The Bride Collector

by Ted Dekker

I can’t, I’m a bug out there. I’m dead. I died out there! Panic crowded her mind. “You rise. You’re so smart, go out there and solve this case for them, why not?”

  “Because you stole my thunder! Now they want you. It’s a betrayal at the highest level. Treachery! Maybe treason, even!”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  Roudy looked hurt. “You’re accusing me of being stupid?”

  “No. I said don’t be stupid. Don’t accuse me of treason, this has nothing to do with treason. I have agoraphobia. I would fall apart if I set a foot out of the place, you know that. Why are you demanding I do something that I can’t do? Does Allison encourage you to quit being Sherlock? No. So stop demanding that I do something I can’t do.”

  Roudy stared back at Paradise for a moment, then humphed and turned his back on both of them, crossing his arms. The argument stalled.

  She was only like this when fear pushed her to the edge. She hated confrontation, hated that she felt like she had to yell at Roudy, hated that Andrea was crying. Hated that she’d come off so strong with Brad Raines.

  Her mind was back in the room with him.

  You’re a handsome man, Brad, too good looking for your own good or my good, because it means I’ll never measure up in your eyes, which in turn means you’re here for you, not for me. You want to use me, then dismiss me. I’m just a monkey in your zoo to do some tricks. Toss me a banana and I’ll jump up and down. Do you want to kiss the monkey, Mr. Raines?

  The last thought made her blink.

  “I don’t like it,” Roudy said. “You should have insisted that I meet with you. This would have all turned out differently if I’d been there to protect you.”

  Andrea jumped to her feet. “He made a pass at you, didn’t he, Paradise?”

  You’re the beauty queen, Andrea. You’re the one they all want. They all mistake your smooth skin and long blond hair and green eyes and full lips and painted nails and slim figure for beauty, and they all want to kiss you. You’re their monkey, you rather than me.

  “I knew it!” Andrea cried, tensing as if to spring into the air. “What did I tell you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He did nothing remotely similar.”

  “Because he knows he’s outclassed,” Enrique announced, walking up from behind. He stopped next to Roudy and winked at Paradise. “But if you like I could give you a few pointers, teach you how to help the man feel more at ease with your femininity.”

  “She doesn’t need your nonsense,” Andrea snapped. “She needs to push that man as far away as possible before he has his way. I told you all this would happen, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  “Mr. Raines didn’t do anything of the sort,” Paradise said. “He was a perfect gentleman.”

  Andrea wagged a manicured, red-nailed finger at her. “Never trust a perfect gentleman.”

  “Nonsense,” Enrique objected. “You’re suggesting no one trust me?”

  “You’re all driving me crazy!” Roudy said, turning around from his pouting. “This isn’t about men and women and all that rubbish, so will you all please try to control yourselves? The point is quite simple. We have to make a decision quickly, before it’s too late.”

  Enrique’s brow arched. “Before what’s too late?”

  “The FBI, Mr. Brad Raines approached us this morning and mistakenly asked the wrong person’s assistance in tackling a case. They asked Paradise to go with them to examine the body of a victim, the Bride Collector’s fifth victim. But”-he politely motioned to Paradise-“our friendly ghost buster, who insists she’s not in any way mentally unstable, by the way, panicked. Evidently she’s too mentally stable to overcome her agoraphobia for the sake of the Bride Collector’s next victim. So now the FBI has left and another girl will be dead shortly. Did I miss anything, Paradise?”

  You missed the window that leads to the perfectly peaceful space full of angels escorting me to my rightful place at the feet of the king who has called to his princess in white. Yes, Roudy, I am a princess no matter what I look like here.

  “You missed that the FBI fellow is not to be trusted,” Andrea said.

  Paradise pulled herself from her imaginations. “No, that’s not true, Andrea.” Why the poor girl was so fixated on this point was a bit of a mystery. Did she know something the rest of them didn’t? “Why do you keep saying that when I told you he was a gentleman? In fact, he seemed to genuinely care.”

