The Bride Collector

17

THE DAY HAD started out well, a badly needed break after a week of mind bending. Nikki’s mother, Michelle Holden, had suggested she get out of the city for a day. They could do lunch at Pepe’s Grill in Castle Rock, maybe hit the outlet mall and have some ice cream. She needed a new pair of capris.

Why not? Nikki had thought. There was something therapeutic about sitting on the back porch with Mother, watching tall pines grow and listening to birds chirp. No phones, no orders, no deadlines.

No victims.

Brad insisted that her protective detail follow her down; Castle Rock was only half an hour south of Denver. They were being overly cautious, perhaps, but she couldn’t escape the obvious message hidden in Brad’s actions. If she were Frank, Brad wouldn’t have insisted on the detail, would he? He was ordering the protection because Nikki was the one person who he did have strong feelings for, and the killer’s caution that he be careful who he loved might actually refer to her.

Brad loved her. He was too confused by his own feelings to know it yet, but she would swear it.

The cruiser had called her and suggested a break at the rest stop-too much morning coffee. But she was eager to get to Mother’s and told them to catch up with her, which they’d done ten minutes later, flying up behind her like a kamikaze.

The minute she’d left the highway and headed down into the foothills of Castle Rock, she knew that coming had been the right decision. Amazing how a large forest could swallow life’s most stressing challenges. The towering trees on either side were doing what they had done for centuries. Regardless of any turmoil that came and went, they slowly, majestically inched their way skyward. Now in their shadow, Nikki felt safe.

She pulled into her mother’s driveway and climbed out. The cruiser pulled up behind and looked settled in. The cops would whittle away the day making small talk, catching up on paperwork, drinking coffee, whatever else they did while keeping an eye out.

She waved at the driver, who acknowledged her. So, the detail was overly cautious, but she welcomed the added layer of security, especially at Mother’s house.

Nikki headed up the steps to the front porch, rang the doorbell, and tried the door. Open. She stepped in without waiting for an answer.

Her mother’s sweet voice called out. “Come in, honey. In the kitchen!” The familiar smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls filled her nostrils. It was good to be home. She should bring Brad by one of these days.

“Hi, Mom.”

So good to be home.

QUINTON GAULD WAITED five minutes, thinking about his good fortune. His decision to take Nikki Holden as the sixth favorite had come only two days ago after Rain Man dragged his fifth favorite out to the loony barn. God could change his mind and so could his messenger, but it meant cutting his planning short. He’d never imagined the chips falling so quickly in his favor. Having pleased God, he could feel his master smiling on him.

Even with short preparation time, his plan was decidedly perfect. In fact, he now saw that his old one had been somewhat flawed. This latest change had been a providential correction that would result in a perfect union between the final bride and God.

God was good. All the time. So very good. All things worked together for the good of those who loved and served God. Even if they had to sin now and then to show their love. Forgive me, Father.

He checked the rearview mirror and saw the empty driveway, then checked again. And again until he was sure, without doubt, that they were alone out here in God’s country.

Satisfied, he looked at Theresa. “Thank you for helping me out, Theresa.” The jacketed bullet he’d put into her forehead back at the rest stop had made a mess of the seat behind her, but from the front she appeared to be sleeping. Her hat covered the small entry wound nicely. “Sorry about the mess.”

Three black garbage bags covered his own seat, a precaution that would allow him to clean up his own hair and sweat when he was finished with the car.

He retrieved his case from the backseat, closed the door, and walked up to the blue Range Rover. A quick check confirmed that she’d locked the doors, but this wouldn’t be a problem. He intended to take the keys from her.

Leaving the case beside the driver’s door, he headed up to the house. A bird cawed in the branches above him, then another replied, though the second was more of a chirp. He wasn’t crisp on the knowledge of birds, but he could imagine a black bird and a blue bird, the former being larger. When all of this was over, before he was called upon to find another bride for Christ, perhaps in another city, he would spend some time in the forest and learn more about birds. Blue ones, black ones, red ones, all wonderful creatures in God’s country.

Buzz, buzz, the bees were back in his head. The birds and the bees.

He pulled out his nine-millimeter, lighter by two bullets than it had been before he’d borrowed the cops’ car. But it still had nine rounds, and he didn’t think he would need any more.

