The Bride Collector (42 page)

She was crouched in a closet peeking through the cracks, and her father was out there, pointing a gun at his head, pacing
around her dead mother.

She was hiding in her bathroom with the lights off at CWI, after clawing at the beast who tried to rip her clothes off while
holding her mouth with his large hand.

That psychologist who’d befriended her. Then tried to rape her. That man with a beard and large glasses whose breath smelled
like mothballs. The memory presented itself to her like a déjà vu, fresh for the first time, yet she had been there. It was
a memory set free. She could remember it as if it had happened only…

Familiarity flashed, as if two live wires in her brain had brushed up against each other, and she gasped. Without the beard,
without the glasses, this man was Quinton Gauld!

She threw herself into a crouch and whimpered. No, no, she couldn’t do this! She couldn’t not do anything! She couldn’t let
the memories incapacitate her as they always had, because this time her fear alone would result in her death, and in Brad’s
death.

But the memories flogged her. Darkness, closets, mothball breath, grunts, and big strong hands. And in this closet that smelled
like mothballs was his phone that had only one number in it.

Paradise straightened and stared at the blue phone. She didn’t know any phone numbers except her sister’s and the last time
she’d called her sister she wasn’t home. But she had to try something, so she grabbed it. Turned it on. Pressed the illuminated
numbers with a rattled finger.

Send
.

It rang once. Twice.

“Come on, Angie, pick up, pick up, pick up!”

She spun to the side window. Quinton Gauld had finished his business inside and was walking toward the door.

A voice came over the phone’s small speaker. Her sister’s, asking the caller to leave a message.

Paradise began to hyperventilate.
Four-one-one,
she thought.
I have to call 411
.

“THE FILES,” ROUDY
announced, swishing into Temple’s office in his pajamas and slippers. “I need to see them all.”

“Excuse me?”

They’d been in the office for half an hour, and Allison insisted they give Roudy his nose, let him sniff around. He’d been
in and out of every office asking obtuse questions, giving strange advice. The staff watched him with lost and often amused
expressions. All but Temple, who had no clue how to deal with a man of Roudy’s temperament.

“You have your unsolved cases in the basement under lock and key, I presume?” Roudy asked, pacing.

“Yes, that’s—”

“Then bring them to the conference room, lay them out in order beginning with the oldest case and working up to the newest,
and I will make an attempt to solve all of them for you. You really should have brought these to my offices much sooner. It’s
hardly excusable.”

Temple glanced at Allison, who allowed herself a small grin despite the cloud of fear that had settled over her. The minutes
had ticked by without any word on either Paradise or Brad.

Law enforcement was out in full force, and four other FBI field offices were helping sift through leads that had poured in
since they’d gone public. It went on and on, but not one concrete lead led them closer to finding her Paradise.

This was her fault. She should have known that something was wrong with Quinton Gauld when he left. If only she’d been more
sensitive, more in tune, listened more closely. He’d come and gone like any employee who came and went without any incident
that might raise a brow. But shouldn’t she have been able to look at a man who would do the things Quinton Gauld had done
these past few weeks and know, just know, that there was something wrong with him?

Apparently not.

If that monster put one finger on Paradise, she personally would pull the trigger and send him to be with his God.

“We don’t have all day,” Roudy was saying.

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t have enough hours in your lifetime to work through all those files. Either way, you don’t have the
credentials—”

“Nonsense. Talk to your superiors. Have them shipped to my office.”

Temple’s phone rang and he picked it up, saved from his own awkwardness.

“Temple.”

Roudy turned to Allison and spoke in a soft if urgent tone. “You must speak to these people. Don’t you just love this place?
It’s fantastic. Makes me consider moving my own office.”

Temple tensed and with him, Allison. He grabbed a pencil. “Put it through.”

Silence. Even Roudy remained frozen. Temple pressed the speaker phone button and the sound of fast breathing crackled over
the speaker.

“This is Special Agent—”

“Hello?”

Allison’s veins turned cold. It was a whisper but she was certain…

“Hello?”

“Yes, ma’am, we’re here, please identify—”

“Paradise?” Allison stepped forward. “Is that—”

She was interrupted by Paradise’s terrified rambling. “He’s coming, he’s coming now, walking toward the truck! You have to
help me, Allison! He’s got me.”

She was alive!

Temple sat and snatched up a pencil. “Try to calm down. Can you tell us where you are? What kind of truck, what do you see
outside?”

“Green…” came the panicked voice. “He’s coming, he’s…” Her voice softened to a bare whisper. “He’s coming…”

PARADISE WAS CROUCHED,
peering just over the door frame as he approached. Her mind spun with a hundred options but none was much different from
the other and they all ended badly.

The side windows were tinted, so he couldn’t see in yet. But the front window was much clearer and he would cross the front
of the truck to get in on the driver’s side.

“Green,” she whispered into the phone. “He’s coming, he’s…” She lowered her voice, swimming in fear. “He’s coming.”

“Tell us what you see, Paradise. We have to know where you are. Look outside.”

“St. Francis Gas and Go,” she whispered. “In a green pickup truck that’s clean inside. A gas station.” She didn’t know what
else to say. “It’s Quinton, Allison. It’s him. He’s here to kill me.”

Allison spoke with a tone that demanded calm and strength. “Stay strong, Paradise. I’m not going to let him kill you. You
hear me? I’m going to save you, Paradise. Just stay calm and do what you need to do.”

The killer was ten feet away. She couldn’t let him know she had used the phone.

“Paradise? Paradise, are you there?”