  “Because he will hurt you, Paradise. Trust me, men always end up hurting you. Do you know how many men have come on to me over the years?”

  No, I don’t know, but I can imagine because you’re pretty and you are capable of letting them get close to you. Because when you opened the closet door your father didn’t put a shotgun in your mouth. You’re a flower in the trees, a rose for the bees, a star in the sky. And I’m the dried mud on the side of a cow’s rump as far as men are concerned.

  “No,” Paradise said.

  “They’ve come on to me a lot. They always get pissed when I break up.”

  Silence. And?

  But there was no and.

  Roudy grabbed his hair with both hands. “Focus, people! Time’s ticking. Another dead girl.”

  “So why don’t they just bring the body here?” Enrique asked. “Never hurts to have another woman’s naked body hanging around.”

  Roudy slapped his shoulder. “Not appropriate.”

  “You’re sick,” Andrea said. “Sick in the head. What did I say about men?”

  It struck Paradise that Andrea was being overly obstinate on this issue of men. Either she really did know something about Brad Raines that the rest of them didn’t, or she felt somehow threatened by his request to see Paradise. Could it be that jealousy was subconsciously motivating her antagonism? Imagine that, Andrea jealous of Paradise!

  She’d always felt completely out of her league next to Andrea, and no wonder, the girl was beautiful. Her antics actually drew men rather than repelled them. She was a safe toy in most men’s eyes-beautiful and alluring, yet too strange to consider for marriage. And she knew how to flirt.

  Paradise, on the other hand, had never even thought about flirting. Yet Andrea was jealous?

  “I think he can be trusted,” Paradise said.

  They all looked at her, clearly not expecting the opinion.

  “And I think that Enrique might be on to something,” she continued.

  Enrique smiled. “That’s the spirit, my dear.”

  Andrea shook her head. “I’m telling you, Paradise. And it’s not because I’m jealous. That’s not it. Guys like this steal hearts and you will be a heap of dog dirt when this is all over.”

  “I appreciate the concern, dear. But Roudy made a good point, I have to help them if I can. And Enrique’s right, if they agree to bring the body, I’ll try to help.”

  “That hocus-pocus is worthless,” Roudy snapped. “We need solid investigation, not ghost hunting. Tell him to bring the body to me, with the file.”

  “You get the file, I get the body,” Enrique said.

  Paradise turned away and started to walk toward the center of the compound.

  “Where are you going?” Roudy demanded. “We have a girl to save.”

  Paradise turned back. “No, Roudy. I have a girl to save. And no, Casanova, you can’t have the body, that is really sick. And yes, Andrea, I will be careful. Don’t worry, my heart isn’t going to be broken. He thinks I stink. Literally. And I probably do. The whole idea of it is insane. No pun intended.”

  That settled them.

  Paradise left them standing.

  11

  BRAD SPENT THE afternoon at the FBI office downtown, hovering over Kim Peterson’s autopsy and grilling the forensics lab on the evidence that had been collected at the barn near Elizabeth. Correction: He spent the morning attempting to get Kim to hurry her autopsy (which they agreed would consist of a careful examination of Melissa’s head wound and her heels-no need for an examination of her internal organs) a
nd crowding Jack, the lab tech scouring the samples from the scene. In both cases he was hardly welcomed.

  The visit to CWI had been a bust. What had he been thinking? His strange discussion with Paradise seemed like it had occurred in a different universe. And somehow that bothered him. The fact that he’d taken three hours of his day to drive out there and sit down with a deranged girl who saw ghosts tugged at him like a sharp hook. The trip had left him irritable, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

  To complicate matters, the Bride Collector’s note made it clear that he’d been watching Brad. Was watching him. He found himself second-guessing every glance, every car he passed on the road, every agent. He paced the field office racking his brain for images of a watcher out of place, on the street, in the diner, his building, anywhere.

  Be careful who you love.

  How did the Bride Collector know him? Or did he? Maybe he’d somehow learned that Brad was taking the lead on the case and was trying to preoccupy the FBI. Throw a monkey wrench into the investigative gears.

