The Bride Collector Read online

  And while they were buried in their “investigation,” he’d taken the fifth favorite right out from under their investigative noses. Which was important to him, doing it under their noses so to speak. God moved about under the collective nose of most ignorant humans, as did angels and demons.

  As did Quinton Gauld. He’d seen the red-and-white ambulance pull out of the city morgue, and immediately a dozen questions flooded his mind. Were they taking a body or going to get a body? Or was the ambulance for a body at all?

  Surely they weren’t transporting Melissa so soon.

  Careful not to be spotted, he’d followed the ambulance in his Chevy pickup. The moment he identified their destination, he frantically raced along a shorter route and put himself in a position to watch them arrive. The ambulance came to a stop in the circular drive. A driver and one other person Quinton quickly identified as Agent Raines exited the front door and the back of the van, respectively.

  The very idea of his perfect maiden delivered to this den of idiots, whatever the reason, revolted him. There was no reason for it, and his fears were therefore unfounded. He was seeing ghosts where none existed. He was imagining the horrors of a lesser beast. He was being a demon rather than an angel. He wasn’t giving the FBI agent enough credit, because not even the FBI would haul his beautiful, nearly matchless bride here as if she were a side of beef.

  If they’ve dragged my bride out into the night like this I swear I will sin. Forgive me, Father, but I swear on your holy name that I will sin.

  Raines and the paramedic pulled out a gurney. Quinton felt his chest seize. A body was strapped to the thin mattress and although a white sheet was pulled over her face, Quinton could make out the nose and even from this distance he knew, without the slightest doubt, that he was staring through the binoculars at the fifth favorite.

  A buzz ignited at the base of his head and gripped his mind as though a hand had reached up into his skull and latched its fingers on to his brain. A hand with an electrical current. God’s hand.

  It had been many months since Quinton had felt such hot, swimming rage. He was so focused on their wheeling the gurney over the sidewalk-the jerking of her body, the flow of germs over her form, the door of the center opening to accept her-that he was only dimly aware that his body was shaking. An incoherent mumble spilled from his mouth, a word salad about God and death and beauty and favorites that was far too advanced to be understood by anyone but himself.

  The body disappeared inside. Quinton quieted and stared for another ten minutes, begging God to grace him with another sighting; just one more glimpse of her body. But none came.

  He lowered the glasses, squatted on his heels, and began to rock. He knew it was behavior favored by unstable nutcases seeking cadence for their offbeat thoughts, but no one could see him, so he gave in to the comforting motion.

  This changed everything. No it didn’t. But it did. Everything. Nothing, in the task at hand. But everything in terms of how that task might be fulfilled. As with any great objective, there were major forces in opposition, and for the first time Quinton had seen them face-to-face. Having been drawn out in the open, the murderous enemy would now undoubtedly play a role.

  He’d tested Raines, tempted him with a simple note. Be careful who you love, because I will sin. The FBI agent had latched on like a snake. Why? Why had Quinton felt so compelled to draw the man in? Because the snake needed a garden; even God needed an audience.

  He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. After a few minutes, his heart rate started to decrease.

  Okay then, Mr. Raines, I accept your challenge. Okay, Rain Man. I take up your gauntlet. Stop me if you can, you heathen witch doctor. Because I fully intend on stopping you.

  12

  ROUDY SAT IN the corner of his room, hugging his knees close to his chest. His hair looked like a twister had passed through it overnight, his face was as blank as a bleached sheet, his lips moved in a rapid inaudible whisper. Paradise stood at his doorway, doorknob in hand, momentarily frozen by the change in him. It wasn’t often that this kind of depression overtook Roudy, but when it did he spiraled to the lowest of lows.

  “Oh, no.” Andrea stared at the tossed room from behind Paradise. Roudy’s white bedsheets lay in a heap next to three books spread open where they’d been dumped. A bowl of uneaten Cheerios sat on the desk, surrounded by spilled cereal from a tipped yellow box.

  “Oh, no, oh no…” Andrea had woken in a state of terrible anxiety herself, and seeing Roudy in this state would likely push her even deeper into her own fear and misery.

  “It’s okay, Andrea,” Paradise said softly, stepping into the room.

  “No, no, no.” She rushed past Paradise and flew to the corner, where she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around Roudy, weeping. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Roudy mumbled softly, but otherwise gave no indication he was even aware they’d entered his room.

  Paradise walked halfway to them and stopped. She’d come to inform Roudy that the FBI needed her. That she, Paradise Founder, the simple twenty-four-year-old girl who’d supposedly suffered a psychotic break at age seventeen, was finally valued by someone on the outside. The world needed her.

  The FBI had brought a body for her.

  It was exhilarating! Downright terrifying. They were looking to her, Paradise. Special Agent Brad Raines, a real man who pressed his clothes and wore cologne and who was a star in the real world, needed her.

  She’d come for Roudy’s enthusiastic support or maybe a bit of his jealousy, honestly she didn’t know which. Instead, she’d found this-a shell of a man stripped of his sense of worth. He would have nothing for her, and for a moment she resented him, sitting there so helpless and feeble, whimpering with grief.

