Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

Brad Raines was coming back. Paradise stood immobilized.

“Do you all agree, then?” Allison asked.

“Of course!” Roudy shouted.

“Andrea?”

Her eyes were bright, and Paradise didn’t want to guess what was going on in her brain. “Yes,” Andrea said. “Absolutely.”

“You said the beautiful brunette would join us?” Casanova asked, rising unsteadily, dumb grin already plastered on his expression.

“Her name is Nikki. I’m sorry, Casanova, but I don’t think so. Not today.”

His smile flattened. “No?”

“No. But if she comes, you’ll be the first to know.”

Casanova stared for a moment, then headed for the door in a drug-induced shuffle.

Allison looked at Paradise. “Well?”

Her chest was still frozen and a chill shot through her, but Paradise recognized both as excitement as much as fear. The kind of excitement that a person must feel looking over a cliff with a parachute strapped to her back. And the thought that she might be excited terrified her even more. She wanted to run from the room.

A glance at Andrea chased away that desire. The girl had lit up like the stars. She was already smoothing her hair. Paradise already regretted her earlier words; she couldn’t let Brad face this monster on his own.

She faced Allison and shrugged. “Sure.”

“Good. I assumed as much. They’re already on their way.”

“Now?” Paradise asked, terrified again.

“Now.”

THE METHOD AND execution of a taking were equal parts God and equal parts Quinton Gauld, being the messenger from God empowered to carry out his bidding on earth. What so few humans knew was just how thrilling being God’s proxy could be. Some knew, in the haze of a trance brought on by some hallucinogenic tea in the Amazon, or swaying to heavy music at the altar in church, but even these poor souls could not travel fluidly from human to divine as Quinton could.

Indeed, his hallucinogenic capacity was built in. What the medical community erroneously called illness was actually a fantastic gifting. He could as easily drift into what they called delusion as they could breathe.

It wasn’t really delusion, as he’d once been led to believe. When the doctors had captured him and shot him full of drugs, then yes, he’d believed their lies. But now, having lived so long without the drugs, he’d learned to embrace his connection to God for the true gift it was.

And now there was a devil hunting the messenger, a witch doctor bent on stealing the bride of Christ before Quinton could take her and deliver her to God. It was eerily similar to the movie Men in Black, in which monsters were out to stop highly gifted agents working for truth. Only in this case, the agent Rain Man was the monster, and he, Quinton Gauld, dressed in gray, was the gifted agent of God protecting his own.

His bride.

For his mission today, Quinton had taken the black Chrysler 300M. His abduction would occur during the day, and the FBI likely knew that he was driving a truck, based on the tire marks left in the soil at the scene of each killing. The 300M would glide along the highway without being noticed.

Quinton followed the police cruiser south on I-25, headed toward Castle Rock, careful to keep at least one, usually two cars between his own and the target. She wasn’t alone, which added a complication, but this didn’t mean he wasn’t up to the task. God was testing him. Seeing just how good he was before he walked the true and most beautiful bride down the aisle. The rest were a kind of prenuptial ceremony, preparing the way. A bride price offered to Father.

It was uncommon to find such a beautiful woman as this in law enforcement. He’d taken such a range of women, the last being a flight attendant, showing that he could snatch them from the sky as well as the ground. And now from the authorities, from right under their noses.

Quinton had long ago selected another woman who lived in Boulder, a college student in her twenties named Christine. But the Rain Man had inserted himself into the equation, and God had changed his mind. It was important that people learn their place in the pecking order. Rain Man was near the bottom of the pile, far below the favorites he was trying to save. Certainly far below the sunshine, being the rain.

A drizzly little pretty man.

Quinton whistled the old “You Are My Sunshine” tune, but he only got seven or eight notes in when the police car’s turn signal began to blink, indicating their intention to turn off the highway into the rest stop ahead. He held the tune and spun through his options. All of them. So many he couldn’t count them, but only a couple interested him much.

Of those that did, one rose as a solid possibility. They were making an unscheduled stop, likely to relieve a bladder or two. He needed only thirty seconds of quiet time with Theresa and her partner. Depending on how many other cars were in the rest stop, this might be the perfect thirty.

The cruiser broke right and angled up the ramp into the tall pine trees. Cover, plenty of it. Quinton’s pulse built steadily. The two cars between his and the cop car drove on, and he clicked on his right turn signal.

The silenced Browning nine-millimeter semiautomatic lay on the passenger seat, and he placed a gloved hand over the steel. He disliked guns because they were blunt, impersonal tools that were used to kill, and he wasn’t a killer. But they were sometimes useful as tools of motivation.

The 300M’s steel-belted radials glided over the asphalt up the ramp, like a blade on ice. Generally speaking the Americans made junk vehicles, but the 300M suited Quinton well. The tinted windows prevented passersby from seeing the occupant, and any person looking directly through the front windshield would see a dark-haired man wearing aviator sunglasses and black leather gloves, but beyond imagining Tommy Lee Jones from Men in Black, they would think nothing of it. Yet another common man trying to look suave was far less noticeable than a big farmer-boy type hauling around a meat cleaver.

The police cruiser pulled between two parking lines next to the restrooms. Quinton scanned the rest area and saw that they were two of only three cars and one eighteen-wheeler that looked bedded down. He let his pulse surge. He could not pass up this opportunity. God had sent him a gift.

Both doors on the cruiser opened. Quinton slowed his approach. Theresa got out first, a woman with a small bladder. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, easy to tuck up under her hat when she wore it. She looked stunning in her uniform. Casting a glance backward, she headed to the restrooms, followed immediately by her uniformed partner, name yet unknown to Quinton.

He pulled the 300M into a parking spot two down from the eighteen-wheeler and waited. His only prayer now was that their bladders would empty as quickly as they’d filled. The conditions were good at the moment, but that didn’t mean they would remain optimal.

Theresa, being the first to head in, was the first to head out. Working as smoothly as Tommy Lee Jones now, Quinton slipped out, shoved the pistol behind his belt, retrieved his case from the backseat, and locked the doors. Bleep.

After one last look up and down the driveway to be sure no one was pulling in, he headed toward the police cruiser. Theresa, being a cop, watched him. Watched her enemy approaching head-on, powerless to stop him. She likely assumed he was a salesman headed into the facilities.

Her partner, a bullish-looking man with red hair, came out, walking fast, eager to catch up with her. He probably had a thing for her and didn’t want to miss an opportunity to offer a witty come-on. Perhaps he wanted to take her back for a quickie.