  “Please, Brad, she’s only been on the table for half an hour,” Kim said.

  “He’s out there, Kim. Right now the killer’s stalking the sixth girl and I need to know if he’s given us more.”

  “He has. The note.”

  Yes, the note. Nikki was with it.

  Brad nodded at the white body lying faceup on the examination table. “The cut on her forehead.”

  “It’ll be the first thing I examine, but I won’t be able to tell you much beyond the likelihood that she hit her head on a counter or dresser.”

  “You know that?”

  “No, it’s conjecture, like much of my work, Brad. What’s eating you?”

  “Show me.” He walked over to the woman’s head, illuminated by a five-hundred-watt bulb. Her hair lay back off her forehead, and he could see the faint break in makeup foundation along her hairline. Kim had cleaned the area above her temple, exposing a bruise and a sharp gash.

  “You can see that the bruise is essentially rectangular, meeting the cut line here.” Kim’s gloved finger delicately traced the wound. “Whatever she hit, or whatever hit her, was squared and flat with an edge sharp enough to split the skin. A countertop or the edge of a desk.”

  “An escape attempt. She hit her head on her bed or her dresser.”

  The phone on the wall chirped and Kim picked it up, spoke into it. She nodded, thanked a lab tech, and faced Brad.

  “Dresser,” she said. “They found her hair and blood on the edge of the dresser at the foot of her bed. This one almost got away.”

  “Maybe.” The makeup, all of it, had been applied with a careful, experienced hand. The killer wasn’t just caking on foundation to cover imperfections. He was accentuating his victim’s own beauty with a nearly flawless application. A makeup artist.

  He dabbed her white cheek with a light touch. Cold. Like putty.

  Kim spoke quietly. “He uses a Maybelline mineral foundation, nearly white, anticipating their skin tone at time of death so that they look nearly perfect dead. Alive she probably looked like she was wearing a mask of white.”

  “Same makeup?”

  “My guess is yes, but no confirmation from the lab yet.”

  Brad traced her skin. A hint of blush, but only enough to make her face appear… human. The eyeliner looked like it had been applied by a laser tool rather than a human hand. A hint of gray eye shadow. Red lipstick…

  His mind drifted to an image of Paradise swallowed by the huge chair like a rag doll with stringy hair. Her brown eyes seemed to climb inside his head. They haunted him still. She’d told him as much about himself in the space of thirty seconds as he’d learned in five years. Perhaps more.

  “She’s stunning.”

  Brad twisted back. Nikki had walked in on them. She held a photocopy of the killer’s latest note in her hands. Her eyes lifted from the body on the table and met his.

  “‘Be careful who you love,’” Nikki said, handing him the note. She continued to recite the Bride Collector’s words from memory. “‘I just might kill all the beautiful ones.’”

  “He’s doing that already.”

  She didn’t appear satisfied by Brad’s attempt to dismiss the threat. “‘I am more intelligent than you. Bless me, Father, for I will sin.’”

  Brad glanced at the note and saw that she’d repeated it to the word except for the end. Be careful who you love. I just might kill all the beautiful ones. I am more intelligent than you. Bless me, Father, for I will sin. Oh yes, yes I will.

  “And we’re here to stop him.”

  “This doesn’t bother you?” she demanded.

  “The whole case bothers me.”

  “And this note elevates the case to an entirely new level. He’s making your involvement personal and has issued a direct threat against those you love.”

  “Then we shouldn’t have to worry. I’m not married and I’m not dating anyone.”

  For a long moment they held the gaze, lost in the mysteries behind the case. Behind the Bride Collector. Behind the killer’s note. Behind this silent exchange between them.

  Nikki spoke without breaking eye contact. “Can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?”

  He glanced at Kim, who dismissed them with an arched brow. “Don’t let me stop you. I’ve got plenty to do.”

  Nikki took his arm and led him into the basement hallway. She turned toward the stairs leading up to the offices and lab, then stepped into a supply room across the hall. The door swung closed behind them.

