The Bride Collector (12 page)

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.

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, Nikki.”

“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.”

“Maybe. You have any other strong leads? Use Paradise. Who knows? Maybe she’s on to something.”

“Ghosts.”

Nikki shrugged. “I’m just saying, Brad, trust your instincts. They told you that the killer would leave a clue in his confession.
The first place the note led us to was CWI. So run with it. I’m a psychologist, but I’ve seen some anomalies in my day that
would make your hair stand on end. Seeing ghosts isn’t the worst of it by a long shot.”

“You’re suggesting I resort to a psychic?”

“Why not? You have a better path? Various law enforcement agencies have utilized psychics on countless cases with some fascinating
results.”

He cocked his head, intrigued. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the psychic type.”

“I’m not, trust me. But there’s a lot I don’t understand about life. The only suggestion I’m making is that you trust your
instincts. They led you to CWI. Roudy. Paradise. Follow your gut.”

“My gut tells me to forget psychics.”

“But not to forget CWI. And by extension the residents at CWI.”

Her suggestion felt more like permission to him. She wasn’t his superior, but having that permission, he felt strangely compelled
to seize it.

Nikki offered him a coy smile. “We all have our hang-ups, Brad. We all see our inadequacies in others. For the record, I like
you, hang-ups and all.”

The air felt heavy.

“You busy tonight?” he asked.

“Actually, yes,” she said. “But I’m free tomorrow night.”

He’d sworn never to follow this path with her, but that was before. Just dinner, nothing more.

“You like seafood?” The phone rang and he grabbed it. “Raines.”

“We have another body.”

THE ABANDONED BARN
sat in trees at the end of a dirt road, west of Elizabeth, Colorado, and if not for a Realtor who’d taken a prospective client
out to view the property that morning, the body might have gone unnoticed for a week or more.

So it appeared. Brad doubted that the killer would have allowed his work to go unnoticed so long.

Melissa Langdon’s license lay on the gray floorboards inside a ring of broken dust where a bucket had collected her blood.
The crime scene read like a book.

Melissa had been abducted, presumably from the address on her license, to which Brad dispatched a team. She’d then likely
been taken to a separate location, subdued and prepped, then brought here for the final act. As in the other locations, no
sign of struggle.

Melissa was affixed to the wall, white and naked except for the same brand of panties found on Caroline, and an identical
veil fixed neatly over her face. She was supported by a wooden peg under each armpit and glued in place.

Then drained.

Same careful arrangements, same angelic tilt of her head, same makeup application. The lipstick was likely the same brand
they’d isolated—a red color called Calypso manufactured by Paula Dorf. Having drained their color, the killer was insistent
about putting some back on them.