The Bride Collector (39 page)

Gas ’em, gas ’em all, the sky is raining gas.

The game had changed once again, but as he slowly worked his mind around that change, he came to realize that there was no
change at all. Seven years of planning and growing and learning had delivered him to the final and greatest understanding.
No longer satisfied with the milk that made babes fat and kept the devout stupid, he’d finally moved on to the meat of the
matter.

Rain Man had rained the truth upon him and then died, having satisfied the purpose of his life. Quinton was not an angel of
mercy sent by God to find and deliver his favorites to him, bloodless and pure. Rather he was an angel of death, sent to kill
those very same brides.

The realization had disturbed him at first, naturally. As Nikki had said, with insight he had not appreciated at the time,
even demons know the truth and tremble. So, yes, he’d spent half of the last two hours trembling.

Once he’d taken firm hold of this new realization, he’d quickly brought his superior intelligence to bear. He was who he was,
and he must do what he was meant to do. Really, it changed very little.

Humans were still mostly stupid, particularly the ones who thought they were not.

Despite this fact, God did indeed love them with an unfathomable love. They were all his favorites.

And Quinton, in service of the other master, hated them with more steel and fire than he’d ever loved them. In hindsight,
he’d always hated the females. They were sick and weak and deserved a far more brutal slaying than he’d ever administered.
The fact that he’d been led by his master to think he was in the service of the Almighty was a useful deception that he couldn’t
help but respect.

He had evolved, however, and rather than fume with bitterness, he embraced his new knowledge and committed to carrying out
his mission with ruthless haste and purpose.

Who was this female Paradise but a worm who deserved to be tramped underfoot and pissed upon? Thinking clearly now, he realized
that he’d never before met a woman as sick and infuriating as her.

He’d received the picture she’d taken of herself. He was surprised at how transformed she looked. The sight of her looking
frightened but undeniably beautiful had frozen him for a moment. His loins had become a beehive.

And then his hatred for her had reared so large and so terrible that he’d broken from his usual calm and ended up on the shoulder
of I-70, weeping with bitter fury. And gratitude. Today he was finally mature enough to put an end to her life.

He’d called her then. But she hadn’t answered his call.

He placed his phone under the tires of the 300M and squished it flat in the event her phone had been compromised.

Quinton finished filling up the gas tank with premium petrol and decided to leave his urine in the bathroom here. He strode
toward the sign of the stick figures that indicated outdoor bathrooms.

He would go to the park. If she wasn’t there, he would pay the beauty salon a visit. Then he would find her, haul her out
by her hair, and, rather than kill her with a bullet to her face as he’d fantasized, he would drill her full of holes and
let her bleed all over the ground.

He stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the store and glanced up at the television over the counter inside. What he saw made
him stop.

A news anchor was speaking silently over words that read:
MISSING PERSON
. And there, next to the words was a large photograph of a skinny, twentysomething girl with dark, stringy hair.

Paradise.

In the space of a single breath Quinton knew what this meant: The center had reported her missing, which meant that the authorities
didn’t know her whereabouts, unless this was a ploy to draw him back to the park. That was unlikely—they wouldn’t go to such
lengths to draw him to a location they already expected him at.

Paradise was likely still at the park, cowering beneath the tree. This was very good news.

The picture changed. The words now read,
ARMED AND DANGEROUS
. Beside the words was a photograph of a man named Quinton Gauld. An old picture of him from his employment file at CWI. He
remembered having the picture taken when he was first hired.

This was alarming news. He’d worn a mustache and beard back then, and his hair was long. Black plastic-framed glasses were
perched over his nose. He’d forgotten how homely he’d looked seven years ago. Once he’d learned about his important role in
attracting the world’s most beautiful women, he’d changed his habits to reveal the true beauty in himself. The result had
been a smashing success. He now looked nothing like the ugly toad in the photograph.

But the authorities knew his identity. How? His mind flipped through a dozen possibilities and settled on the 300M, which
was indeed registered to him. It had always been his weakest link; some camera somewhere had likely snapped a picture of his
vehicle coming out of the garage at Rain Man’s residence. Together with other bits and pieces, they’d deduced his identity.

This made his mission even more critical. He would have to swap the 300M out for the green Chevy pickup truck parked at his
apartment. He’d rented the apartment and registered the vehicle under an alias—neither could be tracked to the man who had
once been Quinton Gauld, now Ghost Gauld. But an astute observer might connect his face to the one on the screen.

To be sure he wasn’t overestimating his improved appearance, he walked into the mini-market and approached the cashier, who
was counting the change in her drawer.

“Another freak,” he said, nodding at the television.

She followed his eyes. “Yeah, he’s been on for the last half hour. Can I help you?”

He caught her eye, then smiled. “What’s the world coming to? Pack of Marlboro.”

“Reds?”

“Yes, Reds. Gotta die sometime, right?”

She grinned sheepishly at his joke about the perils of smoking. “I guess.”

Quinton paid for the cigarettes, threw them in the trash on his way back to the car, and climbed behind the wheel.

His need to urinate had passed. Instead he felt a terrible urge to find the deceptively named Paradise before some other lucky
soul found her.

ALLISON PUSHED THE
door to Roudy’s office open and sighed a silent prayer of relief. Roudy was pacing in front of his desk, lecturing Casanova
and Andrea about the finer points of police sketching, which he’d demonstrated in rather horrible fashion on the whiteboard
behind him. Seeing Allison, he pushed his point with a burst of intensity.

