The Bride Collector

by Ted Dekker

  The closest psych ward would be West Pines at the Lutheran Medical Center on 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge. She was likely there now under the name Samantha. If not there, then in another hospital, perhaps Denver Health Medical Center, which had thirty-eight beds in its psychiatric ward but was much farther off.

  Quinton backed the truck out and rolled down the parking lot, happy to see no commotion behind him.

  But he wasn’t happy. His face was still twitching and his mind was still buzzing and now he was sweating. His mind was full of images, violent images of Paradise being made to look disturbingly ugly. Before he drilled her with holes and bled her dry he would make sure she understood just how ugly she was. Just how unfair it was that God had let her be born. She was, in fact, so ugly that God had sent him, the angel of death, to rid the earth of her. Put the garbage out, so to speak.

  He would crush her spirit the way she’d crushed his when she’d rejected him seven years ago.

  “CAREFUL! PLEASE, YOU’RE going to kill us before we arrive.” Roudy wasn’t coping well with traffic. He lived comfortably in his delusions of grandeur, but out here, the mundane rendered him nearly incompetent. He flung his arms out and lifted his slippered right foot toward the windshield. “Watch it, watch it!”

  “Roudy, please, I know this is a stretch for you, but I would like you to trust me.”

  The poor fellow was white. “Okay, okay, if you could just slow down a little.”

  “We’re only going half the speed limit.”

  She’d done her best to distract him with the case, but Roudy’s belief that Quinton was already a step ahead of him didn’t help. His opinion bothered Allison immensely. Roudy might not be too good with traffic, but he had navigated the case well enough. She could only pray that he was wrong.

  “Careful!” he warned again. “Get us there in one piece. Please!”

  “You might be right,” she said.

  “We’re going too fast?”

  “No, it might be too late. James Temple from the FBI says they’ve already called all the hospitals. No one by the name of Paradise has been admitted.”

  “Assuming she was admitted under that name.”

  “No one with a yellow T-shirt and jeans or anyone who fits that description.”

  “Careful, please. Perhaps we should go back home and have them bring the files to me.”

  “You told me yourself that ninety percent of good detective work is about sifting through leads. So, this is a lead. It’s the nearest psych ward. Quinton worked here. If you’re wrong and he doesn’t have her, assuming he’s going after her-”

  “But he is,” Roudy said, facing her. “Of course he is.”

  “Because something happened between them,” Allison said.

  “That’s not why. He’s going after her because she is the seventh and most beautiful whom he must deliver to God.”

  “You’re sure it’s Paradise? Just because she’s missing-”

  “I believe he loved her and tried to rape her,” Roudy said. “Now he’s back and he’s going to finish the job by killing her. It all fits, it’s all in the details. Watch it, watch it!”

  Allison was taken aback by his frankness.

  “Dear God, help her. I hope you’re wrong, Roudy. I really hope you are wrong.”

  33

  THE BLUE SCRUBS fit a little tight, but Quinton didn’t have time to delay his mission any longer. He could fit into any hospital for a few hours without raising anyone’s eyebrows, but here he could pass as a doctor for a day and probably kill a dozen people before being found out. He knew the place inside and out from his employment here a decade ago, and from what he’d seen so far, nothing had changed except for their computer system. And he’d solved that challenge already.

  He would only require ten minutes to find and take the little skank, and he doubted he’d need to kill more than the one doctor who’d been so kind as to give him the scrubs.

  Quinton pushed the man’s head into the large clothes hamper and looked in the mirror above the sink. From a distance he might pass as Dr. Robert Hampton. Up close they would see the difference. It didn’t matter, he had no intention of speaking to anyone up close.

  He’d never had to use tremendous force to execute his role, but now that he was freed up to be himself, he found the skill natural. And at a time like this, while the world scoured the streets for poor little Paradise, brute force was his friend.

  The nice thing about technology was that it gave immediate information to anyone with access. He could have run from room to room in search of a psychiatric patient named Samantha, but there was no telling where or if they even had her, and he didn’t have time for a full-fledged adventure.

  He could have forced the doctor to do the research on any one of many rolling, portable terminals in the halls, but there were no terminals in the laundry closet, and he couldn’t risk the man making a scene.

  Thanks to technology he needed neither a manual search nor Dr. Hampton to find out where they’d put Paradise, if they had her. The good doctor’s magnetized ID card would do the trick.

  Quinton turned his head with a long slow twist to the right and then the left, relieving the tension in his neck and upper back. The chrome shelves next to the sink were stacked with supplies: folded smocks, white towels, Ace bandages, green plastic bedpans, rolls of gauze, thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, and cloth sacks imprinted with the hospital logo. Three wheelchairs were folded and stored next to the shelves.

  He took one of the bags from the shelf and transferred his clothes and the gun into it. Then he unfolded one of the wheelchairs and wheeled it from the closet, carrying the bag with his personal possessions in his right hand, walked down the hall, and activated the first rolling computer terminal he came to. When the system asked for authorization, he simply slid the card through the reader, magnetic strip down. The machine beeped and he was in. Dr. Robert Hampton.

