Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

“Then we shouldn’t have to worry. I’m not married and I’m not dating anyone.”

For a long moment they held the gaze, lost in the mysteries behind the case. Behind the Bride Collector. Behind the killer’s note. Behind this silent exchange between them.

Nikki spoke without breaking eye contact. “Can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?”

He glanced at Kim, who dismissed them with an arched brow. “Don’t let me stop you. I’ve got plenty to do.”

Nikki took his arm and led him into the basement hallway. She turned toward the stairs leading up to the offices and lab, then stepped into a supply room across the hall. The door swung closed behind them.

“So then, who is it?” she asked, facing him.

“I’m not… what do you mean, ‘Who is it’? Who’s the killer?”

But she had that look in her eye that could make a grown man confess his deepest fear, and Brad knew she was talking about the two of them, not the killer.

Worse, she knew that he knew. “You know what I’m talking about. Would you agree that this means the Bride Collector is watching you?”

“I’ve already taken steps to set up surveillance in high-probability locations.”

“He’s not that dumb,” she said. “We have to assume that he’s watching you and we have to assume that he knows some things about your personal life.”

“Such as?”

“Such as who you love.”

So… He was right. She was afraid the note was directed at her. That the threat had been made against her.

And truthfully, Brad couldn’t be sure that she was wrong. For starters, he wasn’t sure what his feelings toward Nikki really were, and either way, he wasn’t sure how someone else might interpret his behavior toward her. Clearly Kim suspected he and Nikki shared more than casual interest in each other.

“You’re saying you want to cancel our dinner plans for tomorrow night,” he said. “You don’t want anyone watching to get the wrong idea and think you-”

Nikki stepped forward and smothered his words with a kiss. Her lips were warm and soft and she wasn’t being delicate. He was so surprised that he didn’t have the presence of mind to return the kiss before she pulled back.

“No, you lummox, I don’t want to cancel anything.” Her face was flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry. Sorry, that wasn’t appropriate.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re right.”

“Right about what?”

He wasn’t sure.

“We have to assume that he sees you as a potential target. I’ve already made a call to the Denver police. They’re putting a squad car outside your apartment tonight. The officer will follow you to and from work. I’m putting you under protective surveillance.”

She stepped back. “When were you going to fill me in?”

“Now. As soon as I was done with Kim. Sorry, I hope you don’t-”

“No, it’s fine. Overkill, maybe, but… I appreciate the thought.”

His cell phone rang. Frank. He flipped it open. “Hello, Frank.”

“I have the director from the Center for Wellness and Intelligence on the other line. She says that a resident named Paradise has agreed to see the body. On one condition: that you bring the body to her. She insists that you’ll know what she’s talking about and wants your answer.”

“That’s impossible.” His head swam. It was outlandish, really, taking a body to a woman who claimed to see ghosts when she touched dead bodies. There were a dozen reasons not to even consider it, beginning with the fact that Melissa’s distraught mother was coming to the morgue in a few hours to identify her daughter’s body.

But there was another reason that now flooded Brad’s mind. Paradise.

There was something about Paradise that he couldn’t shake. And in the absence of any other reasonable paths that might lead to the killer… why not? Yes, well there were plenty of reasons why not, but next to the slightest chance of breaking the case, they suddenly felt trivial.

“I’ll tell her,” Frank said.

“No.” Brad held Nikki’s stare. “No, tell her we agree. Tell her we’ll be there in two hours with the body.”

THE EVENING WAS cooling, hastened by mountain shadows that crept toward the city. Quinton Gauld stood between two boulders on the ridge overlooking the compound below, peering through binoculars. The Center for Wellness and Intelligence.

This was Brad Raines’s third trip to the isolated center for nutcases, and Quinton had watched him from this very vantage point on two of those occasions.

He knew some things about the Center for Wellness and Intelligence. The fact, for example, that the facility was made for people like him. Intelligent and gifted. But watching the nutcases wandering around the grounds, he found himself disgusted that anyone would mislead these fools into thinking they were even remotely like him.

There was God, there were the angels, there were humans, there were dogs, there were bugs. A man had to know where he fit in. To compare those jerking about below to him was like trying to compare a child tooting a plastic horn to a maestro conducting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It was, in fact, people like these who gave people like him a bad name.

Still, there was something fascinating happening with the FBI agent. He’d picked up on the clues as Quinton had planted them and thrown himself into an exhaustive search of mental health facilities, which had led Raines to this small compound nestled away in the foothills.

And while they were buried in their “investigation,” he’d taken the fifth favorite right out from under their investigative noses. Which was important to him, doing it under their noses so to speak. God moved about under the collective nose of most ignorant humans, as did angels and demons.

As did Quinton Gauld. He’d seen the red-and-white ambulance pull out of the city morgue, and immediately a dozen questions flooded his mind. Were they taking a body or going to get a body? Or was the ambulance for a body at all?

Surely they weren’t transporting Melissa so soon.

Careful not to be spotted, he’d followed the ambulance in his Chevy pickup. The moment he identified their destination, he frantically raced along a shorter route and put himself in a position to watch them arrive. The ambulance came to a stop in the circular drive. A driver and one other person Quinton quickly identified as Agent Raines exited the front door and the back of the van, respectively.

The very idea of his perfect maiden delivered to this den of idiots, whatever the reason, revolted him. There was no reason for it, and his fears were therefore unfounded. He was seeing ghosts where none existed. He was imagining the horrors of a lesser beast. He was being a demon rather than an angel. He wasn’t giving the FBI agent enough credit, because not even the FBI would haul his beautiful, nearly matchless bride here as if she were a side of beef.

If they’ve dragged my bride out into the night like this I swear I will sin. Forgive me, Father, but I swear on your holy name that I will sin.

Raines and the paramedic pulled out a gurney. Quinton felt his chest seize. A body was strapped to the thin mattress and although a white sheet was pulled over her face, Quinton could make out the nose and even from this distance he knew, without the slightest doubt, that he was staring through the binoculars at the fifth favorite.

A buzz ignited at the base of his head and gripped his mind as though a hand had reached up into his skull and latched its fingers on to his brain. A hand with an electrical current. God’s hand.

It had been many months since Quinton had felt such hot, swimming rage. He was so focused on their wheeling the gurney over the sidewalk-the jerking of her body, the flow of germs over her form, the door of the center opening to accept her-that he was only dimly aware that his body was shaking. An incoherent mumble spilled from his mouth, a word salad about God and death and beauty and favorites that was far too advanced to be understood by anyone but himself.