The Bride Collector (27 page)

“It would be nice, yes.”

“And you think I would do something because you think it’s nice? After what you’ve done to me?”

“Your incompetence is outrageous,” Quinton said. And again he wondered if he’d made a mistake by plucking such a dim-witted
goof from the sea of women who would be grateful to be chosen. “You’re trying to stall, I understand. You think that because
Rain Man now knows the sun has come out and is shining on his precious little lamb, he’ll come running. Even now, he might
be on his way. But I doubt Rain Man and those retards he’s working with are as smart as all that. Although I will say, the
women there put you to shame.”

She didn’t get it, of course. She truly was a mental case.

“I get that I am his favorite,” she said, in an obvious attempt to keep the discussion going. “But I don’t want to die.”

“So all of heaven and earth is waiting with bated breath to see what the favorite one will do, and you’re willing to put it
all on hold because all you can think about is yourself. Nikki wants to live longer. To milk small pleasures from another
hour, another day, week, month, year. Well, excuse me while we all sit and wait for the selfish little brat to suck down as
much ice cream and strawberries she can before taking the trip down the aisle for a much better life. He loves no one more
than you. Why so greedy?”

Fresh tears slipped from her eyes and ran back toward her ears. “Going down that aisle doesn’t feel right to me, Quinton,”
she whispered. “I’m scared.”

“Of course you’re scared. You’re so busy, busy, busy in your tiny mind, obsessed with this puny life. But once you know the
truth, Nikki, it will set you free.”

Her lips quivered, and for a moment he thought she might start to sob again, which would effectively end the discussion, this
time forever.

Instead she said something else that required him to end the discussion.

“Even the demons know the truth, and they tremble. It doesn’t make them any less evil. God loves me, and he wouldn’t do this
to me.”

And then she followed it up with an even more outlandish claim.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you? You are afraid that God hates you, and you will do anything to be his favorite, like us, like
the women you’re killing. No matter what you keep telling yourself, you really think God hates you. You’re jealous. You want
to be God’s favorite, too.”

Quinton stared at her, stunned by her audacity. Was she really so dense?

The buzzing in his mind grew so loud that he had to press back a growing panic. There was something truthful about what she
was saying, he thought, but then he dismissed that thought as a plant from the evil one.

It occurred to Quinton that the seventh bride, the most beautiful woman in the world, whom he’d already selected and who put
this woman to shame in every conceivable way, might be strong in spirit as well. What if she, too, resisted her invitation?

The thought made him feel ill. It wouldn’t happen, of course. Rain Man would see to that. He was sure of it. But the thought
still made him nauseated.

Quinton picked up the syringe, pressed the needle into the vein in Nikki’s right arm, and pressed the plunger to the hilt.
The large dose of sedative would make this easier for all of them. She had at least recognized God’s great love for her. That
would have to do.

“Please, Quinton,” she whispered. Her eyelids looked heavy. “Please don’t kill me.”

She really was beautiful, Quinton thought. And then he taped her mouth shut and went to fetch the drill.

THE DASHBOARD CLOCK
read 4:02 when Brad cut across two lanes, ran the red light despite the blare of horns, and turned onto Simms Street. Nikki’s
apartment was on the right over the railroad tracks, just after 72nd Avenue.

His palms were wet and his shirt drenched with sweat no amount of air-conditioning could stem. Backup was on the way.

Two thoughts drummed through his mind, driving him faster. The first was that Nikki was alive. She had to be alive. The killer
could not know they’d found his jack. The woman who’d fallen into his clutches because of Brad’s involvement with her, however
thin that connection, was still alive. She simply had to be, because he couldn’t go through this again.

The second thought drumming through his head was that the killer wouldn’t kill her. He couldn’t kill her, not for the sake
of killing, because his psychosis demanded he follow a ritual that couldn’t be satisfied with a bullet. He might try to kill
Brad when he broke in on the act, but he wouldn’t turn his gun on Nikki.

She was meant to bleed and remain angelic.