The front door was unlocked. This was a nice surprise. He twisted the knob, pushed the door open, and stuck his head inside. Just a friendly cop coming in to use the toilet.

A hall ran into the house, empty now. Soft voices floated to him from around the corner at the end. By the luscious scent of freshly baked pastries, he thought mother and daughter were probably enjoying breakfast. He himself hadn’t yet eaten this morning, and although he typically ate only beans after cleansing himself for his task, Nikki was a change in protocol, a gift for a job well done. Everything about her taking would be different. Including what he ate. The pastries were another nice surprise.

Quinton slipped into the house and walked quietly down the hall, pistol by his side. An absurd thought that maybe he should join them for breakfast slipped through his mind, but he knew it was nothing more than a temptation, a distraction from his task, which in the end would be far more rewarding than the consumption of a few pastries.

He walked around the corner and found them sitting at a round table in a sunny breakfast nook. The windows stood in four tall panels with trim that formed square panes in each. Valances topped the glass, a pattern with seed packages, among them corn, sunflowers, and tomatoes, all in all a colorful, cheerful design. The tablecloth was red-and-white checkered-God’s country-farmer decor. Freshly frosted cinnamon rolls rose in a stack between them. Coffee and orange juice, with bacon as well. To a lesser man, a true temptation indeed.

All of this he’d observed in less time than it took the two women to face the cop in the mismatched uniform who’d walked in without knocking.

Quinton lifted his gun. “Please don’t make any noise or I will have to shoot your mother,” he said.

Nikki, the beautiful brunette who was to be the sixth favorite leading up to the seventh and most beautiful bride, wasn’t buying his act. “Excuse me?”

Rather than argue with her, Quinton walked toward them, over to the gray-haired mother, and knocked her out with a single blow to her head. She fell off the chair and landed with a thump.

Nikki had overcome her initial shock and jumped to her feet. She screamed, “What are you doing?”

Quinton pointed the pistol at her. “I don’t want to hurt you. It’s important that you realize that. I really don’t want to hurt you, but there’s been a change of plans and if you try to resist me I will subdue you and then fix you up later.” He took a breath. “So please sit down, Nikki.”

Her face was white. She stared at him with terrified eyes, like a rabbit, he thought. Except a rabbit appeared to be looking out of the sides of its head, whereas Nikki was staring directly at him with large, round, glassy eyes. The way you killed a rabbit was to club it over the head, but he didn’t want to hurt Nikki.

Her fingers were shaking, but she seemed to grasp the situation then, because she closed her mouth, swallowed, and stood a little taller. When she spoke, her voice was low and breathy.

“The Bride Collector.”

“The Bride Collector. Yes, that’s what you call me. My name is Quinton. Will you turn and face the wall to make this easier?”

Nikki stared at him, neither sitting nor facing the wall as he’d suggested. He prayed that she wouldn’t force him to hurt her or do anything stupid like the last one had, running into her dresser.

“Please, it won’t hurt. Let’s make this easy.”

“Quinton.” She was still coming to grips with his name, but she’d calmed. The psychologist in her was rising to the surface. He knew her type. He’d spent countless hours opposite those charlatans who’d tried to dig through his mind. He hadn’t considered this aspect of his choosing Nikki.

Could God choose a psychologist as his favorite? At first blush Quinton would think not, but the fact of the matter was that God had chosen Nikki. In his great wisdom, he had put his finger on this woman in front of Quinton and said, I choose this one because she is my favorite. Send her up to me.

Still, filled with the deep and unshakable knowledge that nearly all mental health “professionals” were profoundly deluded and interested mostly in money, like the drug companies they served, Quinton was momentarily confronted by the irony of God’s choice. He had selected one of the six lesser brides from the sewer.

Perhaps Quinton’s role was to help Nikki see the light, and then deliver her. Remove from her this one thorn in her flesh to perfect her in God’s sight. After all, every human carried their sin with them. In Nikki’s case, the sin was a little more obvious than most.

“You won’t hurt me,” Nikki said.

“Please face the wall so-”

“You don’t even want to hurt me,” she said. “You’re ill, Quinton. May I call you Quinton?”

She was trying to psychoanalyze him. He had a gun on her and she had the strength to attempt this trick. The mother moaned; time was running out. The psychos were probably hard at work on the jack in the whole. They probably had some savant decoding the pattern in his last note.

