The Bride Collector

by Ted Dekker

  “So all along, this has been about Angel. The rest of us are just pawns? That’s all we are to you?”

  “It’s not about me, Brad,” he said, regaining his confidence. “It’s him. I’m only the messenger. Have you ever wondered why most people who say they believe in God and heaven don’t actually want to leave this life to be with him? Not until life has slapped them around enough for them to beg for it. And for the record, a few do fall by the wayside when God calls his bride home. Or haven’t you read the book of Revelation?”

  It struck Brad then that, if anything, intelligence was Quinton’s Achilles’ heel. If there was anything he might respond to besides force, which Brad wasn’t in any position to leverage, it would be reason. Quinton’s variety of reason.

  But at the moment, Brad’s own mind wasn’t able to engage the man on such a level. He couldn’t shake the image of Paradise back at the center at this very moment, shaking in her room. That this beast would take such a pure, innocent woman only just discovering herself in a dark world and subject her to horror after all she’d been through…

  Nausea rolled through his stomach. He swallowed again and tried to focus. He had to keep Quinton talking. He had to move him down a path, any path, that might lead to distraction.

  “I don’t want you to hurt Paradise,” he said. “She’s just a pawn to you. Why take another innocent life?”

  “None of them is innocent. And he’s still chosen them, despite that. Get your theology straight, Mr. Raines.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that. But was Nikki’s mother chosen? Were the two policemen you killed? Am I? Is Paradise? You don’t have to kill others.”

  Quinton looked at him with fascination. “That’s what Nikki said. She was begging for her own life. But you’re begging for Paradise, aren’t you? For her life.”

  “She’s…” His chest swelled with emotion, choking off his words. “Please, she’s done nothing to deserve this. For the love of God, she’s…”

  “For the love of God, Brad? Not for your love? Do you love her?”

  Looking into the man’s eyes, Brad saw a darkness that made him want to turn his head away, a deep evil that had fooled itself into thinking it knew what it could not know. Yet here from behind this dark stare came the question that had battered his own mind.

  “Love?” Brad asked. “What’s love?”

  “You don’t know what love is?” Quinton said. “Then you don’t have the right to speak to me about it.”

  “Of course I know what love is…”

  “Then tell me, do you love her? Or are you embarrassed by her? She’s an idiot in your small world. You throw people like her in the garbage.”

  The accusation bared a strip of raw emotion that surprised Brad. “No, don’t say that.”

  “Then why aren’t you in love with her?”

  Because he couldn’t be! How could he love someone who…

  Brad closed his eyes and bore down on the conflicting emotions. The man had turned the tables on him in a matter of minutes, throwing him into a defensive posture that gave Quinton the power. He had to turn this back around.

  He looked back up at Quinton. “You win. The truth is I think I do love her.”

  “You love Paradise.” His tone was mocking, unconvinced.

  It was odd, sitting here tied to a post, debating with himself about his love for a woman. But at the moment there was nothing more important.

  “I think so, yes.”

  Quinton stared at him for several beats, then walked up, pulled him roughly to his feet, and, holding his collar with his left hand, slapped him hard across his jaw with his right hand.

  Brad’s head snapped back. Pain flashed up his jaw.

  Sweat covered the man’s face and it twitched. “God loves her. You don’t. Get that straight.” Quinton released him.

  He left Brad standing and walked to a table on which lay a single suitcase. He opened the case and pulled out a blue drill with a battery pack. He squeezed the trigger once, ran it up to full speed, then let go of the trigger and set it down. He pulled out a plastic housing that held silver drill bits and carefully set it beside the drill.

  A tin bucket sat at the end of the table.

  Brad knew he had to keep the man talking. Distract him. The post behind him was only four inches thick and moved with his weight-how would it respond if he threw his weight back against it? How long had it stood here, rotting?

  “So, you’re using me as bait,” Brad said, “to lure in your bait for Angel.”

  The man spoke without turning. “If only it were that simple. These are complicated matters, Mr. Raines. God, the devil, all that fighting going on in the sky. But this is a love story. Love stories are never without their complications. The fights, the betrayal, the crying… It’s all part of the plan. Including you, the twisted man who doesn’t know how to love a woman. It’s a good thing God doesn’t have that problem.”

  Brad wanted to say something. He knew he had to engage the man and talk him down, plant a seed of doubt, earn the upper hand, throw him off. The problem was, he was thrown off himself.

  The killer had been the one to plant a seed of doubt, this gnawing question about love. Why hadn’t he been able to love, really love, since Ruby had taken her life?

  Because he was fearful, not for himself, but for the woman he might love. When Paradise had said as much yesterday, he’d fallen apart right there on the bench. But not because she was right.

  Because she was wrong! He wasn’t that noble. If they knew what he was really like… The FBI, his co-workers, the waitresses at the bars he favored, the women he dated. If they only knew how focused he was on protecting not them but himself, how bothered he was by the failings of others because his standards were so high, how unlikable he was, stripped of all his charms and his quick mind and his face.

  If they only knew…

  He couldn’t love Paradise because she would learn just how unlovable he was. And because she couldn’t possibly live up to his standards, which was what made him so unlovable.

