The Bride Collector Page 9

  No longer willing to wait, Quinton decided that he would fetch the bride half an hour early. He retraced his steps to the truck, set his plastic bottle of urine under the seat for disposal later, and withdrew the chloroform. Before she understood what was at stake, she might be frightened by his appearance. He had to transport her safely to the place he’d chosen near Elizabeth, where he could begin his work.

  Ten minutes later, he stood at the edge of her back lawn. Not a sound of objection. No new pet, no sleepwalker or insomniac, no barking neighbor dog. Perfect. He walked up to her bedroom window and peered in past the slats. Did Melissa realize there was a thin gap between her mini-blinds and the window frame that allowed anyone to see a sliver of the room, including part of her bed? Perhaps she had known and dismissed the concern, confident that she was special, immune to the outside world.

  He made out long lumps in the half-light. It took a full minute for him to understand that he was seeing her legs under the floral bedspread. She was home, as he knew she would be, but seeing her helped him relax.

  Though Melissa used deadbolts and had an alarm system with adequate contacts on all windows and doors, cutting the glass on the closet window, though time consuming, raised no alarm. He climbed in, careful not to dislodge the frame and activate one of the contacts.

  Using a small penlight to give him enough light to work by, he applied a few tacks of superglue to the edges of the cut glass and replaced the pane. From the outside, no passersby would ever see it had been cut.

  Now safely inside the favorite’s house, Quinton took a few minutes to calm himself. He breathed in the warmer air, redolent with the unique smells of the fifth one’s daily existence. He smelled a savory fragrance wafting from the kitchen: some sort of late-night take-out dinner. He smelled dust stirred up by a hidden ceiling fan, whirring in the dark. He even caught a whiff of her perfume, its profile unforgotten since that first encounter weeks before.

  At last, he stood, careful not to let his knees crack. He’d studied the house from every window and knew the layout well. He was in the spare bedroom’s walk-in closet on the north side. A hall ran past the living room to the master bedroom, where Melissa now dreamed of anything except the wondrous fate poised to engulf her.

  He pulled the small bottle of chloroform and rag from his pocket, cracked the door, and then eased into the spare bedroom. He’d measured the spaces and walked them on the bare ground a dozen times, so even now encased in pitch darkness he knew how many steps to the door, how many down the hall, how many to her bed.

  Quinton took them all on slow, padded feet. He waited a moment outside her bedroom door, then turned the knob.

  No lock. Of course not. Melissa might be favored and stunning, but she was still quite stupid. Still, he loved her the way God loved her.

  Easing the door wide enough to accept his body, he slipped inside. A slight gray glow from the city outside worked past the mini-blinds and offered a hint of light. Enough for Quinton to see her form, slowly rising and falling in peaceful slumber.

  He was there now, in the place he’d obsessively fantasized about for the past several days. He let the vast smile within him swallow up the infinite details of his success: the delicious proximity, the sense of power, the barely tolerated anticipation.

  It always amazed him how unsuspecting they were. Asleep in their own dull comforts, unaware that there was a higher calling to life. Like sheep wedged together in the pen. Six billion of them.

  But he would go after the one.

  Quinton doused the rag, returned the bottle to his pocket, and took two steps when the room erupted with light.

  He pulled up sharply, stinky rag in his right hand. Melissa stared at him with round green eyes, hair tangled and flung over her left cheek. Her hand was still on the lamp switch.

  She wore a white mask of horror that seemed to have muted any scream. But Quinton knew her silence wouldn’t last. Now what? He’d never found himself in this situation. She must have been awake all along.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I think I’m in the wrong house.”

  That gave her just enough pause to keep from crying out.

  “Sorry. I must have stumbled into the wrong… Is this Twenty-four-thirteen?”

  She swallowed and closed her mouth. But she was still too terrified to respond. Her eyes dropped to the rag in his hand.

  “Okay, I’ll leave now,” he said, his voice suddenly weak and lame sounding. “I’m terribly sorry for barging in like this. Talk about embarrassing. Though you are really quite a pretty woman.”

  He chided himself for sneaking in the last comment.

  “Wow, now I’m really embarrassed. If you can show me how to get out.” He looked over his shoulder at the door. Meanwhile, the scent of chloroform wafted through the air. “Do you mind showing me how to get out of here?”

  “Get out!” she cried.

  He held up his hand. “No, no don’t do that. I’m sorry, I just…” Quinton pointed at her window. “Look!”

  She looked. Childish, but it worked.

  He dived then, while her eyes were momentarily averted. Coiled and then unleashed every muscle in his body, unswervingly aimed at her. Latched on to her knee and threw his whole 210 pounds on her frail form, hand with rag extended.

  But Melissa wasn’t a favorite for her looks alone. She rolled quick, squealing.

  He rolled with her but she beat him to the far side of the bed and sprang to her feet. Her flannel pajamas were yellow with small white butterflies. How cute was that?

  Quinton threw up both hands. “No, don’t run. You’re the bride. He wants you, you have to…” But she was already running around the bed, headed toward the open bedroom door.

  He launched himself for her just as she bolted past the end of the bed. His hand caught a handful of her soft flannel pajama bottoms and pulled her to a ripping stop as the seam split.