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

  He recited it out of habit, but he now knew why this had been his prayer. He had been sinning. He was perhaps the chief of all sinners, and his job was not done. There was more sinning left to do in this one day than most folks would enjoy their entire lives.

  Within thirty seconds he learned what he’d come to learn. FIRST NAME: SAMANTHA, LAST NAME: UNKNOWN had been admitted two hours ago and was now housed in room 303.

  Walking with the purposefulness of a doctor, he headed directly to the elevator, took it to the third floor, and made his way to the rooms, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. He set the wheelchair against the wall next to room 303 and continued on, checking the other rooms across the hall.

  Room 316 suited his purpose. Inside slept an older gentleman connected to a heart monitor. He flipped the monitor off, exited the room, and pretended to be examining the patient’s chart outside room 303. It took the nurse on duty fifteen seconds to abandon her station to investigate the disrupted heart monitor.

  The moment she passed him, Quinton took the wheelchair from the hall and wheeled it into room 303.

  There she slept. God’s favorite.

  Oddly enough, she was strapped to the stripped bed, still dressed in her street clothes, though her feet were bare. The blue cell phone he’d left for her lay on the bed table.

  The site of her sleeping so peacefully on the hospital bed took him off guard. She was more beautiful in person than in the photograph she’d sent him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill her or take her as his own.

  But the moment passed and bitterness flooded his mouth. He could make no mistake; he did indeed hate this little wretch whom he’d been sent to savage.

  He walked up to Paradise and slugged her in the head. Her head jerked and lay still. The girl hadn’t even known what had hit her.

  Quinton set his plastic bag on the table next to the cell phone, unstrapped Paradise’s restraints, hooked his hands under her armpits, and dragged her out of the hospital bed, dropping her limp
form into the wheelchair. He arranged her feet in the footrests, placed a blanket over her body, and sat her straight. Her head lolled to one side, but he kept her upright by grasping the back of her shirt as he wheeled her forward. She would look like any sedated patient, rolling down the hall.

  Quinton stuffed Dr. Robert Hampton’s ID along with the blue cell phone into his pocket and set his bag of personal items on her lap. Then he wheeled her from room 303 and headed toward the elevator that would take them down to the emergency exit.

  Less than a minute had passed since he’d turned off the monitor in room 316. And in less than another minute, Quinton was beside his green Chevy truck, loading Paradise into the passenger seat, like a caring father taking his daughter home after a visit to the emergency room.

  He strapped her into the seat, closed the door, set the wheelchair into the truck bed, and slid behind the wheel. The Chevy fired after a quick twist of the key.

  Not until he was pulling out of the parking lot did the immensity of his accomplishment settle over him. She was his. Paradise was finally his.

  To hate and to kill as he saw fit.

  “HE’S BRILLIANT, I’M telling you.” Roudy floated around room 303 in his pajamas and slippers like a butterfly-to the bed, to the bathroom, to the door, to the window-unsure of where he wanted to alight in this, the first actual crime scene he’d visited in his entire life. He was himself again, having left the perils of traffic behind.

  The nurse on duty and the administrator, a salt-and-pepper-haired thin doctor whose chin dipped below his Adam’s apple, stood by, still in shock that their patient had been abducted.

  It had taken only ten minutes after arriving to track down the admission of First Name: Samantha, Last Name: Unknown, who’d been admitted two hours earlier after being picked up by police in a park not too far from CWI.

  “Brilliant,” Roudy said. “Always a step ahead.”

  “We can’t know for sure it was her,” Allison protested, without a shred of confidence. She snapped open her cell phone and called the number Temple had given her.

  “Of course it was,” Roudy cried. “All the details fit. A girl just over five feet. Clearly psychotic. Dark brown hair. Found near the center. I can smell Paradise in the air.”

  He answered after the first ring. “Agent Temple.”

  “You heard?”

  “I heard. And I just received confirmation. Seven bodies were just discovered dead in a beauty salon opposite the park. Best guess is the killer tracked her location to the hospital. We don’t know how yet.”

  Her legs felt weak and she sat on the edge of the bed. “A beauty salon?”

  “Does it mean anything to you?”

  “He’s… He’s trying to break her spirit.”

  “Frankly, that’s the least of our concerns now. What matters most is that Quinton Gauld now has both Brad and Paradise, and we don’t have a clue where.”

  “He’s going to kill them.” She said it to herself as much as to him.

  “We have every law enforcement agency in the state searching the most likely locations: barns, abandoned buildings, anything. A Chrysler 300M is registered to his name; we’ve included the car to the profile. Rental records, banking-we’re digging up everything we can tie to his identity, but this guy ran a pretty tight life. Not much coming up. False address.”

  She forced herself to her feet, past her weakness. “You have to find him!”

  “We’re trying, ma’am. Trust me, this affects us all.”

  “How could he just escape? He just walked in here and took her without being seen?”

  “Slow down. He may very well have been seen. I’ll have a team there in three minutes. In the meantime, security is asking around. We still don’t know how he managed to get in much less get her out, but we will. These things take time, Miss Johnson.”