  To make matters worse, Andrea would join him, leaving Paradise to glory in her small spotlight alone, which made it no spotlight at all.

  When Roudy didn’t respond to Andrea’s weeping, the girl sank to the floor, curled up in a ball, and continued crying softly.

  “The FBI are bringing me a body, Roudy,” Paradise said. “They want my help. Maybe you could help, too.”

  At any other time, Sherlock would be consumed by his own delusions of grandeur, pacing, jabbing the air, insisting that he join her. That without his help all would be lost. That not to include him would be criminal, prosecutable.

  Andrea would be snapping at him, telling him to mind his own business. That this was Paradise’s time for a little attention, although they all knew that Mr. Raines only had one thing on his mind. Still, it was something.

  Instead they were both ravaged by the monsters inside them.

  Paradise’s empathy for Roudy washed away her own need for attention. Dark depression was a beast that visited many here, a debilitating illness that could be managed by drugs at times, but never at the expense of human touch and love.

  The FBI could wait.

  Paradise walked up to Roudy, settled to her knees, and gently rubbed his back. The only time she could hold a man was when he was broken and in need of comfort.

  “It’s okay, Roudy. It’s going to be okay. This will pass.”

  In response he just moaned.

  “You have to get better quickly, Sherlock. They’re going to need you. They’re at their wits’ end and they’re going to need the best.”

  He began to relax, then slowly he turned his wide eyes to look at her. She believed his mind was working, screaming for him to acknowledge her wisdom, but his emotions had shut him down for now.

  She kissed him on the forehead and gently placed both arms around his shoulders. “This is the price we pay for being so good at what we do, right? But it’s okay, because you help so many people, Roudy. I’m very proud of you. We all are.”

  He went limp, and she let him lean into her. Andrea was looking up from the floor like a puppy who wanted some attention as well. Paradise stroked her hair. “We’re so proud of both of you.”

  They remained on the
floor for several long minutes, letting the pain work its course, and for a while Paradise forgot that she had been on her way to the front office. Her ability to bring comfort to a few here at CWI had become the greater part of her identity. The attention from the FBI, however flattering, was only a recent and likely passing distraction in her world.

  But they were waiting. Brad was waiting.

  “I have to go, but I’ll be back,” she finally said. “This will pass, Roudy. And when it does, we’re going to need you.”

  Andrea pushed herself to her knees, then stood and walked out of the room like a zombie. Headed to her own room for a shower, undoubtedly.

  “I’m the best,” Roudy mumbled.

  Paradise returned her attention to the man who was staring at the wall. “Yes, you are. You always have been.”

  He looked at her, lips quivering. “Tell them I’m sorry. I’m not so good right now. I’m very sorry, maybe later.”

  “I will.”

  She stood, patted him twice on his shoulder, and left. She closed his door behind her, slipped down the hall, and hurried through the hub. Francie Horner stood in the middle of the floor with her hair teased up into an Afro, staring. Flower sat next to the wall tracing something on the window, watching Paradise along with half a dozen other residents. Was her reputation getting out?

  For a moment she was tempted to run back to the room and stay with Roudy where she belonged. What did she think she was going to do, anyway? Touch the dead and give them the name of the killer? She was almost certain she couldn’t help them. Truth be told, she’d gone along with all of this because of him.

  Because of Brad Raines. The first man in her memory who had shown the remotest interest in her beyond the kind Casanova routinely offered.

  But they were waiting for her. She’d put herself in a predicament, and now she had to finish what she had started.

  She walked down the path and entered the front reception area. The nurse, Jonathan, was waiting for her. “Hey, Paradise. They went to the kitchen.”

  “Behind the hub?”

  “Something about refrigeration. Allison said she’d meet you there.”

  “They have the body in the kitchen?” She was dumbfounded. It would mean going back through the hub! Jonathan must have seen the look of concern on her face.

  “Come on, I’ll take you around through the delivery entrance.”

  “It goes by the fence,” she said.

  “It’s either around the wing or through the hub. Your call.”

  “Fine, around the wing.” But she never liked being so close to the fence, the only thing between her and the outside world.

  Jonathan led her back across the lawn, around the building, and unlocked the entrance used for deliveries. “You know where you’re going from here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, see you around.”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  At the moment she felt like anything but a ghost reader. She’d make a complete fool of herself.

  Paradise walked down a hall littered with boxes of olive oil and soups, a few crates of onions and potatoes. She stepped through the kitchen’s back door and studied the scene before her.

  The kitchen had a large center island covered in stainless steel, which was used for food preparation. Utensils and pans hung from a rack overhead. The stoves lined the far right wall; a large walk-in fridge opened on the left. There was no sign of a body anywhere, so Paradise assumed they put it in the refrigerator to keep it cool.

  Brad Raines was talking quietly to Allison, both of them with their backs toward her. Something about the funding behind the center and cost of operations. He stood a full head taller than Allison, blond hair neatly trimmed around his ears, above his collar in the back. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up. Black slacks and shoes. A belt. Very neat, very ordered.