  She pulled away, grunting, panicked. But now Quinton was on his feet, looming over her. He brought the rag down again and stuffed it upon her mouth, to help her calm down and sleep so this wouldn’t be such a difficult adventure.

  Melissa twisted away to her right and let a scream rip from her throat. But as soon as the cry began, it was abruptly cut short by a loud thunk. Her attempt at escape had caused her to slam her head into the corner of her dresser.

  The woman dropped like a dead deer. Immediately, blood sprang from a wound at her temple.

  “No…” The sight of the blemish made his stomach swim. “What… What did you do?” He felt fury well up and flush his face with heat. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Nausea swept over him as he stared down at the blemish on her otherwise spotless face. She’d ruined it! She’d slammed herself into the dresser and marked her flawless visage. What was he to do now? For a moment, he thought he might actually throw up on her. He pushed back the nausea only to struggle with a very strong urge to punch her in the face.

  Slowly, he brought himself back into control. It was a setback, but nothing was lost. With any luck, no one had heard her short scream. Even if they had, more than likely they were already rolling over and going back to sleep, once again confident that nothing threatened their sanctity. Certainly, Melissa was back asleep. To be sure, he pressed the rag over her mouth and counted to ten.

  Then he shoved the rag in his pocket, threw the girl over his shoulder, and left through the back door, being sure to lock it behind him.

  8

  THE HOURS TICKED relentlessly by, and one day stretched into two.

  Brad Raines hovered over the case like a mother hen, knowing that for all he could not see, something was indeed happening. The killer wasn’t curled up in bed, sleeping. His evil harvest was proceeding apace.

  The FBI team had scoured the evidence, searching for the elusive lead that would close the gap between hunter and hunted. But nothing new of significance had presented itself.

  Brad stood in his office alone, staring out the window at the cars
passing by three stories below. He and his team had all they needed, a mantra that Brad lived by. Somewhere in the pages of evidence on his desk hid a key that could unlock the case: a dot, an Easter egg, a word that said more than had been spoken.

  Brad had returned from the Center for Wellness and Intelligence haunted by an uneasiness that lodged on the edge of his mind. Associating pattern killing with the likes of a Roudy Sparks or an Andrea Mertz-any of the residents he’d met at CWI-was like pinning a bank robbery on a ten-year-old child. They were capable of outbursts related to delusions, but the cruel illness just wasn’t consistent with calculated patterns of harm.

  He’d met victims at CWI, not perpetrators capable of heinous murder. But there had been more, this haunting that was slowly creeping into his mind.

  In their eyes, he’d seen a small part of himself.

  The revelation came back to what Nikki had said just before they got the call to check out CWI. This notion that each human was truly alone in the world, confronted by the complexity of life. And finding themselves alone, they felt insecure. Not loved the way they should be. Not really wanted. Outcasts. Pretenders on some subtle but profound level.

  Whether or not they were willing to admit it, all humans were self-contained and alone. The wisest and hardiest among them managed to acknowledge that fact and surpass it. More experienced adults had found ways to cope, but many if not most felt it still. Younger adults suspected it deep in their bones and cried out for significance. Some retreated from that insecurity as matter of survival.

  Sadly, supportive examples flitted through his mind.

  A wife who’d been abused as a child, unable to engage her husband in a mutually gratifying sexual relationship because she couldn’t lower the walls of protection she’d built around herself. A man told all his life he didn’t measure up, now safely encased in his own shell, afraid that even those closest to him might learn he really didn’t.

  Some covered their insecurity by overcompensating with talk, talk, talk. Or food. Or athletics. Or addictions. Or ridiculous behavior to garner attention.

  In the last three days, Brad’s world had become a wasteland of victims on all sides. Everyone-and not only Nikki and Frank and Kim, and Mason in the lobby and Amanda at Maci’s Café-but everyone, was a lonely victim of life’s complexity; Brad wondered what mysteries they hid behind. What secrets and fears secured their loneliness?

  You’re a pretty girl, Amanda. Thin and fit. Do you constantly diet to fix yourself? Do you hate yourself? Or do you love yourself and regret that others don’t appreciate you more?

  Who was the skateboarder practicing on the rails by his condo, really? A young man who was ready to begin really living because he wasn’t yet satisfied with who he was? Life for him was still practice for some real test, which lay a month or a year or maybe five years away. When he passed it, his peers would truly appreciate him. Cherish him even. He would find his significance.

  Problem was, that day would never arrive. Everyone was still either telling themselves it was all just around the corner, or they were living with the haunting suspicion that the pot at the end of the rainbow was all a fantasy. That in reality they were alone in a jungle and the rainbows were just illusions.

  So then, life was really just a mind game, wasn’t it? And most people really were handicapped. Mentally.

  Ill.

  Brad tapped the windowsill with his forefinger. Nonsense, of course. This was simply his way of dealing with his own insecurities. Unlike most, he was at least able to see the truth. Still, he was fated to face the same monsters of inadequacies, insignificance, and isolation everyone faced.

  If Nikki knew the full story, the psychologist in her would say that he was a man trapped by the profound despair of never finding a woman who measured up to the one soul mate he’d loved and then lost.

