Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

The blue Range Rover that he was following turned off at the first Castle Rock exit. Within half a mile the traffic on the narrow road had fallen behind. Tall pines reached for the sky on either side, providing all the cover he could hope for.

The SUV pulled onto a dirt road and headed up a long driveway that ended at a lone house built into the trees. One of those classy log homes with large windows. There was evidently some money in this family. He followed the Range Rover in, then parked twenty yards behind it.

He glanced at Theresa, who sat next to him, facing forward. “This is it, Theresa. I need your help now. No talking, not a word. You sit there and look like nothing in the world is wrong, and maybe God will have mercy on you.”

The woman climbed out and waved. Quinton smiled and waved back.

“Everything is going to be just fine, Theresa. Not a word, not even a sharp breath. You know I have to do this so that there will be no witnesses. I just can’t afford to leave a woman who’s seen me alive. It’s only one more life, and it’s distasteful, but what’s a man going to do?”

Forgive me, Father for I will sin. I will now sin.

PARADISE COULDN’T REMEMBER ever feeling the kind of elation she’d experienced these past few minutes.

She’d started as the skeptic who felt tricked into meeting with Mr. Raines yet one more time, as if the wound they’d opened now required some salt to aggravate the pain. But her feelings had changed slowly, starting early with the way Brad had looked at her as if he was the one who felt awkward for coming again. It had taken half an hour and a dozen stolen glances to convince herself that he really was uncomfortable.

Now, whenever she wrote a story, the character who averted his eyes and blushed, however faintly, was either guilty of some sin or felt he had been outdone. If her judgment was any good, and it was, Brad felt subservient to her. An irrational idea, but there it was, on his face, like a mustache of white betraying the person who’d been in the milk jug.

Roudy went on about the case, hopping around with the pictures, and all the while Paradise was lost in thought, trying to figure out what had gotten into Brad, this tall, exquisitely fashioned man who looked too good to be any good at all. Why did his eyes shift when she looked at him? Why did he offer shy, awkward smiles as if they shared some deep secret?

Slowly she’d come to the only conclusion that made any sense to her. Brad liked her. Not in a romantic way. But enough to feel nervous around her. He might even be-and this was really absurd-he might even be awed by her.

Suddenly it occurred to her that maybe her mental illness was worse than first assumed. Had she finally suffered another psychotic break? Panicked by the idea, she determined to test her insecurities.

Her test had started with a long stare, right at him. He’d blushed. Disbelieving, she’d forgotten to break off her stare and he’d looked back. They were locked in a kind of embrace with their eyes.

Paradise thought about fleeing the room. Instead, like a metal dust drawn to a magnet, she’d taken it farther. And so had he, she thought. He was responding the way she thought someone who liked a girl might, and she didn’t know what to do with the idea. But she did like it. Yes, she liked it more than she thought she should.

She felt a bit dizzy. Light, like a balloon.

And then Brad had dismissed Andrea and chosen Paradise, and her world was transformed.

He’d walked up behind her and her mind was spinning with story-daring, forbidden tangles of love. He kept saying her name. Paradise. Paradise. And then she’d seen Andrea try to steal him away. Watched from the corner of her eye as she took his hand. Saw him pull away.

Heard him say those words. I need to stay with Paradise.

Paradise began to float. She could hardly contain her enthusiasm, however pathetic it was, however angry she tried to be at herself for feeling that way.

“Why don’t you tell him, Andrea?” she said, trying to shake the feeling. “Cards are really your field of expertise.” They weren’t, but she didn’t need Andrea to pop her balloon now.

“Jack in the whole?”

“I could explain,” Roudy said. And then did, before Andrea could. “A jack in the whole is one card, a jack, as part of a whole deck of cards. It’s a code breaker’s term used to mean the key that unlocks the puzzle.”

Brad had never heard such a thing. “The killer’s saying that he’s left us a jack in the whole? A key to unlock his pattern?”

“That’s right,” Paradise said. She nodded at the third note. “‘Do you want me to hide from you?’ he asks. He has a face card hidden somewhere in all of this evidence. A jack in the whole bunch of evidence.”

Brad spread his hands in amazement and the left one came close to her, at the level of her chin. She thought about backing up. Instead she stared at it, close enough to reach out and touch if she wanted to.

“… looked through all of this until I was blind!”

Strong hands. Clean. Nails cut short. No rings. Andrea had put her hand in his.

“You’re sure that’s what this means?”

Paradise glanced up, saw that he’d noticed her stare, and pushed forward, refusing to blush. “That’s what it means to us. But then, we’re all a bit strange.”

His eyes were bright. “Strange, huh? Then tell me why I’m not seeing strange?”

“What are you seeing?” Andrea asked.

“I’m seeing pretty darn smart.”

“Smart but strange,” Paradise persisted.

“Smart. Very smart. Interesting. Beautiful. If that’s strange, then I need some of what you’ve got.”

Andrea was staring at him as if he’d just ripped off his shirt and flexed. But Paradise was grappling with that word beautiful. Who had he been looking at when he said that? At Roudy, right? Not at Andrea. Definitely not at her.

But it took no brains to know that in Mr. Raines’s world, beyond the fence, Andrea was the beautiful one. Brad might be able to flatter them all with kind words in this zoo, but out there? Andrea got the boys, and Paradise was a joke who couldn’t even make it past the gate.

“Well, that’s nice of you, Mr. Raines,” Paradise said. “The monkeys in here appreciate such kind words.”

“Monkeys in here as opposed to the monkeys out there? I’ve been on both sides of the fence and I’m here to confirm the rumor, they are pretty much the same. Some a little smarter, some not nearly as smart, some with dark hair, some with jeans. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

And this time he was looking directly at Paradise. She blushed.

“So,” he said, facing Andrea, “what do you make of this jack in the whole?”

“You want me to find it?”

“Can you do that?”

She shrugged. “Sure. It might take some time. I’d have to look at everything.”

Brad looked at Paradise and winked. “I’m in no rush.”

It wasn’t meant as anything more than a natural gesture to express friendship, but the wink proved too much for Paradise. She couldn’t remember a guy winking at her. Ever.

Fighting waves of heat and dizziness, she turned and walked toward the couch. She was having a mild panic attack and she wasn’t sure why. He was a man. She liked him.

But Paradise couldn’t like men! This was a fact discussed at length during hundreds of therapy sessions.

“It’s just a matter of finding the pattern,” Roudy was saying. “No one is better at finding patterns than Andrea and me.”

Paradise eased to her seat, breathing deeply, trying not to appear unnerved. But Brad was suddenly there, sitting down on the couch next to her.

His knee touched hers. “You okay?”

“Sure.” But she wasn’t okay. And she wanted to cry.