  The realization had crushed him because he knew that as much as he couldn’t love Paradise for these reasons, deep inside he wanted to love her. He wanted to burn all of his standards. Stamp on them together with Paradise as they smoldered. Take her in his arms, far away from everything that had molded him into this monster who required a woman to look and speak and think in a way that met his lofty expectations.

  Standing here now, tied to the post, his feelings of shame and desire returned. But with them a very simple thought came to him.

  What he’d just said was true. He did love her.

  Brad blinked. Why not? Why didn’t he love her?

  He was only pretending that he couldn’t love her in order to protect himself. In reality, under all the foolishness that made him so pathetic, he did love her. And maybe, just maybe, he could win her love as well.

  His pulse surged, beating now like a pump desperate for more blood so that it could stay alive. Quinton was laying out his tools, preparing to ruin a life because he thought it was the right thing to do, and Brad stood behind him, thinking he had to save this one life, Paradise, who had inadvertently wandered into the killer’s crossfire, a pawn to draw in his seventh victim.

  Saving Paradise was suddenly the only thing that mattered to him.

  Allison’s words whispered through his mind. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s actually killing God’s favorites. He’s got it backward, you see? He’s not an angel, he’s the devil. Someone needs to correct his thinking.

  “They say you’re delusional,” he said, “that you are mentally ill and suffer from delusions of grandeur. That you think God speaks to you because you’re psychotic. But they’re wrong, aren’t they?”

  Quinton set a bottle of fingernail polish next to three others he’d lined up. Everything in perfect order.

  “You don’t need to worry, Mr. Raines. I’ve decided not to kill you.” He turned around. “And don’t try to
patronize me or use your intelligence to talk me down. I’ve been over this before and I know exactly who I am.”

  “You do, I can see that now. But you don’t know who I am.”

  “You’re Special Agent Brad Raines. You’ve been trying to find and stop me for a long time.”

  “Have I? What if I had an entirely different purpose in this”-he looked about the room, then settled back on Quinton-“this mad shambles of a world? More specifically, a different purpose for being here today, with you, before you deliver God’s bride to him for eternal bliss?”

  Quinton’s face twitched again, but he wasn’t buying it. An unbelieving smile twisted his mouth.

  “What if I could prove it to you?” Brad asked.

  “Prove what?”

  “That I’m not who you think I am.”

  The man looked slightly amused.

  “Would you listen to me?” Brad asked.

  Quinton hesitated, then pulled out his cell phone and checked the time.

  “Okay. So what’s your point?”

  27

  PARADISE STOOD IN the middle of her room for long minutes, trembling. The cold sweats had started immediately after she’d hung up the phone. Her fear made no sense to her. How could a person fear something that clearly didn’t bother most people? Like a fear of the ground, whoever heard of such thing? Or a fear of air.

  Agoraphobia was like that, and she knew she should be able to stop it. But she couldn’t.

  The panic attack came so fast and so hard that she couldn’t think, much less get to the medicine cabinet for a Xanax. The antianxiety medication was supposed to work quickly, but in her case it did nothing but take the edge off. Still, Allison allowed her to keep a small supply in exception to house rules.

  She stood here while the world spun around her, and she was sure that this time her heart would finally tear loose and get stuck in her throat, and she would suffocate.

  She was so disoriented that she forgot how she got here. But then it all came back, like a flood. The phone call. The killer wanted her to climb into the red truck and go to the beauty salon. If she didn’t, he was going to kill Brad.

  An image she’d never seen before, of her father pounding on the door of the closet she’d locked herself in, crashed through her mind and she gasped. Then it was gone. Now the panic was back, stronger, and she knew that she was going to at least fall down.

  She staggered to the bathroom, desperate for a pill, water, anything that might keep her from dying. She’d just had a new memory. But she couldn’t think about that now.

  He has Brad and you have to get into the red truck.

  She shook a couple of Xanax from the bottle; all five came out. She picked two out of the sink, pressed them into her mouth with trembling fingers, and gulped some water, spilling down her flannel top.

  She knew she had to do what the killer wanted. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t have a choice. Because no matter how much she told herself that she didn’t love Brad, she did.

  She loved him more than she loved anything. Much more. Because Brad undid everything her father had done.

  In thirty minutes the gardener will climb into his red pickup truck…

  Paradise looked at the clock on the bathroom wall. How much time had passed? But she had to get to the truck before Smitty did, and without anyone noticing.

  She spun from the bathroom and ran to the door, grabbed the knob. Then stopped. Her breathing whooshed around her like a jet engine. She wasn’t dressed to go out.

  She was still in the flannel pants she’d slept in!

  What does it matter, Paradise?

  It mattered a lot. She didn’t fit out there. To her, stepping past the gate was like stepping out onto a platform in a huge stadium with the world’s worst case of stage fright. They would all be watching, and she would be standing in her pajamas!

  But she had to get to the red truck. If she could somehow get under the tarp, then she might be safe.

  Tears flooded her eyes again. No, no she wouldn’t be safe out there!

