The Bride Collector

31
THAT BRAD HAD survived this long was a clear indication that the bullet hadn’t punctured his lung. It had struck his right side and been deflected around and out his back. He was pinning his hopes on it.
But this hope was quickly being diminished by the fact that the wound was still bleeding. Ironic, that he would bleed to death at this killer’s hand. He had to stop the bleeding and get to the black medical bag Quinton had left on the table, intended for use on his victims. Plugging their heels, fixing their wounds… At the moment, Quinton’s sickness was Brad’s greatest hope.
Then again, all of these hopes were dashed if he couldn’t break the support post he’d been tied to.
He pushed himself back to his feet, alarmed by the dizziness spinning his world. He couldn’t pass out. The whole case had changed shape in these last twenty-four hours, and the stakes were now both personal and terrifying.
Paradise. Everything had always been about Paradise.
The thought made him sick with rage.
He leaned forward, stretching his restraints and arms as far as he could, took a deep breath, then threw himself backward into the post.
The beam shook with a dull thud. Debilitating pain ran down his side and he shuddered. Dust and debris from the ceiling rained down on him.
Thirty-two.
With any luck at all, age had rotted the wood. Brad clenched his jaw against the pain, straightened, leaned forward again, and threw himself back. Another deep slice of pain. Another rain of debris. Another groan.
Thirty-three.
He repeated the procedure twice more before sagging back to his rump to rest.
The killer’s name was Quinton Gauld and he had become the demon. Brad was responsible for the transformation.
His success was now his greatest problem. With no more need for the bleeding ritual designed to deliver the most beautiful to God without blemish, Quinton was now playing the part of killer. Rather than bring Paradise here, he might kill Paradise where he found her.
In any other situation, Brad might have reacted with a renewed urgency to find the killer before he could strike again. Instead he reacted with raw outrage. He couldn’t seem to stop the desperation. Not for his own life.
For her life. For Paradise.
He didn’t know what to call the feelings he had for her, but staring his own death in the face had made the emotions razor-sharp. He knew they were the most powerful he’d felt since he first learned that Ruby had taken her life.
Brad grunted, fought off nausea, and struggled back to his feet. The pole didn’t seem to be weakening, but he had to keep trying. Even if he did manage to break it, the whole roof might cave in and end his life.
For some reason, that possibility meant nothing to him.
He held his breath and threw himself back into the pole.
Thirty-four.
QUINTON PULLED THE 300M off I-70 and headed into the Texaco station. The trip back to Denver had taken him just over two and a half hours at top speeds and consumed 90 percent of his fuel. He had too much to do now and would need plenty of gas.
Gas ’em, gas ’em all, the sky is raining gas.
The game had changed once again, but as he slowly worked his mind around that change, he came to realize that there was no change at all. Seven years of planning and growing and learning had delivered him to the final and greatest understanding. No longer satisfied with the milk that made babes fat and kept the devout stupid, he’d finally moved on to the meat of the matter.
Rain Man had rained the truth upon him and then died, having satisfied the purpose of his life. Quinton was not an angel of mercy sent by God to find and deliver his favorites to him, bloodless and pure. Rather he was an angel of death, sent to kill those very same brides.
The realization had disturbed him at first, naturally. As Nikki had said, with insight he had not appreciated at the time, even demons know the truth and tremble. So, yes, he’d spent half of the last two hours trembling.
Once he’d taken firm hold of this new realization, he’d quickly brought his superior intelligence to bear. He was who he was, and he must do what he was meant to do. Really, it changed very little.
Humans were still mostly stupid, particularly the ones who thought they were not.
Despite this fact, God did indeed love them with an unfathomable love. They were all his favorites.
And Quinton, in service of the other master, hated them with more steel and fire than he’d ever loved them. In hindsight, he’d always hated the females. They were sick and weak and deserved a far more brutal slaying than he’d ever administered. The fact that he’d been led by his master to think he was in the service of the Almighty was a useful deception that he couldn’t help but respect.
He had evolved, however, and rather than fume with bitterness, he embraced his new knowledge and committed to carrying out his mission with ruthless haste and purpose.
Who was this female Paradise but a worm who deserved to be tramped underfoot and pissed upon? Thinking clearly now, he realized that he’d never before met a woman as sick and infuriating as her.
He’d received the picture she’d taken of herself. He was surprised at how transformed she looked. The sight of her looking frightened but undeniably beautiful had frozen him for a moment. His loins had become a beehive.
And then his hatred for her had reared so large and so terrible that he’d broken from his usual calm and ended up on the shoulder of I-70, weeping with bitter fury. And gratitude. Today he was finally mature enough to put an end to her life.
He’d called her then. But she hadn’t answered his call.
He placed his phone under the tires of the 300M and squished it flat in the event her phone had been compromised.
Quinton finished filling up the gas tank with premium petrol and decided to leave his urine in the bathroom here. He strode toward the sign of the stick figures that indicated outdoor bathrooms.
He would go to the park. If she wasn’t there, he would pay the beauty salon a visit. Then he would find her, haul her out by her hair, and, rather than kill her with a bullet to her face as he’d fantasized, he would drill her full of holes and let her bleed all over the ground.
He stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the store and glanced up at the television over the counter inside. What he saw made him stop.