“If you don’t turn to the wall, then I’m going to have to kill your mother,” he said. “I’d rather not because I’ve already killed two people today and I’m not a killer at heart.”

“Listen to yourself. You’re not making sense.” She edged to her left, and he thought she might be working up the courage to make a run for it.

“If you run, I will kill your mother. If you don’t turn around and face the wall, I will kill your mother. We can talk later, but right now I need you to use your head so that I won’t have to hit it. Can you manage that?”

“You won’t do that. I can help you. You think you’re doing this for God, but God hates people who take innocent life. You don’t have to do this.”

Buzz, buzz. He lost some of his composure then, infuriated by her willingness to thumb her nose at God. But the mother was stirring, so he was confronted by a choice: Which first?

Bride. He needed the mother alive in the event he would require more leverage.

Quinton headed for her using long strides. Nikki darted to her left and he tore after her, cursing her recklessness. This wasn’t what he wanted. Now he would have to stop her and return to the mother before she had a chance to crawl to a phone and alert the authorities. This was undoubtedly Nikki’s hope. But Quinton would help her put her hope in a higher power.

Adrenaline flooded his veins. He was in good shape, but with God’s help he was perfect. Nikki sprinted down the hall, black sundress flying behind her thighs like bat’s wings.

He closed the gap just before she reached the entrance, hit her head from behind with the pistol, and snatched a handful of her dress so that when she fell forward so she wouldn’t hit the wall.

Unfortunately, her momentum carried her into the door. Her forehead slammed into the wood panels before she collapsed, though she came up short from hitting the floor, held up by his grasp on her dress.

Quinton swore again. Her face had undoubtedly been damaged. Shaking with a rage that he fought to control, he turned and dragged her back down the hall.

The mother was on her feet by the phone, already stabbing at the numbers when he rounded the corner into the kitchen. He released the sixth’s dress, lifted the gun, and shot the older woman through the head. She hit the wall and slid to her seat.

Sorry, Mother, but you saw me. I know, I know it’s not fair.

The nine-millimeter now had six bullets, but the gun would no longer be useful to him. The FBI forensics team would find three bullets-one in each of the cops and one in the mother-that matched this weapon. The pistol itself could not be traced, he’d made sure of that, but any bullets fired from its barrel could be matched to this particular gun. He would put it in a paper bag and throw it in a Dumpster when he retrieved his 300M.

Returning to Nikki’s unconscious form, he applied some chloroform from the bottle in his pocket to a rag and pressed it against her face. She would remain still long enough.

With a broom from her pantry, he quickly swept the floorboards where he’d walked in the kitchen and the hall. Stray hairs could fall from one’s head easily enough, and he hadn’t been wearing his shower cap. He placed the dust and the broom head in a garbage bag, hoisted Nikki over his shoulder, and looked about the room, running through his checklist. No fingerprints, none of his blood, urine, sweat, or spittle. No food, no clothing, no hair. Clean.

Using Nikki’s key, he opened the door to her Range Rover and dumped her in the back. He hog-tied her with some string from his case, taped her mouth closed with duct tape, and shut her inside.

Using a small battery-operated vacuum, which he’d bought in the event that their blood didn’t drain as intended, he sucked up any traces of himself that might have floated to the cruiser’s carpet. He changed back into his own shirt and rolled the cop’s shirt into the black garbage bags from his seat. Clean.

Ten minutes after Nikki’s blue SUV rolled up the driveway, it drove back down, this time with Quinton in command, seated on three more plastic garbage bags.

The ride back to the rest stop was uneventful. The sixth lay quietly in the back, dreaming, perhaps of her true destiny. Quinton scanned the radio waves, listened to a political talk show for ten minutes but had to turn it off. Thinking of what was to come elevated his excitement to the point that he found it difficult to remain focused on avoiding detection, and he’d hoped the talk radio would distract him. But the political nonsense only replaced his excitement with agitation. He’d long ago concluded that nearly all humans who went to such lengths to achieve political success had to be both extremely egotistical and at least somewhat mentally ill.

The exchange from the blue Range Rover to his 300M took twenty minutes, only because he had to wait for perfect timing, which required three aborted attempts. But he finally managed the switch cleanly, vacuumed out Nikki’s floorboards, and settled behind his vehicle’s more familiar controls for the last leg of his trip.

It was twelve minutes after noon. Quinton felt positively giddy.