  “So then, who is it?” she asked, facing him.

  “I’m not… what do you mean, ‘Who is it’? Who’s the killer?”

  But she had that look in her eye that could make a grown man confess his deepest fear, and Brad knew she was talking about the two of them, not the killer.

  Worse, she knew that he knew. “You know what I’m talking about. Would you agree that this means the Bride Collector is watching you?”

  “I’ve already taken steps to set up surveillance in high-probability locations.”

  “He’s not that dumb,” she said. “We have to assume that he’s watching you and we have to assume that he knows some things about your personal life.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as who you love.”

  So… He was right. She was afraid the note was directed at her. That the threat had been made against her.

  And truthfully, Brad couldn’t be sure that she was wrong. For starters, he wasn’t sure what his feelings toward Nikki really were, and either way, he wasn’t sure how someone else might interpret his behavior toward her. Clearly Kim suspected he and Nikki shared more than casual interest in each other.

  “You’re saying you want to cancel our dinner plans for tomorrow night,” he said. “You don’t want anyone watching to get the wrong idea and think you-”

  Nikki stepped forward and smothered his words with a kiss. Her lips were warm and soft and she wasn’t being delicate. He was so surprised that he didn’t have the presence of mind to return the kiss before she pulled back.

  “No, you lummox, I don’t want to cancel anything.” Her face was flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry. Sorry, that wasn’t appropriate.”

  “No, it’s okay. You’re right.”

  “Right about what?”

  He wasn’t sure.

  “We have to assume that he sees you as a potential target. I’ve already made a call to the Denver police. They’re putting a squad car outside your apartment tonight. The officer will follow you to and from work. I’m putting you under protective surveillance.”

  She stepped back. “When were you going to fill me in?”

  “Now. As soon as I was done with Kim. Sorry, I hope you don’t-”

  “No, it’s fine. Overkill, maybe, but… I appreciate the thought.”

  His cell phone rang. Frank. He flipped it open. “Hello, Frank.”

  “I have the director from the Center for Wellness and Intelligence on
the other line. She says that a resident named Paradise has agreed to see the body. On one condition: that you bring the body to her. She insists that you’ll know what she’s talking about and wants your answer.”

  “That’s impossible.” His head swam. It was outlandish, really, taking a body to a woman who claimed to see ghosts when she touched dead bodies. There were a dozen reasons not to even consider it, beginning with the fact that Melissa’s distraught mother was coming to the morgue in a few hours to identify her daughter’s body.

  But there was another reason that now flooded Brad’s mind. Paradise.

  There was something about Paradise that he couldn’t shake. And in the absence of any other reasonable paths that might lead to the killer… why not? Yes, well there were plenty of reasons why not, but next to the slightest chance of breaking the case, they suddenly felt trivial.

  “I’ll tell her,” Frank said.

  “No.” Brad held Nikki’s stare. “No, tell her we agree. Tell her we’ll be there in two hours with the body.”

  THE EVENING WAS cooling, hastened by mountain shadows that crept toward the city. Quinton Gauld stood between two boulders on the ridge overlooking the compound below, peering through binoculars. The Center for Wellness and Intelligence.

  This was Brad Raines’s third trip to the isolated center for nutcases, and Quinton had watched him from this very vantage point on two of those occasions.

  He knew some things about the Center for Wellness and Intelligence. The fact, for example, that the facility was made for people like him. Intelligent and gifted. But watching the nutcases wandering around the grounds, he found himself disgusted that anyone would mislead these fools into thinking they were even remotely like him.

  There was God, there were the angels, there were humans, there were dogs, there were bugs. A man had to know where he fit in. To compare those jerking about below to him was like trying to compare a child tooting a plastic horn to a maestro conducting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It was, in fact, people like these who gave people like him a bad name.

  Still, there was something fascinating happening with the FBI agent. He’d picked up on the clues as Quinton had planted them and thrown himself into an exhaustive search of mental health facilities, which had led Raines to this small compound nestled away in the foothills.