Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

The monsters nipped at her heels, ripped off one of her shoes. She crawled faster, on bloody knees now. And then she was in the fog and she zigzagged to her left and right to shake any final pursuit.

Bloodied, winded, and too weak to crawl another foot, she collapsed in a heap and hugged the earth, relieved, so terribly relieved. She’d made it. The blackness was gone. She was safely in the fog that had protected her for so long. And Paradise began to cry with gratitude.

Gradually, calm settled over her, like the loving breath of God. The monsters were gone. She couldn’t even remember what they’d looked like.

Thank you. Thank you, my savior. Thank you for taking my pain.

BRAD STOOD BACK from Allison, who sat on the floor with her legs folded behind her, comforting Paradise, rubbing her back. “It’s okay, honey. Take your time, it’s all gong to be okay.” Paradise lay on the ground, crying softly.

He wanted to do something, help in some way, but he was at a loss. Whatever had just happened, he was neither trained nor prepared to process it. His professional boundaries felt confining. They were silly borders meant to help ignorant people cope with complicated life.

Paradise had either had a psychotic episode that resulted in a powerful hallucination, or actually connected with some thing that had caused her to react immediately and violently to its threat.

Ghosts did not exist. But the idea that she’d suffered nothing more than a hallucination made foolishness out of his bringing the body here in the first place. The fact that he had brought the body meant he was willing to consider that Paradise could connect with these so-called ghosts, however impossible it seemed.

A dozen times on the ride here, he asked himself why he was willing. It certainly wasn’t because he’d suddenly developed a belief in the supernatural. Nor because they just might get lucky.

Really, he’d come because of her. Because of Paradise. Because of the way she’d looked out the window earlier today and told him about another world. Because her eyes had scanned him once and told him who he was with unnerving calm and precision.

There was mystery in her eyes. It was as if her mind really did open to another world, and he’d been given just one glance into that world. Into Paradise.

He’d brought the body to Paradise for her sake. Because she deserved the chance to complete what he’d asked her to do. Having asked once, he could not turn his back on her decision to help him. Whatever else he did, he could not hurt Paradise. She’d suffered too much.

So he’d brought the body. And despite her insistence that she would not see anything, Paradise had seen something.

Now what? He wanted to reach out to her and assure her the way Allison was, but that would be inappropriate. He was a special agent, not her psychoanalyst.

Allison looked back at him. “It’s okay. Just a simple defense mechanism. It’s the way she’s learned to cope.”

“She’ll be okay?”

“Of course she will.” Allison lovingly drew a strand of hair off Paradise’s cheek and tucked it behind her ear as she might her own daughter’s. Paradise calmed. “Every mind has its fuse. Every circuit has a reset. The more powerful the computer, the better the firewall must be. One of our residents taught me that.” She smiled and looked at Paradise with gentle eyes. “Paradise has a powerful mind. She’s just protecting it.”

For the first time since coming here, Brad considered the possibility that he had entered a world where the minds were not sick when compared with his, simply greater-and learning to cope. Like Paradise, they were so powerful they required special systems that lesser minds, like his, did not.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Well, like I told you, she sees ghosts. Don’t tell me you don’t believe in ghosts, Mr. Raines.”

He didn’t know what to say.

“Not to worry. Learning to love is more important than learning about ghosts.”

“Whatever she saw-”

“Is probably gone by now,” Allison said. “Unfortunately, her experience appears to have been a bad one, which means it probably involved a man. The killer perhaps. Her mind’s probably erasing it now, as we speak. Her defense mechanism isn’t always useful, but until she can learn to cope…”

Paradise’s eyes suddenly opened and she sat up, looking like a small child who’d woken from a long afternoon nap. She stared at them, then at the floor, confused.

“What happened?” Her eyes settled on the gurney and recognition filled them. “It happened, didn’t it? I saw something.”

“Yes, I think you did.” Allison smoothed her hair.

Paradise brushed Allison’s hand away and pushed herself to her feet. “Now that I’m totally mortified…”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Brad said. “This is why we brought the body.”

“Then I guess it was a waste of time. Even if I did see something, I can’t remember what it was.”

“You remember touching her?”

“Yes. And I remember standing here making a fool of myself before I touched the body, but that’s all I remember. I’m sorry to say that I can’t help you, Mr. Raines. This has all been a mistake.” Strong emotion was creeping into her voice. “Maybe Roudy can help you.”

Brad felt his heart tighten with empathy. Paradise walked toward the door trying to hold her shoulders square, but she walked as if she herself were a ghost.

“Paradise, please…”

She left without looking back.

“SO. THIS IS it, huh?” Nikki sauntered across the living room, carrying a glass of Pinot Grigio, perusing Brad’s choice of decor. Women were always interested in his tastes, in part because his choices were so well defined. Most men, it seemed to Brad, didn’t have refined preferences. They had tastes, sure, particularly when it came to cars and women. But ask them about fabrics and colors, about women’s clothes, paint colors, and accessories, and they would usually just shrug.

“I didn’t realize you were so metrosexual.” She took a sip of her wine. They’d spent two hours sharing crab legs and two lobster tails at Trulucks on their so-called date. A second long day after the fiasco at CWI had produced only more dead ends, and a quiet dinner with Nikki had been a welcome break.

Brad set the bottle back in the built-in wine cooler under the kitchen counter and picked up his own glass. “Black velvet and chrome isn’t exactly feminine,” he said.

“Did I say feminine? But you’re right, metro is the wrong word.” She looked at the five-foot Tuscan floral painting over two chairs between the urns.

“Yeah, not exactly contemporary, I know,” he said, crossing to her. “I like to”-he motioned at the room with his glass-“blend styles a bit. I know… contemporary with a rich Tuscan decor would have most decorators rolling their eyes. But every piece in here is deliberate. The couch is from France, a designer named Trudeau whose chrome work is sought after. The urns were once museum pieces in Mexico, not terribly valuable but originals.”

“And the painting?”

“José Rodriguez. An original. The other paintings are also originals, nothing too fancy. Just carefully selected.” He winked and lifted his glass to her.

“So you like originals.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“And does this taste extend to women?”

She was referring to herself. But the first image that filled Brad’s mind was of a shorter woman, frail, with long dark hair and pale skin. She chewed her fingernails and bathed maybe twice a week if encouraged. Her mind was an ocean of mystery and although she didn’t know it, she had pulled him in with a single look.