The Bride Collector

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) and 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.

And while they were buried in their “investigation,” he’d taken the fifth favorite right out from under their investigative noses. Which was important to him, doing it under their noses so to speak. God moved about under the collective nose of most ignorant humans, as did angels and demons.

As did Quinton Gauld. He’d seen the red-and-white ambulance pull out of the city morgue, and immediately a dozen questions flooded his mind. Were they taking a body or going to get a body? Or was the ambulance for a body at all?

Surely they weren’t transporting Melissa so soon.

Careful not to be spotted, he’d followed the ambulance in his Chevy pickup. The moment he identified their destination, he frantically raced along a shorter route and put himself in a position to watch them arrive. The ambulance came to a stop in the circular drive. A driver and one other person Quinton quickly identified as Agent Raines exited the front door and the back of the van, respectively.

The very idea of his perfect maiden delivered to this den of idiots, whatever the reason, revolted him. There was no reason for it, and his fears were therefore unfounded. He was seeing ghosts where none existed. He was imagining the horrors of a lesser beast. He was being a demon rather than an angel. He wasn’t giving the FBI agent enough credit, because not even the FBI would haul his beautiful, nearly matchless bride here as if she were a side of beef.

If they’ve dragged my bride out into the night like this I swear I will sin. Forgive me, Father, but I swear on your holy name that I will sin.

Raines and the paramedic pulled out a gurney. Quinton felt his chest seize. A body was strapped to the thin mattress and although a white sheet was pulled over her face, Quinton could make out the nose and even from this distance he knew, without the slightest doubt, that he was staring through the binoculars at the fifth favorite.

A buzz ignited at the base of his head and gripped his mind as though a hand had reached up into his skull and latched its fingers on to his brain. A hand with an electrical current. God’s hand.

It had been many months since Quinton had felt such hot, swimming rage. He was so focused on their wheeling the gurney over the sidewalk-the jerking of her body, the flow of germs over her form, the door of the center opening to accept her-that he was only dimly aware that his body was shaking. An incoherent mumble spilled from his mouth, a word salad about God and death and beauty and favorites that was far too advanced to be understood by anyone but himself.

The body disappeared inside. Quinton quieted and stared for another ten minutes, begging God to grace him with another sighting; just one more glimpse of her body. But none came.

He lowered the glasses, squatted on his heels, and began to rock. He knew it was behavior favored by unstable nutcases seeking cadence for their offbeat thoughts, but no one could see him, so he gave in to the comforting motion.

This changed everything. No it didn’t. But it did. Everything. Nothing, in the task at hand. But everything in terms of how that task might be fulfilled. As with any great objective, there were major forces in opposition, and for the first time Quinton had seen them face-to-face. Having been drawn out in the open, the murderous enemy would now undoubtedly play a role.

He’d tested Raines, tempted him with a simple note. Be careful who you love, because I will sin. The FBI agent had latched on like a snake. Why? Why had Quinton felt so compelled to draw the man in? Because the snake needed a garden; even God needed an audience.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. After a few minutes, his heart rate started to decrease.

Okay then, Mr. Raines, I accept your challenge. Okay, Rain Man. I take up your gauntlet. Stop me if you can, you heathen witch doctor. Because I fully intend on stopping you.