The Bride Collector (36 page)

“I told you not to call me that!”

Rain Man sagged, lips bleeding. He looked back up, eyes pleading. “That’s what God calls you, and he’s begging you not to
kill her.” Tears flooded the man’s eyes. “Please… Don’t kill Paradise.”

And with that one word, seven years of Quinton’s life collapsed in on itself. He
knew
? Rain Man knew that Paradise was the seventh?

He staggered back, stunned. Was it then possible that he was right about the rest?

You’re a buzzard, boy. You’re a buzzard and you’ve been flying with the demons all along.

“What are you saying?” he stammered.

“I’m saying that you’re right, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. I see what God has always seen. And you… You’re
on a mission from hell.”

Quinton’s mind was snapping. The barn was spinning. The buzzards were screaming,
What does that make you, what does that make you, you pathetic, mindless boy?

He said it aloud. “I’m a demon?”

“No, you’re…”

But he didn’t hear the rest. His ears were filled with rushing blood and screaming buzzards. This is the way it had been all
along! Paradise was the most beautiful, he’d seen that when she’d first walked into the Center for Wellness and Intelligence.
A precious, innocent lamb who walked around the grounds like an angel from heaven. The world saw a wasted life, abused, discarded,
but he’d seen her true beauty and he’d tried to make her his own.

She rejected him, not because he was an angel of mercy, but because she’d seen him for what he was, a demon out to kill the
most beautiful. And he was back to make things right.

But he was wrong.

He was back to kill her because she’d rejected him.

What Quinton found most confusing in that moment was how this truth had remained hidden from him so long. And yet, he knew
why. He’d embraced his delusion. Like a deluded politician, or a tyrant who’d convinced himself that rape was justifiable.

“… if you want, Quinton,” Rain Man was saying.

“I… Please don’t call me that,” he heard himself say.

“You can still change this.”

I’ve killed a million people and I want to kill a million more because I’m a demon and that’s who I am
.

“I’m… I’m a demon.”

Rain Man didn’t respond.

Quinton felt himself falling, sinking to the ground. His knees landed on the earth, jolting his mouth shut with a clack of
teeth. He began to cry, then sob, then he stretched his jaw wide and he began to wail.

Brad Raines was saying something, but his words were swallowed by Quinton’s rage. He thought his head might explode. Panic
beat him in the face and chest and he gripped his temples to contain it. But it grew.

There was only one way to stop it.

BRAD RAINES WATCHED
the breakdown with a mixture of dread and relief. He’d gotten through to the Bride Collector, and anything was better than
the course they were on before.

But he’d also guessed the bitter truth: Quinton wasn’t using Paradise to lure her sister. He was luring
Paradise
. All along it had always been about Paradise.

Now the man was screaming and his face was white as he trembled on his knees like a man possessed.

“You can stop it,” Brad said. “You can end all of this.”

The man suddenly stopped screaming and lowered his head, panting.

“Quinton…”

Slowly he came to himself, breathed deep, unsteadily pushed himself to his feet. He stood there, limp. His jaw muscles bunched,
relaxed, then bunched again. He finally looked up, face fixed.

“You’re right.”

He turned around, walked to the table, picked up his pistol, returned, and shot Brad from a distance of ten feet.

Boom!

The bullet punched into his chest, knocking the wind from him. He gasped and tried to jerk his arms around, but they were
held tight by the restraints.

“God!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you there.” Quinton walked back to the table, picked up a small bag, and headed for his car, a black
Chrysler 300M.

The bullet had missed his heart or he wouldn’t still be breathing. To the right of his chest, most likely through the lungs
and out his back. Pain spread down his side in throbbing waves.

“Please… Where are you going?”

Quinton stopped. Then faced him, eyes deadpan.

“I’m going to finish what I should have finished a long time ago. And when I’m finished with her, I’m going to find another
one. And I’m not going to stop until they’re all dead because that’s what I do. I kill God’s favorites.”

He turned back around and walked on.

“Enjoy the last few minutes of your life, Mr. Raines.”

PARADISE DIDN’T KNOW
how long she’d been in the beauty salon. Two hours, she guessed. At least.

Jessie, the youngest of six hairdressers working today, had taken her by the hand, led her to one of the chairs at the back,
and sat her before the mirror. “So, what do you think we should do?”

Paradise was at a complete loss. The smell of chemicals made her dizzy. They were going to gas her with something and turn
her into a monster, but of course that was absurd, they would do no such thing. She might be a bit naive around the gills,
but she wasn’t stupid. Psychotic maybe, just a tiny bit, but not stupid. Still, she couldn’t stop the thoughts ramming the
inside of her skull, trying to get out.

Monsters, they’re all monsters and aliens and they’re going to poison you.

Jessie took Paradise’s hair and pulled it back. She was a young woman with a head swimming in blond curls. One of those magazine
faces painted with makeup that reminded Paradise of Andrea, except with blue eyes to match the sky where aliens came from.

Stop with the alien stuff!

“Why don’t we cut it off?” the alien said.

“No.”

“You don’t think? Oh, I think your hair would be adorable short.”

Just the thought of those scissors snipping around her neck was too much. “I’d rather not.”

“Okay… Well, I can do whatever you want. It’s your hair, not mine. What do you think, Cassandra? She doesn’t want her hair
short.”

Cassandra, the mother hen here, walked over in her floor-length dress, smiling warmly. “Well, let’s just take a look at you,
Samantha.”

It was the name she’d given them, afraid to be caught. She slipped out of the chair and stood, keeping her eyes on the scissors
in Cassandra’s hand. At the center, the sight of a woman with shears wouldn’t bother her, but it was different here.

Out here, aliens were on the loose.