  But neither was Brad. And she loved Brad more than she loved herself. What would Brad think about her looking like this? How could she say she loved him and go to him looking like a skank? The thoughts flew around her mind, one on top of the other.

  She tore over to her dresser and yanked out the first pair of jeans she could get her hands on. Quick, quick, she had to get into the red truck.

  Paradise pulled the jeans on and ran halfway back to the door before realizing she’d forgotten a shirt. She hurried back, clawed into a yellow T-shirt, then rushed back to the door. The first thing you’re going to do is keep your mouth shut. She had to go quietly. No one could know.

  So she slipped into the hall and snuck toward the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could in her flip-flops. Her panic attack was back, thumping, spinning, gasping, but she kept her mouth shut and went before anyone could see her.

  Smitty usually parked his red truck by the toolshed beyond the men’s wing. Paradise made it to the back door and ran out into the hot sun. She turned left, running on the gravel back there without stopping to see if anyone was watching. She should, she knew. This wasn’t the way not to get noticed, but she was too terrified to stop.

  She saw the red truck next to the shed when she tore around the corner. A green tarp was stretched over a mound of something in the back, she didn’t know what. The idea of climbing underneath…

  She couldn’t do that. They would see the lump and know someone was hiding, intending to sneak out, which was strictly prohibited.

  But there was a lump of something under there already. Another dead body. A pile of dead fish. A dead cow. Manure for the garden. So they might not notice another lump.

  Paradise bent down and hurried up to the truck. Without waiting for her nerves to fail her completely, she slung her leg up over the opened truck bed and threw herself in, expecting a yell from someone who’d seen her.

  But no yell came.

  She scrambled to the edge, yanked back the tarp making a terrible ruckus, and rolled under it as if it were a blanket. Then she pulled it back down over her head and lay still, panting into the green plastic.

  The acidic stench of manure filled her nostrils. She was right. The fertilizer felt soft and mushy against her back. Breathing hard, she thought the smell might poison her.

  They would plant her in the ground, dead from asphyxiation. Bringing all her willpower to bear, she lay as still as she could, praying that no one would notice the green tarp moving as she panted.

  With each passing minute she was tempted again to throw the tarp off because she knew she couldn’t do this. She could not go beyond the gate!

  The sound of footsteps prevented her from fleeing. The door opened and slammed. The truck growled to life and, with a grinding of gears, it rolled forward.

  Please, God, please save me. Please, please…

  She was suddenly in a closet, and a fist was pounding on the door. “If you don’t come out here right now, I’m going to blow your mother’s head off.”

  The new black memory slammed into her mind and she started to scream. But she clamped her hand over her mouth. She’d been here before, seven years ago.

  “If you don’t come out of there, I swear I will kill her!”

  Everything went dark and quiet.

  Pop.

  It was the first time she remembered hearing the gunshot that killed her mother, and she knew now that it was because she hadn’t come out of the closet she’d barricaded herself in.

  Her father was swearing.

  Pop. Silence.

  That was him? He’d shot her and himself. She could barely breathe, barely cry, barely whisper. “Sorry, Mommy. I’m so…”

  Then darkness lovingly took her away.

  WHEN PARADISE OPENED her eyes, she was surprised to see that the sky had turned green. Or she was lying on her back, staring up at green leaves. She’d been dreaming of a prince on a white stallion, swe
eping in from the desert with the heroine hanging on for dear life behind him. They plunged into the trees and then into a meadow, where the white bats had joined with a thousand warriors in eager…

  She gasped. No! She was in the back of the red truck under the green tarp. The guards had stopped them at the gate. They’d caught her!

  Her first thought was one of immense relief. She couldn’t leave. They would take her back and she would cry on Allison’s shoulder and somehow everything would be all right.

  Her next thought was of Brad.

  She bolted up and swept the green tarp off her head. A bright sun blinded her and she squinted, and in the brief second before she instinctively squeezed off the light she saw that something was terribly wrong.

  She was facing a street and cars were driving by. This wasn’t the gate that led into CWI.

  Paradise twisted around. The large green sign above the glass windows read STARBUCKS. The red truck will drive into the city and stop at a Starbucks…

  She was… She was out? Out!

  Paradise dropped back down and whipped the tarp back over her head, trembling from head to foot. This was not good, this was not good, this was not good… Dear God, help me, dear God, dear God, dear God…

  Nothing happened. She could hear the hum of traffic and the sound of voices far off. Then the voices were gone. She had to get ahold of herself. Or she could lie here and wait till Smitty drove the truck back to the center. Where was she? How far did Smitty go for his break?

  Her memory of her father came back. “If you don’t come out here right now…”

  Pop.

  She couldn’t do it again. She had to come out, or this time… She had to come out and stay out. This time, if she didn’t, Brad would die.

  Head swimming with resolve, Paradise eased the tarp away from her face, held her breath as she listened for voices and, hearing none, peeked over the truck bed. Some people huddled together way down the street.

  You will get out without drawing attention, and you will walk due east one block until you see a shopping strip with a beauty salon.

  She clambered over the wall of the bed, dropped to the asphalt, and ran away from the Starbucks, crouched over to make herself smaller. She got all the way to the end and on to the sidewalk before two things became clear to her.