  “We don’t have time!” she cried.

  His end was silent.

  “I’m coming down,” she said.

  “I’m not sure what good that will… Hold on.” She could hear his muffled voice off the phone, swearing.

  “What is it?” she demanded into the empty phone.

  “… down there, Frank. Now!” He swore again and came back on. “Sorry. We have another body.”

  “They found her?”

  “No. Sorry, no. At the hospital.”

  “Okay, I’m coming down to your offices. I’m not just going to sit around as long as he’s out there with Paradise, you hear me?”

  “This is an FBI investigation, ma’am. I know you’re upset, but there’s no way you can help us down here.”

  “I may not be able to, but Roudy may.”

  He paused. “Roudy. This is… one of your patients…”

  “This is the man who identified Quinton Gauld. This is the man who helped Agent Raines put this case together while the rest of your team stumbled around in the dark. And I’m bringing him down.”

  He remained quiet for a moment.

  “If you insist, ma’am, but I really don’t think-”

  “I agree.” She looked up at Roudy, who was staring at her with wide eyes. “Yes, he’s invaluable.”

  She hung up. Grabbed her purse.

  “Let’s go. The FBI is waiting.”

  “They’re asking for me at headquarters?” Roudy stammered.

  She spun back. “They are begging,” she said, then walked out with Roudy at her heels.

  34

  BRAD HAD LOST track of time. Two oil lamps on the table cast yellow light inside, but it was dark outside. He knew this because the winks of white sky in the room had gone black. Twice he’d passed out upon collapsing to the ground after his regimen of slams against the wood pole to his back.

  Slam…

  Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

  Slam…

  Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

  Slam…

  Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

  Slam…

  Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

  Slam…

  Five slams each time, like a football drill in reverse, ignoring the pain before sliding back to the ground for a rest.

  Hours had passed, he knew that much. But he’d stopped trying to keep track of his progress or gauge his hope. He had no hope. The reasoning that had gotten him into this futile escape attempt had long left him.

  The exercise had become a simple one. As long as he still had enough strength to stand and throw himself backward, he would. Thinking about whether the strategy was working only weakened his focused resolve. He had no destination now, just the will to place one foot in front of the other. He kept only one thing on his mind.

  Paradise.

  With each thrust of his body backward, an image of her filled his mind. He didn’t harbor any illusion about saving her, because back when he was thinking things through, he concluded that he’d long ago run out of time.

  His exercise became as much a perverse form of penance as an attempt to escape. Even if he did manage to break the post, he had no clue where he was or how far from help. Even if he did get to help, he knew he was too late.

  There was always the possibility that Quinton would grab Paradise and bring her back here, but that thought terrified Brad more than any other. The killer would find him alive and awake and would take twisted pleasure in forcing him to watch while he tortured Paradise in new, unthinkable ways fueled by the audience. Her death would be worse because of him.

  Brad slammed into the post in bitter protest of his own weakness. For every woman who had ever been told she wasn’t normal or that she was ugly. For every girl who’d been abused by a father, for every man blinded to the true beauty of every Paradise.

  What he would give now to sweep her off her feet and rush her to the highest mountain refuge, far away from all the cruelty the world threw at those it judged to be less than extraordinary. Because Quinton Gauld was right about one thing, even Al
lison would say so.

  They were all God’s favorites.

  They were all beautiful, exquisite creatures in their own way. Men as well, yes, but this was about women. Every one was a treasure of the highest order, and with the pain of each crash into the post, this truth, no matter how melodramatic it might seem in less pointed circumstances, was driven deep into Brad’s mind.

  Crash… crash… crash… crash… crash…

  If only he had protected her. How, he didn’t know, but that hardly mattered now. A week ago she was nothing more than a curiosity to him, a monkey in the zoo, as she put it. It didn’t matter that he had only known her a short time, didn’t matter that there was no obligation on his part to love her over any other woman.

  Had he ever met a woman as desirable as Paradise? Had he ever connected with such a deep soul, seen such soft eyes light up when he walked into the room?

  Forgive me, Paradise… Please, I beg you… Forgive me. I was a fool for not knowing. I wouldn’t do it again. I swear I would sweep you off your feet. I would smother you with kisses and promise to never allow a man to lay a hand of harm on you again.

  In Brad’s tortured mind, now stripped of the pretense that distorted the world’s view of beauty, he understood clearly: Paradise was the favorite. The one bride every man would kill for.

  And now Quinton Gauld, this demon from hell who strutted about the world in a man’s body and called himself human, would rob Brad of all second chances.

  Tears had long ago dried on his dirty cheeks, but now his eyes flooded with them again. He pushed himself to his feet, sliding up the pole, which creaked angrily against his body weight. He leaned forward, body quaking. It was all pointless, but he couldn’t think like that.

  He threw himself back, crashed into the post. The loud impact took his breath this time, and he had wait for it to return. If the pole broke and the timber it supported collapsed and crushed Brad, his death would not be wasted.