Cassandra must have seen her eyeing the scissors, because she set them on a shelf next to neatly stacked white jars of hair
product. “You want a complete makeover, right?”

“I need to look beautiful.”

“Well, honey, that pretty much means a complete makeover. The hair, the face, a manicure, pedicure… What about your clothes?”

She looked down at her jeans. “I want to cut my jeans off. Short.” She drew a line across her thigh.

The two beauticians exchanged smiles. “Okay, I think we can do that. But you’re going to need some new clothes. What’s this
for? You have a date, honey?”

The question brought the killer to mind, and it took some concentration to keep from unraveling in front of them. “Yes. I
have a date.”

“Okay, okay.” Cassandra walked around her, nodding. Both women were probably doing everything in their power to keep from
bursting out in laughter. But as far as aliens went, they seemed nice enough. Not that they were really aliens.

“Okay, flip-flops, shorts. But the T-shirt has to go,” Cassandra said.

“I don’t have another shirt.”

“We’ll worry about that later. But you have to put on something that doesn’t smell like you rolled in it, honey.” She played
with Paradise’s stringy hair. “Let’s give her a sexy sporty look, Jessie. Highlights, bangs, a little texture. Not too much
makeup, just a healthy glow and some lipstick. What do you say we keep you looking natural, honey? Bring out your natural
beauty.”

She nodded, lost.

“French manicure, not too long, Jessie. Red toenail polish.” She stooped over and lifted her left jean leg. “You need a wax,
honey. You okay with that?”

Did Angie wax? Paradise wasn’t particularly hairy, but she knew that most girls shaved their legs and their underarms. Brad
would approve.

So she nodded.

“Perfect. Get her into a robe, Jessie.” She touched Paradise on her cheek and smiled. “Don’t worry, Samantha, you’re in good
hands. Just sit back and let us pamper you. Okay?”

Paradise blinked, frightened but certain that she had little choice.

She stripped out of her smelly T-shirt and jeans and put on the long white robe they gave her. First the shower. She’d never
heard of taking a shower in a beauty salon, but then she didn’t know much about these kinds of places. Jessie insisted she
wash off the smell, so she did, using what they called an exfoliating scrub. It smelled like flowers and made her whole body
tingle. Under any other circumstance she might have found the hot shower relaxing.

But she couldn’t get rid of the killer’s voice in her head. Or the hollow pit in her gut, the gnawing sense that she was somehow
prostituting herself, cleaning herself on the outside but being dirty on the inside. Yet what choice did she have?

Then they went to work on her. Washing, scrubbing, painting, polishing, waxing… They decided they didn’t have to wax, thank
goodness. Instead they shaved her legs and underarms. She kept thinking that the aliens had captured her and she was in their
experimental room where they prodded and poked to better understand the human specimen they’d taken.

A white facial mask. Hair color, cut, and style. Makeup.

All the while Jessie and Barbara, who did both nails and makeup, kept commenting on how she was really beautiful. Her strong
nails, her healthy hair, her porcelain skin…

Paradise sat back and accepted the torture, mind lost on the haunting voice that had spoken to her on the phone. The killer.
Who had Brad.

Really, she was doing this for him. For both the killer and Brad, however ashamed she was to admit this to herself. For the
killer because he would hurt Brad if she didn’t follow his directions to the letter. For Brad… No, not for Brad. Brad wouldn’t
want her to go through this just to look more beautiful.

But he wouldn’t mind, would he?

Her mind couldn’t process the whys of what was happening to her. The aliens, the demons, the killer. And worst of all, her
father’s voice, back from the dead, demanding she come out of her hiding or he would kill her mother. As he had.

She looked down at her new white-tipped nails, which looked more like claws. Barbara put her file down and took her hand.

“Are you okay, Samantha?”

“Yes,” she’d answered, startled.

“You’re hands are trembling. It’s okay… Is it a problem with drugs?”

She was talking about substance abuse, but Paradise immediately thought of the antipsychotics in her medicine cabinet. Because
her mind was bouncing around like a rubber ball. The chemicals, the uniform-like robes, the scissors, the painting of nails
and faces all frightening snippets from a horror movie.

She almost stood and fled then.

“No. I’m just a bit scared.”

The woman glanced around. “Are you in danger?”

“No,” Paradise answered too quickly.

Barbara patted her hand. “Okay. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay, and Paradise continued to fight against an almost insurmountable urge to run out, bathrobe and all. She
refused to look in the mirror, terrified of the monster she would find in her place.

Cassandra had returned from her lunch with a shopping bag just as Barbara finished painting her face. “I hope you don’t mind,
Samantha. I took some of your money and bought you a few things.”

Money? “I don’t have any money,” she said.

“You overpaid us. Now we’re even.” She pulled out a pair of frayed jean shorts, a red blouse, and a pair of white sandals
with silver buttons on the straps. “What do you think? I hope a size four fits you. Aren’t they adorable?”

She had no clue what to think.

“Well, go on,” Jessie said. “You know where the dressing room is. Show us your new sexy self, honey.”

“Put them on?”

“That’s why I bought them.”

“Now?”

“You wanted shorts, I got you shorts, but I can’t put them on for you.”

Jessie, Barbara, and Cassandra were all looking at her expectantly. So she took the bag, beating back stray thoughts of how
foolish she was, and put them on in the dressing room.

When you’re done, take a picture of yourself and send it to me so that I know you’ve done exactly as I’ve asked. Then go across
the road to the park and wait for me. I’ll call you and tell you what I want you to do next.

The voices echoed in her head. What if she was too late? What if he was waiting in the park now?

Despite their pampering, or perhaps because of it, she was more nervous now than when she’d first walked in. Keeping her fingers
from trembling was now impossible.