  A slap behind him jerked him from his thoughts. Frank stood over a manila folder he dropped on Brad’s desk.

  “The rest all check out. We have three more leads we’re chasing down, but of this bunch, nine are now dead. Ten are in jail, mostly on misdemeanors that have them cycling in and out of the system like yo-yos. Five are in other assisted-living facilities, and twelve are in the mainstream, living normal lives with family or friends. Not a hint of the killer.”

  At his instruction, Nikki had studied the residents on Allison Johnson’s list of discharged cases and identified forty-three whom she deemed capable of violent behavior. The team had tracked down thirty-six of them, eliminating each as a suspect.

  He frowned and nodded. “Okay. Chase the other seven down.”

  “Already have. Just waiting for the final report.”

  Brad nodded and Frank left.

  He pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Nikki, can you come to my office for a minute?”

  He settled into his chair, closed two open files on his desk, and set them neatly on top of the others. Six books he’d pored over stood side by side at his elbow. The Center Cannot Hold, an autobiography of a schizophrenic. A couple of harrowing books on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. A book that shredded the controversial atypical psychotropic drugs, another that supported them. Mad in America, a history of the treatment of mental illness in the country.

  Three mechanical pencils lay in a wood tray next to the Bride Collector files. Other than these items, his desk was clear. The rest of his office was as carefully arranged.

  He picked up one of the pencils, crossed his legs, and tapped the plastic casing on the desk’s Formica top.

  Nikki tapped his open door. “You called?”

  “Have a seat.”

  She walked in and slipped into one of two chairs facing his desk. Jeans today. White sandals that nicely complemented her red toenail polish. She’d had a pedicure last night or this morning. Her foot started to swivel slowly.

  He lifted his eyes and saw that she was watching him. Dressed in jeans and a white short-sleeved blouse, with her dark wavy hair she looked a bit like Ruby, he thought. For an extended moment he forgot to remove his eyes from hers, and by the time he realized that he was staring he’d betrayed himself.

  Life is a mind game, he thought. And what mysteries are you hiding, my dear?

  He shifted his gaze to the stack of files. “We’re running out of time.”

  “If you mean he’s going to go again, you’re probably right. I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “We can expand the search beyond the forty-three people you pulled out of CWI’s files.”

  She nodded. “I’ll pull more, but it’s highly unlikely-”

  “I realize that. But we’re missing something.”

  “From CWI?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  She nodded. “The place got under your skin, didn’t it?”

  “The Center for Wellness and Intelligence.” He set the pencil back down. “It doesn’t appear there’s any connection to the case.”

  “But you saw something else,” she said. “You’ve been to mental health wards before. Correctional facilities for the insane. The banging of heads on toilets, the twenty-four-hour suicide watches, the cries of prophets telling the ward that Jesus is coming back at the turn of the century. But this was different.”

  “They were… I don’t know…”

  “Human,” she said.

  It sounded so cruel.

  “No, more than that.” What could he say? I felt like I was looking in a mirror? That wasn’t entirely true, but he couldn’t deny that he’d seen something oddly familiar.

  Nikki stood, crossed to the door and shut it. “The thing of it is, Brad, I get you. I know you’re good at what you do because of the pain that’s driving you. I know they got under your skin, because you connected with them on a level that confuses you.” She crossed to his desk, placed her palms on the surface, and leaned over. “How am I doing?”

  He suddenly wanted her to know it all. So he told her.

  “She killed herself, Ni
kki.”

  “Who did?”

  “Ruby. She committed suicide. Everything was perfect. We were going to get married when we graduated. She loved me, and I was head over heels. One night, she took some pills and killed herself.” His voice strained by emotion. “She didn’t think she was pretty enough.”

  Nikki sat. “I’m sorry.”

  “It took me a while to figure it out-the details aren’t important now. She didn’t think she was pretty enough, but she was beautiful. Not just in my eyes.” He pulled open his top right drawer and withdrew a five-by-seven photograph of Ruby tossing her dark hair, holding a tennis racket on the court. He slid it over to Nikki.

  She picked up the picture. “You’re right, she was beautiful. I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

  “It’s taken a while, but I think I’m finally understanding that her death was debilitating for me. Incapacitating.”

  She pushed the picture across and leaned back in the chair. “And you see the same in the residents at CWI. It got under my skin, too.”

  Her eyes lingered on his, studying him. But not the way a psychoanalyst might, unless she was falling in love with her patient. She was the only woman he’d ever told.

  “What does your gut tell you?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “Me.” Her lips curved gently. “About Roudy and his group, naturally.”

  “Naturally. My gut? It tells me to talk to them again.”

  “Then follow it. Talk to them.”

  “To what end? There’s no connection to the case.”

  “Use them.”

  “Use them how?”

  “Use Roudy. Use them all.”

  “On the case?”

  “The administrator seemed to think they might be useful. It takes one to know one, right? So recruit some schizophrenics to help us find a schizophrenic.”

  “Assuming he really is schizophrenic.” The idea seemed a bit far-fetched, even to him. “Sounds more like a case study than an investigation.”