  Paradise stood still, aware that they hadn’t expected her to come through the back. She could turn and sneak out, avoiding the embarrassment of talking to him again after running away. Did he think she was crazy? Surely, he did. She’d lectured him and then fled at his mere mention of leaving her safe haven.

  Maybe she really was crazy. But she wasn’t, she knew that. She was, however, intimidated by the man who stood across the room. He completely outclassed her. He, the specimen of perfection, standing head and shoulders above her.

  He had watched her with sincere interest. And honestly, that was the real irony, wasn’t it? He had no business looking at her with any kind of interest, because she neither deserved nor wanted it. She was dirt in his world.

  Paradise had no adult experience in that world, and looking at Brad now, it occurred to her that the only way to cope with him was to bring him down to her level, even if just a little. Not by being mean to him, but by pretending to be his equal, maybe even his superior in some respects.

  Wasn’t that what she’d done during most of their first meeting? She’d protected herself by coming off distant and in command of the situation. She had to do that again or risk falling apart in front of him.

  She couldn’t let him know how much she liked him.

  Paradise gasped and jerked back into the hall. How could she think such a thing? It wasn’t true, of course, not in the faintest. She liked him, but not in that way.

  Allison called out. “Paradise?”

  The thought that she might actually be attracted to this man terrified her. It made her feel like a worm, knowing that he couldn’t ever, under any circumstances, bring himself to return any affection for a piece of waste like her.

  “Are you there?”

  She had to control herself!

  Paradise took a deep, calming breath, absently smoothed her hair, and stepped out. They were both looking in her direction. She thought she should say something that demonstrated anything but the fear she felt, but instead she stopped and stared at them.

  Mr. Raines (she couldn’t call him Brad any longer) smiled. “Hello, Paradise.”

  “Hello.”

  “Thank you for coming.”

  The way he was looking at her… She knew it was just normal and friendly. After all, he needed her help, so he was being nice. But it was so easy to misinterpret his look as something more. As interest. She had to gain control!

  “Well, I doubt I can be of any help,” she said walking forward, hoping that he didn’t see the slight shake in her hands. “But so that you can get this off your mind and move on, I’ll do my trick for you.”

  “Trick?”

  “Trick, show, whatever. I’ll be your monkey in this little zoo you’ve set up so you can get down to real work.”

  “Paradise…,” Allison warned her.

  “Sorry, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Raines looked tongue-tied, and that gave Paradise a moment’s encouragement. She might be nothing in his world, but here she could still be somebody. And was. Roudy and Andrea might even be proud of her.

  “So where’s the body?”

  The walk-in refrigeration unit was around the wall to the right, and Mr. Raines called to someone. “Steve?”

  A few moments later, a paramedic wearing a stethoscope wheeled a gurney around the corner. The body was covered in a white sheet, but the woman’s form was unmistakable.

  Paradise stared at the body and let her mind go where it wanted to go, into the hidden folds of story behind what her eyes saw.

  I see the woman rising from the sheet, swinging off the gurney, stepping backward toward the door. The sheet becomes a dress on her fair frame. Back through the door, then fast through the city to her own house and inside, where a man is waiting for her. She is kissing the man, turning in circles like they are lovers dancing. But then he comes around again, and I see that he isn’t a man at all. The woman is kissing a gorilla who suddenly bares its fangs and…

  “Paradise?”

  She looked at Allison. “What?”

  They just looked at her. She had to get back on track. She felt panic crow
ding her mind, but managed to push it back.

  “There’s too many people here.”

  The paramedic glanced at Mr. Raines, who nodded. “I’ll just step outside,” the medic said, then left the three of them with the body.

  “Is that better?” Allison asked.

  Mr. Raines-Brad to those closer to him, to his friends, his peers, and his lovers-was watching her. She had to stay strong.

  “Yes, that’s better,” she said, moving forward. “So what exactly do you want me to do, Mr. Raines? Fondle a dead body in front of you?”

  “Paradise!”

  “You’re right, that wasn’t called for,” she said, horrified at her choice of words. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

  “No need to apologize,” Mr. Raines said. “Trust me, I’m grateful that you’ve agreed to try to help us out. I realize that this is unprecedented. I feel a bit awkward myself.”

  “Why, because you’re not used to working with monkeys?”

  “Well, no, that’s not what I was thinking.”

  “But it’s at least partly true. You could never feel comfortable in the company of people like us. We’re all just too weird for you.”

  Allison tried to steer her right again. “Please, Paradise, this isn’t time for-”

  “For transparency?” she interrupted. “No, not in front of real people.”

  Even as she spoke, Paradise heard the unkindness of her own words and wanted to take them back. They even seemed to jolt Allison. For a long time she stared at Paradise while Brad shifted his eyes between them.

  “You’re right,” Allison said. Then, turning to Mr. Raines, “She’s right. This whole thing is absurd. You’re using her for your own selfish purposes without rightly respecting her own needs. I think this is all a mistake. Maybe you should just leave.”

  What? No! Not yet.

  “I’m sorry.” Brad-Mr. Raines-looked dumbfounded. The poor man must be thinking he’d entered the twilight zone. “I thought we had an understanding. We went to considerable trouble bringing the body here.”