Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

Silence. And?

But there was no and.

Roudy grabbed his hair with both hands. “Focus, people! Time’s ticking. Another dead girl.”

“So why don’t they just bring the body here?” Enrique asked. “Never hurts to have another woman’s naked body hanging around.”

Roudy slapped his shoulder. “Not appropriate.”

“You’re sick,” Andrea said. “Sick in the head. What did I say about men?”

It struck Paradise that Andrea was being overly obstinate on this issue of men. Either she really did know something about Brad Raines that the rest of them didn’t, or she felt somehow threatened by his request to see Paradise. Could it be that jealousy was subconsciously motivating her antagonism? Imagine that, Andrea jealous of Paradise!

She’d always felt completely out of her league next to Andrea, and no wonder, the girl was beautiful. Her antics actually drew men rather than repelled them. She was a safe toy in most men’s eyes-beautiful and alluring, yet too strange to consider for marriage. And she knew how to flirt.

Paradise, on the other hand, had never even thought about flirting. Yet Andrea was jealous?

“I think he can be trusted,” Paradise said.

They all looked at her, clearly not expecting the opinion.

“And I think that Enrique might be on to something,” she continued.

Enrique smiled. “That’s the spirit, my dear.”

Andrea shook her head. “I’m telling you, Paradise. And it’s not because I’m jealous. That’s not it. Guys like this steal hearts and you will be a heap of dog dirt when this is all over.”

“I appreciate the concern, dear. But Roudy made a good point, I have to help them if I can. And Enrique’s right, if they agree to bring the body, I’ll try to help.”

“That hocus-pocus is worthless,” Roudy snapped. “We need solid investigation, not ghost hunting. Tell him to bring the body to me, with the file.”

“You get the file, I get the body,” Enrique said.

Paradise turned away and started to walk toward the center of the compound.

“Where are you going?” Roudy demanded. “We have a girl to save.”

Paradise turned back. “No, Roudy. I have a girl to save. And no, Casanova, you can’t have the body, that is really sick. And yes, Andrea, I will be careful. Don’t worry, my heart isn’t going to be broken. He thinks I stink. Literally. And I probably do. The whole idea of it is insane. No pun intended.”

That settled them.

Paradise left them standing.

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.”