “I’m no expert, as we both know from how often I missed our art class, but the drawing in this file seemed pretty damn good to me.”

  Paige shook her head. “That is the exception, not the norm.”

  “But you paint?”

  “Yes.”

  “Realistic figures? Similar to the ones in the file, but with paint?”

  “No, my paintings tend to be much more abstract. Although they do involve people, mostly they center around colors.”

  Paige didn’t mention that the colors she painted, the ones that allowed her to make a very lucrative living from her art, were based on the auras of color she caught from people. To Paige, people were surrounded by colors. Her talent was capturing those colors on canvas. The ones she’d done of his sisters were the first ones she’d ever made public in any way.

  But she was sure that telling Brett about auras would just land them right back in the “crazy or liar” conversation. Although he hadn’t gotten to that point just yet.

  But standing there, watching him, she realized she couldn’t wait to paint him. Not him as a person, but the colors she so very clearly saw surrounding him. Was almost desperate to immerse herself in his colors and paint him.

  The thought once again caught Paige off guard. She hadn’t been interested in painting the colors of someone she actually knew in a while, had mostly stuck to the soothing colors of children and older people the last couple of years.

  But something about Brett Wagner pulled her in.

  “Would it be possible for me to see some of your paintings?” he asked, once again drawing her back from her thoughts.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have any of my artwork here right now.” That wasn’t the complete truth, given all the drawings of the women she’d done over the past two years, but it was as close as she was going to tell him.

  “Isn’t your house also your studio?”

  Paige smiled slightly at the disappointment in his tone. Evidently he really wanted to see her paintings, although she didn’t know if it was for personal or professional reasons. “Yes, but I’m having a show next week at a gallery downtown. All my pieces are there.”

  “I see.”

  “You should come to the opening of the show. It’s sold out but I could get you a ticket.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  They both stared at each other, neither seeming to know what to say. Had she just asked him out?

  “I mean, whatever,” she backtracked quickly. “I just meant if you need to see my work for the case, that’s probably the best way to do it.”

  Paige got up and walked to the refrigerator and opened its door. She didn’t really need anything from it, but couldn’t stay sitting at the island with him any longer.

  “That would be great. Maybe I’ll do that, thanks.” Paige heard him say, but didn’t take her head out of the fridge. “So you don’t really draw normally, you paint?”

  “That’s right.” Paige knew she had to pick something out of the refrigerator. She couldn’t stay in here forever.

  “Why did you draw the picture of your attack rather than paint it, if that’s your normal medium?”

  Surprised, Paige turned from the refrigerator to look back at Brett, her quest for food she didn’t really want forgotten. “None of your police buddies have ever asked me that before.”

  Brett gave a slight shrug. “Why not?”

  “They probably just lumped all art in together. Assumed if you could paint then you could draw and vice versa. Or they just never got past the part where I mentioned drawing it three weeks before the photo was taken.”

  “Probably.” Brett shrugged again apologetically. “But regardless, why draw instead of paint?”

  Paige stood silently for a moment. Announcing that she’d drawn it in her sleep —that she’d been drawing pictures in her sleep for the past two years— was not going to help with the investigation. Thus far Brett had avoided looking at her as if she was off her rocker, even given her unlikely claim of when the picture was drawn.

  Paige knew if she told him the truth about everything then how he looked at her would change.

  He’d given her the benefit of the doubt up until now, maybe because of high school, maybe because he was still just a great guy, but once he knew it would be different. Paige couldn’t stand to have those brown eyes begin to look at her with mistrust, or even worse, pity.

  “I don’t know, really.” Paige turned back to the refrigerator, taking the truth with her. “Trauma, I guess.”

  * * *

  Pretty little Paige Jeffries from art class was lying about why she had drawn rather than painted the picture. But why would she lie? If she was willing to be open with a claim that she drew a picture three weeks before she could’ve logically drawn it, how much worse was the something she was keeping secret?

  Or maybe she was just tired of how the Portland PD had treated her. She couldn’t be blamed for not spilling secrets if everyone insinuated she was untruthful or fanatical at every turn.

  Brett had very carefully avoided the question that was on his mind: how was it possible for her to have drawn something she had no idea would happen?

  Because he’d been wrong. Paige Jeffries certainly didn’t come across as some sort of attention-starved individual as he’d first suspected. No posse following her around catering to her ego, no fits of artistic rage or wild parties.

  As a matter of fact, nothing about Paige was what Brett expected. Finding her here in her beautiful but empty house, in her socked feet with no shoes, jeans and faded University of Oregon sweatshirt, and the fact that she had stuck her head back in that damn refrigerator to keep from looking at him… Nothing was what he’d expected.

  Maybe that picture had just been some freaky fluke thing that she really had drawn before the attack. Heaven knew, Brett had seen enough coincidences over the years in his police work that he no longer wrote off stuff like that.