It was as much a hope as a conclusion, but Brad depended on it now as he wove in and out of traffic on Simms, headed for the
Golden Hills Luxury Apartment complex just now visible two blocks ahead.

An eighteen-wheeler pulled into Brad’s lane and braked. The same one he’d cut off at the intersection, now that he thought
about it. Cars on both sides limited his options.

Brad laid on his horn and was immediately repaid by a loud honk from the truck in front of him. The eighteen-wheeler came
to a stop at the red light at 72nd Avenue.

Panic lapped at his mind. He slammed his steering wheel with both palms. “Come on, come on, come on!”

NIKKI LAY PERFECTLY
still, fighting off the effects of the drug. He’d hovered over her or sat in the chair watching her nearly every waking moment.
Twice he’d retreated to the corner and urinated into a large plastic bottle. Once he’d left her alone in the room while searching
out the rest of the apartment, and once he’d tinkered with his tools on the table across the room for an extended period,
maybe half an hour. Preparing.

Each time she’d fought through the haze and gone to work on the strips of cloth that fastened her arms and ankles to the gurney.

Her first sliver of hope had come when the killer left the fingernail clippers on the edge of the mattress after he manicured
her nails and painted them with a ruby-red polish. She’d managed to snake her fingers over them and tuck them under her back.

She’d spent desperate minutes unsure if the clippers would prove any use at all. Then he’d turned his attention to his tools,
and she’d cut away at the cloth that tied her right wrist to the aluminum frame. She’d nearly cut through the strip before
stopping and considering her intentions. She couldn’t sit up and cut her legs free without being found out.

Armed with the knowledge that she had the capacity to cut herself free, she bided her time.

Then he’d left the room. She’d sat up and frantically went to work on her ankles, sure he would walk back in at any second.
And she couldn’t cut all the way through. Not yet, he would see it! Not until she knew she had a path out, when he least expected
it.

He had to be in the room, unprepared, when she made her break.

And now that moment had come.

For the first time in half an hour, Quinton turned his back to her and walked back to the table of tools. To get the drill,
she thought. He was going to get the drill and go to work. This was it. She had to get out now.

The only problem was the lock. He’d fixed a padlock to the door, and the key was in his right pocket, she’d watched him use
it twice now. Unless she disabled him and broke out with force or using the key, she didn’t stand a chance.

But it was now. She had to go now, before the drugs wiped her out completely.

Nikki turned her head and saw that he was plugging an orange extension cord into the wall while humming softly. She jerked
both feet up toward herself, tearing them free with a soft ripping sound. The haunting violins in the music he’d played over
and over helped to mask the tear, but she quickly straightened her legs so he couldn’t see what she’d done.

Quinton glanced back. “You’re a strong one,” he said. “I’m going to have to numb your legs. I don’t want you to feel any pain.
It’s all going to be okay.” He bent over a black case for the Novocain and a syringe.

Head swimming in whirlpool of fear and drugs, Nikki took a deep breath, rolled out of the gurney, took two steps to the table,
snatched up the hammer that lay there and, with her final reserves of strength, she threw herself at him.

THE LIGHT TURNED
green but the truck was taking its time and Brad was starting to lose perspective.

The car on his right was a Lincoln Continental, and its driver apparently felt no need to teach him the same lesson the truck
driver had. The moment the Lincoln surged forward, Brad lay on his horn and whipped the BMW into the right lane, before the
Honda behind the Continental could close the gap.

He squeezed into the vacant spot without being hit, shoved the accelerator to the floor, and shot past a cursing truck driver
on his left.

He clamped his mouth shut, letting the heat of frustration wash over his face. None of this mattered at the moment. What did
matter was that he was able to veer back to his left in front of the stalled eighteen-wheeler, accelerate the BMW to full
speed without a single car to slow his progress, and whip into the apartment complex’s gated entrance without being held up
again.

He flashed his badge at the guard. “FBI, you got the call?”

“Yes, sir.”

The gate was opening already.
Thank you, Temple
.

