Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

If Nikki knew the full story, the psychologist in her would say that he was a man trapped by the profound despair of never finding a woman who measured up to the one soul mate he’d loved and then lost.

A slap behind him jerked him from his thoughts. Frank stood over a manila folder he dropped on Brad’s desk.

“The rest all check out. We have three more leads we’re chasing down, but of this bunch, nine are now dead. Ten are in jail, mostly on misdemeanors that have them cycling in and out of the system like yo-yos. Five are in other assisted-living facilities, and twelve are in the mainstream, living normal lives with family or friends. Not a hint of the killer.”

At his instruction, Nikki had studied the residents on Allison Johnson’s list of discharged cases and identified forty-three whom she deemed capable of violent behavior. The team had tracked down thirty-six of them, eliminating each as a suspect.

He frowned and nodded. “Okay. Chase the other seven down.”

“Already have. Just waiting for the final report.”

Brad nodded and Frank left.

He pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Nikki, can you come to my office for a minute?”

He settled into his chair, closed two open files on his desk, and set them neatly on top of the others. Six books he’d pored over stood side by side at his elbow. The Center Cannot Hold, an autobiography of a schizophrenic. A couple of harrowing books on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. A book that shredded the controversial atypical psychotropic drugs, another that supported them. Mad in America, a history of the treatment of mental illness in the country.

Three mechanical pencils lay in a wood tray next to the Bride Collector files. Other than these items, his desk was clear. The rest of his office was as carefully arranged.

He picked up one of the pencils, crossed his legs, and tapped the plastic casing on the desk’s Formica top.

Nikki tapped his open door. “You called?”

“Have a seat.”

She walked in and slipped into one of two chairs facing his desk. Jeans today. White sandals that nicely complemented her red toenail polish. She’d had a pedicure last night or this morning. Her foot started to swivel slowly.

He lifted his eyes and saw that she was watching him. Dressed in jeans and a white short-sleeved blouse, with her dark wavy hair she looked a bit like Ruby, he thought. For an extended moment he forgot to remove his eyes from hers, and by the time he realized that he was staring he’d betrayed himself.

Life is a mind game, he thought. And what mysteries are you hiding, my dear?

He shifted his gaze to the stack of files. “We’re running out of time.”

“If you mean he’s going to go again, you’re probably right. I don’t know what else we can do.”

“We can expand the search beyond the forty-three people you pulled out of CWI’s files.”

She nodded. “I’ll pull more, but it’s highly unlikely-”

“I realize that. But we’re missing something.”

“From CWI?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

She nodded. “The place got under your skin, didn’t it?”

“The Center for Wellness and Intelligence.” He set the pencil back down. “It doesn’t appear there’s any connection to the case.”

“But you saw something else,” she said. “You’ve been to mental health wards before. Correctional facilities for the insane. The banging of heads on toilets, the twenty-four-hour suicide watches, the cries of prophets telling the ward that Jesus is coming back at the turn of the century. But this was different.”

“They were… I don’t know…”

“Human,” she said.

It sounded so cruel.

“No, more than that.” What could he say? I felt like I was looking in a mirror? That wasn’t entirely true, but he couldn’t deny that he’d seen something oddly familiar.

Nikki stood, crossed to the door and shut it. “The thing of it is, Brad, I get you. I know you’re good at what you do because of the pain that’s driving you. I know they got under your skin, because you connected with them on a level that confuses you.” She crossed to his desk, placed her palms on the surface, and leaned over. “How am I doing?”

He suddenly wanted her to know it all. So he told her.

“She killed herself, Nikki.”

“Who did?”

“Ruby. She committed suicide. Everything was perfect. We were going to get married when we graduated. She loved me, and I was head over heels. One night, she took some pills and killed herself.” His voice strained by emotion. “She didn’t think she was pretty enough.”

Nikki sat. “I’m sorry.”

“It took me a while to figure it out-the details aren’t important now. She didn’t think she was pretty enough, but she was beautiful. Not just in my eyes.” He pulled open his top right drawer and withdrew a five-by-seven photograph of Ruby tossing her dark hair, holding a tennis racket on the court. He slid it over to Nikki.

She picked up the picture. “You’re right, she was beautiful. I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s taken a while, but I think I’m finally understanding that her death was debilitating for me. Incapacitating.”

She pushed the picture across and leaned back in the chair. “And you see the same in the residents at CWI. It got under my skin, too.”

Her eyes lingered on his, studying him. But not the way a psychoanalyst might, unless she was falling in love with her patient. She was the only woman he’d ever told.

“What does your gut tell you?” she asked.

“About what?”

“Me.” Her lips curved gently. “About Roudy and his group, naturally.”

“Naturally. My gut? It tells me to talk to them again.”

“Then follow it. Talk to them.”

“To what end? There’s no connection to the case.”

“Use them.”

“Use them how?”

“Use Roudy. Use them all.”

“On the case?”

“The administrator seemed to think they might be useful. It takes one to know one, right? So recruit some schizophrenics to help us find a schizophrenic.”

“Assuming he really is schizophrenic.” The idea seemed a bit far-fetched, even to him. “Sounds more like a case study than an investigation.”

“Maybe. You have any other strong leads? Use Paradise. Who knows? Maybe she’s on to something.”

“Ghosts.”

Nikki shrugged. “I’m just saying, Brad, trust your instincts. They told you that the killer would leave a clue in his confession. The first place the note led us to was CWI. So run with it. I’m a psychologist, but I’ve seen some anomalies in my day that would make your hair stand on end. Seeing ghosts isn’t the worst of it by a long shot.”

“You’re suggesting I resort to a psychic?”

“Why not? You have a better path? Various law enforcement agencies have utilized psychics on countless cases with some fascinating results.”

He cocked his head, intrigued. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the psychic type.”

“I’m not, trust me. But there’s a lot I don’t understand about life. The only suggestion I’m making is that you trust your instincts. They led you to CWI. Roudy. Paradise. Follow your gut.”

“My gut tells me to forget psychics.”

“But not to forget CWI. And by extension the residents at CWI.”

Her suggestion felt more like permission to him. She wasn’t his superior, but having that permission, he felt strangely compelled to seize it.

Nikki offered him a coy smile. “We all have our hang-ups, Brad. We all see our inadequacies in others. For the record, I like you, hang-ups and all.”

The air felt heavy.

“You busy tonight?” he asked.

“Actually, yes,” she said. “But I’m free tomorrow night.”