The Bride Collector

32

IT TOOK QUINTON an hour to switch his 300M out for the truck and reach the park. With each passing minute his ire rose, resulting in a condition of constant buzzing and far worse, some twitching. Any physical reaction to the stakes at hand would have been beneath him twelve hours ago. He would have refused to give in to any such cliché, but the discovery of his true identity had sent him over a cliff and he had no choice but to accept the truth: that he had hated Paradise all along.

He loathed her with every synaptic firing in his brain. He would rather cut and crush her than take even one more breath. He would rather vomit down her throat than make her beautiful for God.

But then, forcing her to make herself beautiful was his way of vomiting down her throat. He could have made her beautiful himself. He’d perfected the skill of applying makeup and manicures and all of the pampering most women paid dearly for. So then why had he really demanded she take herself into the salon?

Because even then, deep inside, he’d known how humiliating the experience would be. His true desire had been to mock her because he hated her.

He let the image from his crushed cell phone linger in his mind-the red blouse, the sexy jean shorts, the flowing dark hair, the long lashes-as he studied the park for a glimpse of her.

He drove the Chevy around the perimeter twice before concluding that she had been disobedient. This realization made him furious.

He drove the truck into the strip mall, angled for the beauty salon, and parked directly in front. Shoved his silenced pistol between his belt and back. Exited the vehicle and entered the establishment, uncaring now that he might not be hiding his emotions as well has he would have liked.

The door chimed softly. He walked past a receptionist and gazed at a large room that reeked of perm solutions and scented shampoo. Three hairdressers worked over women who’d paid to be more beautiful. Another leaned against a counter, drinking a Diet Coke. Skanks, every one of them. Favorites who neither knew they were loved nor deserved to be.

“Where is she?” he demanded in a clear voice.

A maternal woman who looked like she might be in a position of leadership lowered her scissors and faced him with a curious, undisturbed stare.

“I’m sorry, who are you looking for, honey?”

Honey? She looked like a woman with some spine, which could be a problem. So he pulled out his semiautomatic pistol, chambered a round, and shot at her forehead.

The gun bucked. Pffft.

Her head snapped back.

His hand twitched.

She fell.

“Paradise,” he said. “Where is Paradise?”

They jumped and screamed like a batch of terrified monkeys; the receptionist reached for the phone.

Quinton shot her before she could lift the receiver. “Be quiet!” he shouted over them all. “I’m going to kill all of you. That’s what I do. But first I need you to tell me where the girl who paid you five hundred dollars for your services is. My patience is fragile. Some would even say that I’m psychotic.”

A younger, blond beautician was staring at the fallen body near her as if it were a bloodied deer that had slammed through her windshield. She lifted her head and tears sprang from her eyes.

“Samantha?”

Samantha. Paradise had changed her name. Smart.

“Where is she?”

“We called the police, they came and got her. Please, mister, please don’t hurt us, we-”

“Shut up. What did you tell the police?”

“We…” She looked back down at the body, trembling from shock now.

“You what?”

“She was acting strange. Cassandra has a brother who’s…”

“You called the police and told them you thought this Samantha might be mentally ill, is that what you’re trying to say?”

“She called them.” The woman glanced at the fallen leader.

“And it never occurred to any of you that you, not Samantha, might be the ones who are mentally ill? That she was far more beautiful the way she was than after you got finished painting her body and dressing her up like a doll? She is a favorite, you thickheaded, harebrained slut!”

He was shouting. It was unbecoming.

So he shot the woman in her face.

The rest were screaming again and Quinton didn’t need witnesses. He walked in and shot their cowering forms in the head one by one, pffft, pffft, pffft, pffft. One was still alive.

Pffft.

It was a bloody massacre and he hated unnecessary violence.

But then he remembered that was wrong. He no longer hated unnecessary, brutal violence. It was who he was now. His only regret was that some or all of these dead favorites now bleeding on the floor might live eternally in bliss. Wouldn’t that be a cruel twist?

Quinton grunted, shoved the gun back under his belt, and left the salon. A strong wind was blowing. His visit to the salon had been fruitful. He now knew that the dead Good Samaritan called Cassandra had called the police. They’d collected Paradise. The fact that Paradise’s picture was on the tube meant that no one had connected Samantha to Paradise yet.

Following protocol, the officers had likely determined her to be mentally ill and taken her to the closest hospital with a psychiatric ward. This was territory familiar to Quinton, who found all news regarding such matters interesting.

The closest psych ward would be West Pines at the Lutheran Medical Center on 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge. She was likely there now under the name Samantha. If not there, then in another hospital, perhaps Denver Health Medical Center, which had thirty-eight beds in its psychiatric ward but was much farther off.

Quinton backed the truck out and rolled down the parking lot, happy to see no commotion behind him.

But he wasn’t happy. His face was still twitching and his mind was still buzzing and now he was sweating. His mind was full of images, violent images of Paradise being made to look disturbingly ugly. Before he drilled her with holes and bled her dry he would make sure she understood just how ugly she was. Just how unfair it was that God had let her be born. She was, in fact, so ugly that God had sent him, the angel of death, to rid the earth of her. Put the garbage out, so to speak.

He would crush her spirit the way she’d crushed his when she’d rejected him seven years ago.

“CAREFUL! PLEASE, YOU’RE going to kill us before we arrive.” Roudy wasn’t coping well with traffic. He lived comfortably in his delusions of grandeur, but out here, the mundane rendered him nearly incompetent. He flung his arms out and lifted his slippered right foot toward the windshield. “Watch it, watch it!”

“Roudy, please, I know this is a stretch for you, but I would like you to trust me.”

The poor fellow was white. “Okay, okay, if you could just slow down a little.”

“We’re only going half the speed limit.”

She’d done her best to distract him with the case, but Roudy’s belief that Quinton was already a step ahead of him didn’t help. His opinion bothered Allison immensely. Roudy might not be too good with traffic, but he had navigated the case well enough. She could only pray that he was wrong.

“Careful!” he warned again. “Get us there in one piece. Please!”

“You might be right,” she said.

“We’re going too fast?”

“No, it might be too late. James Temple from the FBI says they’ve already called all the hospitals. No one by the name of Paradise has been admitted.”

“Assuming she was admitted under that name.”

“No one with a yellow T-shirt and jeans or anyone who fits that description.”

“Careful, please. Perhaps we should go back home and have them bring the files to me.”

“You told me yourself that ninety percent of good detective work is about sifting through leads. So, this is a lead. It’s the nearest psych ward. Quinton worked here. If you’re wrong and he doesn’t have her, assuming he’s going after her-”

“But he is,” Roudy said, facing her. “Of course he is.”

“Because something happened between them,” Allison said.

“That’s not why. He’s going after her because she is the seventh and most beautiful whom he must deliver to God.”

“You’re sure it’s Paradise? Just because she’s missing-”

“I believe he loved her and tried to rape her,” Roudy said. “Now he’s back and he’s going to finish the job by killing her. It all fits, it’s all in the details. Watch it, watch it!”

Allison was taken aback by his frankness.

“Dear God, help her. I hope you’re wrong, Roudy. I really hope you are wrong.”