She didn’t have time to say more. She didn’t dare. She had to do what she had to do.

She clicked the phone off, set it in the cup holder, pulled the blanket over her head, slouched back in the same position
she’d woken in, and tried her very best not to tremble or breathe too hard.

Back in her closet. Back to safety. Back into the fog.

The driver’s door opened. Then shut.

Quinton coughed. He pulled the blanket down off her head and, evidently satisfied by her sleeping form, replaced it with a
soft grunt.

“I’m sorry about this, Paradise,” he said in a very normal voice. “I really am.” The engine rumbled to life. “And for the
record, although you won’t ever hear me admit this, I really did love you. I think I was a little mixed up back then. My father
hurt me, too.” A pause. “Maybe I still am mixed up.” Another pause. “You’re every bit as beautiful as I remember. I can see
why God loves you. I should probably just kill you now.”

And then he didn’t say anything for a while.

THE DIRT ROAD
ran straight south, that much Brad Raines could tell by the position of the stars in the night sky. What he couldn’t know
was how far south the road went before meeting up with any sign of civilization.

He walked beside wheat fields as flat as a golden sea in eastern Colorado or possibly as far east as Kansas. Twin ribbons
of worn earth ran parallel under the moonlight, overgrown in patches. Tufts of grass grew calf-high down the center. No sign
of telephone or electric poles. The road offered private access to the fields and was likely used only by farm equipment and
trucks. If he could find a driveway he might follow it to a house, but in the hour he’d been walking, he’d seen only fields,
access paths, and the occasional wide sloping ditch.

His previous penance of slamming against the support beam became a desperate walk for hope, because he’d allowed himself that.
It was a thin hope built on a weak trail of new leads that could now be followed; he’d rehearsed each over and over as he
walked and sometimes jogged south.

What did he now know? The killer’s name was Quinton Gauld. He had lured Paradise out of CWI because she was his seventh victim.
He drove a Chrysler 300M as well as the truck that matched the tire treads they’d found at other crime scenes. He was roughly
six feet and wore gray slacks with a blue shirt. More importantly, he had once been a psychologist who’d worked with CWI and
as such would have left a rich history in the public records.

The killer had left a treasure trove of leads in the barn and was sure to retrieve them, either with Paradise or after he
killed her.

Brad’s task was plain. He had to make contact and bring the cavalry back to the barn without tipping off Quinton Gauld. And
he had to hope that he could do so while Paradise was still alive.

His right side ached; the pain flared when the inside of his elbow brushed up against the angry wound on his rib cage. He’d
tossed the heavy hammer long ago, now thinking it useless. The moon lit the road, the ditches fell away on either side toward
the wheat fields, but nothing else. No mountains, no cars, no houses. Only the road, the fields, and his feet slogging into
the night as he marched south.

Regardless of her fate, he would live. With or without Paradise he would live, and this single thought dominated his mind.

In the end it was all going to be pointless, wasn’t it? All his slamming and this desperate march would amount to nothing.
Quinton Gauld was too far ahead of them. They would eventually catch up to him, but by then she would be gone. Paradise would
be dead.

Her suffering would be made complete. She would pay a price no human should have to pay. Brad would leave the FBI. This time…

He pulled up and squinted. The road ended in a T roughly fifty yards ahead. He caught his breath. He ran up to the intersection,
searching for a sign of a house, electric lines, irrigation ditches, anything.

He stopped at the intersection and faced west, then east. As far as he could see by moonlight, the road continued in both
directions exactly as it had behind him. He had to pick one, and there was no indication which would take him closer to civilization
and which would take him farther.

For a second he had to fight to push back a swelling fear. Rather than offer him any new hope, the intersection only threatened
to smash the weak framework he’d been clinging to.

He faced west. At some point the plains would yield to the mountains west of here. Closer to home, closer to Quinton Gauld’s
familiar stomping grounds. But how far? Ten miles, a hundred miles? It was pointless!

He began to walk west, broke into a jog, and had covered no more than twenty feet when he saw light approaching from the horizon
like a silent UFO breaking the natural plane.

He couldn’t be sure the light was actually coming from a car or truck. It was a star on the horizon, a trick played by the
eyes. But then the light parted and become two perfect spheres and Brad knew he was staring directly at the headlights of
a fast-approaching vehicle. A truck.

His first instinct was to run. Forward, screaming for them to stop. But what if this was Quinton Gauld, returning?

With Paradise.

The thought hit him broadside like a boot to his head, and he dropped to a crouch. His throat was parched, his side flared
with pain, his head throbbed, but now all he could think was,
What do I do? What do I do?

The sound of the vehicle’s purring engine reached him; within seconds the truck’s lights would reach out and reveal him in
the middle of the road.

But if this was Quinton and he did have Paradise…

Brad was out of time. Mindless of his wound, he lunged toward the ditch on his right, tripped over a tuft of grass, and managed
to throw his arm out to break his headlong fall. He hit the slope and rolled onto his shoulder to protect his side, but the
resulting stab of pain took his breath away.

Facing the stars at the bottom of the ditch, he struggled to get his lungs moving again. The truck’s purr was accompanied
by the soft roar of tires rushing over the ground. The vehicle was almost on top of him. It could be a farmer, it could be
the FBI, it could be a teenager and his girlfriend out for late-night fun, or it could be Quinton Gauld with or without Paradise.
Whatever the case, Brad decided upon the only course of action that made any sense to him at all.

He found his breath just as the truck slowed for the intersection. Its headlights reached into the night above him. Then it
was beside him, gearing down, breaking. Which meant it was turning left.