Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

“Or even better, Paradise,” Allison said, now fully engaged in the notion.

“Paradise?”

“Paradise. If you’re fortunate, she might even talk to you. Now, there’s a special one, my friends. She can see what many can’t.” Allison started for the round community building between both wings, glancing back as she walked. “You’re going to love them, I can promise you that. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

THE HUB, as Allison had referred to the central gathering place, was an atrium with couches, stuffed chairs, snack machines, floral paintings on the wall, and two flat plasma televisions glowing manically on opposite walls. Round tables with wooden chairs sat in groupings about the large room. A central gas fireplace that, according to Allison, never really got hot, and two snack stands completed the area.

On one end, a sign over an arched door indicated that a cafeteria lay beyond. A wide hallway ran into the other end of the building. Out back in the sunlight, a gleaming fishpond was sealed off for the residents’ safety.

A dozen residents hung around the main room at the round tables, near the televisions-which were both playing I Love Lucy reruns-and at a long snack bar. Half turned and stared at Brad and Nikki as they entered. The rest were too engrossed to pay attention.

“People, say hello to our guests,” Allison called out.

As one, clearly rehearsed, they all spoke in unison. “Hello, guests.”

A black man larger than most football players looked up from where he sat hunched over a chess match at one of the round tables. “Hello, guests.” His voice rumbled like a bass guitar. Several snickered.

“Way to go, Goliath,” a thin man called out from the group collected around the television. “Way to greet the guests three and a half seconds after they wanted to be greeted.”

“That’ll do, Nick,” Allison said. “You don’t think Goliath is stupid, do you?”

“I didn’t say he was stupid.”

“You looking for a rematch?”

Silence.

“He’s not so bad himself,” Goliath said. He faced Nick and broke out into a wide grin. “But I got you right, Nick. You was the best and I beat you ten straight games.”

A woman howled with laughter at the television, provoking Nick to whirl around to see what he’d missed. Goliath hunched back over his chess game; moved a pawn.

“Anyone see Roudy or Paradise?” Allison asked.

“Roudy is in his office,” someone said.

Allison led them across the room toward the hallway. An older woman, whose dark hair looked as if it doubled for a rat’s nest at night, followed Brad with her eyes.

Brad searched within himself and finally realized what about the place unnerved him the most. Somehow, the center’s oddity didn’t arise from the residents’ strangeness, but from the lack of it. Each person’s behavior plucked at a well-worn string in his own mind and resonated in countless familiar strains. He could call them childish or loud or quirky or obnoxious or a hundred other things, but these were all tendencies he recognized in himself.

“He’s good?” Brad asked.

“Goliath? World-class. He plays chess ten hours a day on a slow day. Our challenge is helping him apply his skill to other pursuits.”

“And how’s that going?”

She chuckled. “He’s been communicating with a lab doing cancer research. Turns out some parts of medicine aren’t unlike a chess game. Go figure.”

“Where are all the staff?” Nikki asked.

“Everywhere. They fit in. Here we are.”

They entered a small classroom with a whiteboard and ten desks. A couch sat beneath a window that looked out to the fountain on the lawn. Three people sat in the room: a middle-aged man lounging on the couch, dressed in a black silk bathrobe and fluffy white slippers. A young blond woman, hardly twenty, pacing by the whiteboard and biting her nails. And a goateed man dressed in corduroy pants and a bow tie, sitting back against the teacher’s desk.

The three clearly had not expected to be interrupted. For a moment, the trio stared at Allison and her two guests as though they were spotting aliens who’d landed the mother ship. The two men slowly straightened. The girl grinned.

“Hello, friends,” Allison said. “I’d like you to meet our guests.”

“Hello, guests.”

“Any concern of ours?” The one with the goatee stroked his beard.

“Why, yes, Roudy. They would like to speak to you.”

“They would? But of course they would. Did you hear that, Cass? They’ve come to speak to me.”

Cass, the man in the silk bathrobe, stood and smoothed his robe, eyes on Nikki. “She’s more interested in what I have to say.” He stepped forward, eyeing Nikki with a raised brow and crooked grin.

“This isn’t about you, Cass,” Roudy chided. “Step back, man. Show some respect. About what? Speak to me about what? Are you saying this fine gentleman and woman are with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

The girl by the whiteboard giggled, then lifted a hand to her mouth to cover the sound. “I’m Andrea,” she said sweetly.

“We call her Brains,” Roudy said. “But I don’t suppose that plays any factor in your judgment, now does it? You’ve come to speak to me and I will decide if you interest me enough to offer my assistance.”

“What’s the matter, Sherlock?” Allison asked, entering their flow of speech as if it was wholly to her liking. “You no longer trust me? I wouldn’t have brought them if I didn’t think they would interest you.”

“True. I do trust you, madam. And they do interest me.” He toyed with his bow tie. “It was merely a figure of speech, a delaying tactic to put them on guard while I sought to ascertain whether my deduction was correct. So was it?”

Brad found it difficult to suppress a grin, but he managed. “How did you know?”

“Aha!” Roudy snapped his fingers. “I knew it! The FBI has come calling yet again. And how could I not guess? You come every day, begging for my opinion. Are we British really so clever? Is there something missing from the American mind that compels you to look across the pond?”

The man in the silk robe was interested only in Nikki, and he’d approached her while Roudy said his piece. He now took her hand, lifted it while his eyes remained fixed on hers, and kissed it.

“My name is Enrique Bartholomew. They call me Casanova. Have you heard of Casanova?”

“Cass is a ladies’ man,” Andrea said in a voice dripping with irony. She was jittery, twisting slightly like a Valley girl who needed to use the bathroom. Brains, they called her. A savant?

Still holding Nikki’s hand, Enrique faced Andrea. “Please, Brains, don’t pretend I haven’t made you the woman you are.” He turned back to Nikki with an even more lascivious glance. “You are very lovely.”

A beat of silence.

Brad smiled and inwardly gave Nikki her due; she knew how to stare down an impertinent speaker, or an awkward pause, when the occasion warranted.

“They came to speak to me, Enrique,” Roudy snapped.

“And I’m the one who told you that if you dressed the part they would believe you. Now, look who’s come to dinner.”

He touched his lips to Nikki’s hand again, then stepped back and winked at her. Brad was surprised that she didn’t object. Her fear of germs couldn’t compete with her interest in a new subject.

“Look who’s come to dinner?” Roudy said, disgusted. “They come every week, you idiot.”

“They call me Brains,” Andrea said, in her own world, eyes still on Brad, still playing the part of a shy girl. “I think I need a shower.”

The exchange had all come in a flurry of words. Then it seemed they ran out of steam.