A news anchor was speaking silently over words that read: MISSING PERSON. And there, next to the words was a large photograph of a skinny, twentysomething girl with dark, stringy hair.
Paradise.
In the space of a single breath Quinton knew what this meant: The center had reported her missing, which meant that the authorities didn’t know her whereabouts, unless this was a ploy to draw him back to the park. That was unlikely—they wouldn’t go to such lengths to draw him to a location they already expected him at.
Paradise was likely still at the park, cowering beneath the tree. This was very good news.
The picture changed. The words now read, ARMED AND DANGEROUS. Beside the words was a photograph of a man named Quinton Gauld. An old picture of him from his employment file at CWI. He remembered having the picture taken when he was first hired.
This was alarming news. He’d worn a mustache and beard back then, and his hair was long. Black plastic-framed glasses were perched over his nose. He’d forgotten how homely he’d looked seven years ago. Once he’d learned about his important role in attracting the world’s most beautiful women, he’d changed his habits to reveal the true beauty in himself. The result had been a smashing success. He now looked nothing like the ugly toad in the photograph.
But the authorities knew his identity. How? His mind flipped through a dozen possibilities and settled on the 300M, which was indeed registered to him. It had always been his weakest link; some camera somewhere had likely snapped a picture of his vehicle coming out of the garage at Rain Man’s residence. Together with other bits and pieces, they’d deduced his identity.
This made his mission even more critical. He would have to swap the 300M out for the green Chevy pickup truck parked at his apartment. He’d rented the apartment and registered the vehicle under an alias—neither could be tracked to the man who had once been Quinton Gauld, now Ghost Gauld. But an astute observer might connect his face to the one on the screen.
To be sure he wasn’t overestimating his improved appearance, he walked into the mini-market and approached the cashier, who was counting the change in her drawer.
“Another freak,” he said, nodding at the television.
She followed his eyes. “Yeah, he’s been on for the last half hour. Can I help you?”
He caught her eye, then smiled. “What’s the world coming to? Pack of Marlboro.”
“Reds?”
“Yes, Reds. Gotta die sometime, right?”
She grinned sheepishly at his joke about the perils of smoking. “I guess.”
Quinton paid for the cigarettes, threw them in the trash on his way back to the car, and climbed behind the wheel.
His need to urinate had passed. Instead he felt a terrible urge to find the deceptively named Paradise before some other lucky soul found her.
ALLISON PUSHED THE door to Roudy’s office open and sighed a silent prayer of relief. Roudy was pacing in front of his desk, lecturing Casanova and Andrea about the finer points of police sketching, which he’d demonstrated in rather horrible fashion on the whiteboard behind him. Seeing Allison, he pushed his point with a burst of intensity.
“It’s in the details, I’m telling you, much finer than even most trained eyes can see. This is why they come to me.” He pointed to his eyes. “I have that sight. I can tell if a single hair is out of place.” He nodded at Allison. “Greetings.”
Andrea jumped up from her position on the couch next to Casanova. “Did you find her?”
Allison stared at Roudy. “I need your help, Sherlock.”
“I’ll have to check my schedule.”
“I need all of you again. Andrea and Cass, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on things for me in case Paradise returns on her own. She knows and trusts you, and I need you to be here when she comes back.”
“What about Roudy?”
“Roudy, I need you to come with me. I need those eyes of yours.”
“My eyes.”
“Yes, your eyes. We’re going out to look for Paradise. And for Quinton.”
The announcement caught them flat-footed. Roudy was still dressed in his pajamas and slippers. It would have to do.
“Out?” Roudy said.
“Out. Now.”
“I don’t drive.”
“I do,” she said.
“And you need me because the FBI is looking for the wrong person.”
“What do you mean?”
“This serial killer has demonstrated superior intelligence at every turn,” Roudy explained. “And no wonder, with his background. After all, you hired him, Allison. But anyone with those kind of smarts isn’t going to walk around looking like his old self. The photograph of Quinton Gauld won’t help them. I assume you’ve informed them of this?”
Bingo. This was on his mind already?
“That’s right, Roudy. And that’s why I need your eyes. You better than anyone may be able to recognize him. Or her, for that matter.”
“Where?”
“Hospitals.”
“You do realize that we won’t find them. He’s as smart as all that—he’s got her stashed somewhere already.”
Andrea dropped to her seat and began to bawl.
“Sorry, but it’s true,” Roudy said.
“That was uncalled for,” Allison snapped.
He looked away, fiddling with his hands.
“Will you help me?”
He caught her eye, then made a show of looking in his appointment book. “I’ll clear my calendar,” he announced.
“Let’s go, Roudy.”
“It’s a waste of—”
“Stop it!” Allison cried. Andrea’s sniffing swelled to a wail. “I don’t care if it is a waste of time! This is Paradise we’re talking about here, and I’m not sitting around a moment longer. She’s my child.”
They all understood her meaning.
“Now are you going to help me, or not?”
“I would do anything for Paradise!” His jowls shook as he emphasized his commitment. “Where to?”
“The Lutheran Medical Center. Quinton Gauld took his internship there. It’s also the closest major medical center with a psychiatric ward.”
Roudy nodded, then marched up and past her. “Follow me.”