Free Guarding Raine (Security Ops) by Kylie Brant

on if she didn’t show promise. And if these pictures are a sample of what she can do, she’ll go far.”
    Mac studied each of the pictures in turn. All were done in a similar manner. The scenes were slightly out of focus, as if they were being viewed beneath water. Each painting depicted people, in crowds or as couples. He looked closer at one that showed a man and woman standing side by side in what, at first glance, would seem to be intimacy. It was only upon closer examination that he noticed each had a hand reaching for the other, but weren’t quite touching. That one point seemed to accent the slight distance between the two, adding to the overall effect of incredible yearning. “You can barely make out the features of these people. Why’d she smudge them up like that?”
    Trey chuckled. “You’re a philistine, you know that? It looks as if Raine Michaels favors a form of Impressionism. An artist who does it really well doesn’t need everything in the picture to be clear in order to convey emotions and a message.”
    Taking one last look at them, Mac wondered if the almost surreal view of reality in the pictures was indicative of Raine’s grasp of the world. If so, it depicted almost perfectly the person described by her family, a woman who saw things differently, who reacted to events with a maddening naiveté. He couldn’t deny the effectiveness of the technique in her paintings. He was no art patron, but even he could feel the emotions she’d captured there. Such a viewpoint in her personal life, however, could be downright dangerous.
    He turned away from the pictures. He couldn’t afford to think of Raine as more than a client. This glimpse into her perception of the world around her made her seem too human, more than a case. Emotionless objectivity was the quality he brought with him to each job, the quality he was paid handsomely for. Somehow that element receded in the presence of her talent. He made sure to avert his gaze from the paintings as he walked Trey out of the room and through the front door.
     
    Raine woke up, her heart pounding, chills chasing up and down her spine. Panting, she pulled the sheet closer around her, scooting up to lean against the white wicker headboard.
    The nightmare was back.
    Her body was trembling with the aftershocks, her mind still frantically reassuring itself that it had only been a dream, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening all over again.
    Wrapping her arms around herself, her eyes went wildly to the window, latching with desperation on the full moon, the bright stars. It was always easier when she could concentrate on the night’s natural light, when the sky was bright despite its blanket of darkness.
    She concentrated fixedly on the brilliance of the moon. It lit the sky with almost dusklike shadows. It wasn’t really dark at all. Not really. She needed to believe that, had to believe it to quiet the pounding of her heart. It hadn’t been a night like this one that she’d been dreaming of. No, then the sky had been utterly black, and she’d had to depend on the streetlights’ artificial glow to guide her way.
    That night had given her a lasting fear of the dark, but she’d since learned plenty of ways to compensate for that fear. She was using one now. If this didn’t work, the switch to the lamp at her bedside was within easy reach. The night-light she’d long relied upon was still in the drawer of the table next to her bed.
    She didn’t reach for either. Already deep breathing was calming her, the chills chasing over her skin were lessening. Before the letters started, it had been years since she’d had the nightmare. Now it was coming with increasing frequency. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what had triggered its return. Reality had an ugly taint to it these days.
    Raine propped herself wearily against the headboard. Though the effects of the nightmare eventually faded, she knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not