He gunned through, heard his tires squeal, and immediately backed down. The killer might hear beyond her walls. Brad had made
it clear that the police should not use sirens. His greatest advantage, maybe his only advantage, was coming in unexpected.
The Bride Collector wasn’t ready for him, not this soon after the call.

He took the BMW down the side street fast, ignoring the speed bumps. Two police cruisers sped past, headed north on Simms—backup
was here.

Hold on… Hold on, Nikki
.

THE BLOW CAME
from behind, glancing off the side of his head with such force that Quinton wondered if he might be dying. He’d heard her
grunt and started to turn when it landed, otherwise he might have taken the blow full on his skull.

Surprised, he leaped to one side as the favorite’s naked form flew by him and slammed into the wall. Other than her underwear,
she wore only four strips of cloth, one tied to each wrist and one on each ankle.

Quinton knew immediately what had happened. She’d pulled herself off the gurney and come at him like a plucked goose. And
she’d hit him on the head with his own hammer, the one with a fiberglass head that he never used but brought in the interest
of being prepared for every eventuality.

She spun around, hammer still in hand, eyes fired like stars.

She’d smeared more of her makeup! “What are you doing?” he demanded.

The favorite swung again, but Quinton blocked her arm with his own. The hammer hit her own leg and she cried into her tape.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, angry now. “I had you nearly perfect and you’re messing this all up! Stop this!” He snatched
the hammer from her hands and tossed it into the corner. “You’re acting like a child.”

She sagged against the wall, sobbing under the influence of drugs and hopelessness. A glance back at the gurney and he saw
the fingernail clippers on the mattress. He’d been careless. He deserved the extra work she was forcing upon him.

Nikki slipped down to her seat, pulling the extension cord free, then she drew quiet. It was amazing that she’d managed an
escape attempt despite being drugged. None of the others had tried to resist like this. Perhaps that was why she was so luckily
chosen. She was a strong one, physically and mentally, even if she was a bit of an idiot. The tough, stubborn type of woman,
blessed also with true beauty.

This was the kind of woman who did well on Wall Street, he thought. The executives of the world. Beautiful and strong. He
understood why God loved them so much.

Quinton hauled her up, carried her to the gurney, and flopped her facedown. He would drill her now, apply the glue to her
back, and place her on the wall. Then he would redo her makeup as she gave up her ghost and became his bride.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have caused a real mess.

Quinton had decided to use the new Black and Decker electric drill he’d bought for this occasion. He wanted to see how it
compared with his previous choices.

He plugged the orange extension cord back into the wall, picked up the drill and approached Nikki, God’s favorite.

BRAD LEFT HIS
BMW parked two buildings south of Nikki’s second-floor apartment and ran under the causeway. A car squealing up to the front
door would alert anyone keeping an eye out.

He took the outdoor stairs two at a time, checked to see the police cars pulling in behind his, and swung onto the landing.
Brass numbers above the door: 7289. A stained panel door with a one-foot square beveled glass panel at eye level. The tenants
had their own locks, he’d checked already. Management didn’t have access. The only way in was to break down the door.

Shoot out the deadbolt.

He slipped out his FBI-issued Glock, chambered a round, and approached the door on the balls of his feet. Shoes padded up
the stairs behind him.

Brad swung around, gun in both hands trained on the deadbolt, fighting the urge to go in on his own now because every second
felt like an hour and Nikki might have seconds or minutes but not hours. Now. Now!

He waited. The two uniformed police were by his side in seven seconds, sidearms ready. They’d been briefed, and if they hadn’t
he didn’t have time to do it now.

He nodded once, pressed the Glock’s muzzle close to the wood directly in line with the deadbolt, and pulled the trigger.

Boom!
The gun bucked hard and he threw his full weight into the door. But the door was stronger than one deadbolt and he didn’t
break through on the first attempt.

The Bride Collector was now aware that someone was trying to shoot their way in. He was setting up for a shot in the hall
or climbing out the back window where the two other cops would pick him up. Or he had something else up his sleeve.