  If Paige Jeffries said she drew the picture three weeks before the attack, Brett would take her at her word. He’d just call it the old friend benefit of the doubt. It wouldn’t make any difference in their hunt for the attacker, although in a case this cold you could hardly call it a hunt. And would probably make Paige a lot more at ease with the department. After all, she was the victim.

  But the question of why she had drawn the picture instead of painting it? Something was definitely not truthful in her answer there. But again, it wasn’t particularly relevant to the investigation. So Brett wouldn’t push it right now.

  Paige finally turned from out of the refrigerator with a loaf of bread in her hands. “Toast? I’m pretty hungry for some toast.”

  Brett looked down at his watch. It was one thirty in the afternoon. “No, I’m good. But you go ahead.”

  He watched as she took what seemed to be homemade bread over to the counter. She sliced two pieces thinly then walked over and placed them in the toaster. There was a fluidity to how she moved; a natural grace. Her movements were unhurried, although Brett highly suspected she was making the toast just to have something to do with her hands. Her light brown hair with strands of gold throughout tumbled over her shoulders and part way down her back.

  But her eyes, despite rings of exhaustion under them, constantly darted around. Always hyper-aware and watchful; taking in everything around her. Maybe she’d
been like that in high school too, or maybe it was because of the attack, but her crystal blue eyes seemed to notice everything.

  Lord, she was beautiful.

  Get a grip, Wagner. Here on official business.

  “So are you going to ask me when I really drew those pictures?” Paige asked without turning from the toaster.

  “No. I already have that information in my file.”

  She spun around to stare at him. “And you don’t find that timeline odd in any way? The fact that I drew them before my attack?”

  “Not the craziest thing I’ve heard in my lifetime.”

  She turned back and took the toast out of the toaster. “Well, I think you’re the first person in your department to feel that way.”

  Brett shrugged. “I don’t really know them well enough to say, but I’m sorry if that’s true. I can tell you this: any person in the department would do anything they could to bring your attacker to justice.”

  Paige didn’t have any response to that.

  Brett watched as she buttered her toast silently. “Is there anything you’ve thought of or remembered that would help in the case? You know that even the smallest detail could be important.”

  She turned and took a tiny bite of the bread and shook her head. Tension tightened her shoulders again. “No, nothing. There’s never been anything. You can go back and tell Chief Pickett you gave it your best effort so he can pass that up along the food chain. I’ll be able to tell Melissa the same.”

  “I’d like to ask you some more questions, though.” He really didn’t have any more but found that he didn’t want to leave.

  Paige placed her toast back down on the plate and shook her head. “No offense, Detective, but I’m really not interested in answering any more questions. Nothing has changed. I’m well aware of that fact. Believe me, I live with it every day.”

  Brett wanted to push it, but decided not to. Like she said, she was the one who lived with her attack every day. If she had nothing more to offer, didn’t want to talk about it anymore, he needed to honor that. And right now, he had no insight into the case, no reason to think any question he had would do anything but dredge up bad memories for her.

  Brett stood up and tucked his chair under the island. “Okay. But seriously, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you think of anything. Or need to talk.”

  Or wanted to go to dinner or a movie or a walk through town. He tamped down those words.

  “And know that even if there’s no pressure coming from higher up, I’m still going to be doing my damnedest to bring your attacker to justice.” He reached out his hand to shake hers, although he was tempted to pull a card from his high school playbook and just grab her in a hug.

  Paige stared down at his outstretched hand for a long time before finally reaching out and grasping it in a handshake. Brett felt a slight tremor go through her arm, but she didn’t pull away. She continued to stare down at their joined hands without releasing him.

  “Hmm,” Paige finally whispered as she finally released his hand from her grip, the tiniest hints of a sad smile floating over her lips.

  “Something interesting?” Brett couldn’t help but ask.

  “That’s the first time in two years that shaking someone’s hand didn’t send me into a panic attack.” That ghost of a smile again. “Thanks for coming, QB.”

  Chapter Five

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Brett Wagner long after he was gone, so Paige did what she had always done when she was stressed. Or scared. Or angry. Or happy.

  She painted.

  She wanted to capture his colors while they were fresh in her memory. Not that they’d be leaving her consciousness any time soon, or that they’d really changed much since high school. Deep, gorgeous teals and aquas were what surrounded Brett. A center that was so deeply blue it was nearly purple.

  Colors as bold, strong, and sharp as the man himself.

  Once she got started, Paige was immediately immersed in the painting. Colors mixed, chosen, without hesitation. She may be painfully shy around others, a nervous wreck around a group of people, and terrified in most social and even personal situations, but this —this— she could do. She painted with a boldness that was the exact opposite of her personal life.

  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.