“It’s in the details, I’m telling you, much finer than even most trained eyes can see. This is why they come to me.” He pointed
to his eyes. “I have that sight. I can tell if a single hair is out of place.” He nodded at Allison. “Greetings.”

Andrea jumped up from her position on the couch next to Casanova. “Did you find her?”

Allison stared at Roudy. “I need your help, Sherlock.”

“I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“I need all of you again. Andrea and Cass, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on things for me in case Paradise returns
on her own. She knows and trusts you, and I need you to be here when she comes back.”

“What about Roudy?”

“Roudy, I need you to come with me. I need those eyes of yours.”

“My eyes.”

“Yes, your eyes. We’re going out to look for Paradise. And for Quinton.”

The announcement caught them flat-footed. Roudy was still dressed in his pajamas and slippers. It would have to do.

“Out?” Roudy said.

“Out. Now.”

“I don’t drive.”

“I do,” she said.

“And you need me because the FBI is looking for the wrong person.”

“What do you mean?”

“This serial killer has demonstrated superior intelligence at every turn,” Roudy explained. “And no wonder, with his background.
After all, you hired him, Allison. But anyone with those kind of smarts isn’t going to walk around looking like his old self.
The photograph of Quinton Gauld won’t help them. I assume you’ve informed them of this?”

Bingo. This was on his mind already?

“That’s right, Roudy. And that’s why I need your eyes. You better than anyone may be able to recognize him. Or her, for that
matter.”

“Where?”

“Hospitals.”

“You do realize that we won’t find them. He’s as smart as all that—he’s got her stashed somewhere already.”

Andrea dropped to her seat and began to bawl.

“Sorry, but it’s true,” Roudy said.

“That was uncalled for,” Allison snapped.

He looked away, fiddling with his hands.

“Will you help me?”

He caught her eye, then made a show of looking in his appointment book. “I’ll clear my calendar,” he announced.

“Let’s go, Roudy.”

“It’s a waste of—”

“Stop it!” Allison cried. Andrea’s sniffing swelled to a wail. “I don’t care if it is a waste of time! This is Paradise we’re
talking about here, and I’m not sitting around a moment longer. She’s my
child
.”

They all understood her meaning.

“Now are you going to help me, or not?”

“I would do anything for Paradise!” His jowls shook as he emphasized his commitment. “Where to?”

“The Lutheran Medical Center. Quinton Gauld took his internship there. It’s also the closest major medical center with a psychiatric
ward.”

Roudy nodded, then marched up and past her. “Follow me.”

IT TOOK QUINTON
an hour to switch his 300M out for the truck and reach the park. With each passing minute his ire rose, resulting in a condition
of constant buzzing and far worse, some twitching. Any physical reaction to the stakes at hand would have been beneath him
twelve hours ago. He would have refused to give in to any such cliché, but the discovery of his true identity had sent him
over a cliff and he had no choice but to accept the truth: that he had hated Paradise all along.

He loathed her with every synaptic firing in his brain. He would rather cut and crush her than take even one more breath.
He would rather vomit down her throat than make her beautiful for God.

But then, forcing her to make herself beautiful
was
his way of vomiting down her throat. He could have made her beautiful himself. He’d perfected the skill of applying makeup
and manicures and all of the pampering most women paid dearly for. So then why had he really demanded she take herself into
the salon?

Because even then, deep inside, he’d known how humiliating the experience would be. His true desire had been to mock her because
he hated her.

He let the image from his crushed cell phone linger in his mind—the red blouse, the sexy jean shorts, the flowing dark hair,
the long lashes—as he studied the park for a glimpse of her.

He drove the Chevy around the perimeter twice before concluding that she had been disobedient. This realization made him furious.

He drove the truck into the strip mall, angled for the beauty salon, and parked directly in front. Shoved his silenced pistol
between his belt and back. Exited the vehicle and entered the establishment, uncaring now that he might not be hiding his
emotions as well has he would have liked.

The door chimed softly. He walked past a receptionist and gazed at a large room that reeked of perm solutions and scented
shampoo. Three hairdressers worked over women who’d paid to be more beautiful. Another leaned against a counter, drinking
a Diet Coke. Skanks, every one of them. Favorites who neither knew they were loved nor deserved to be.

“Where is she?” he demanded in a clear voice.

A maternal woman who looked like she might be in a position of leadership lowered her scissors and faced him with a curious,
undisturbed stare.

“I’m sorry, who are you looking for, honey?”

Honey? She looked like a woman with some spine, which could be a problem. So he pulled out his semiautomatic pistol, chambered
a round, and shot at her forehead.

The gun bucked.
Pffft
.

Her head snapped back.

His hand twitched.

She fell.

“Paradise,” he said. “Where is Paradise?”

They jumped and screamed like a batch of terrified monkeys; the receptionist reached for the phone.

Quinton shot her before she could lift the receiver. “Be quiet!” he shouted over them all. “I’m going to kill all of you.
That’s what I do. But first I need you to tell me where the girl who paid you five hundred dollars for your services is. My
patience is fragile. Some would even say that I’m psychotic.”

A younger, blond beautician was staring at the fallen body near her as if it were a bloodied deer that had slammed through
her windshield. She lifted her head and tears sprang from her eyes.

“Samantha?”

Samantha
. Paradise had changed her name. Smart.

“Where is she?”

“We called the police, they came and got her. Please, mister, please don’t hurt us, we—”

“Shut up. What did you tell the police?”

“We…” She looked back down at the body, trembling from shock now.

“You what?”

“She was acting strange. Cassandra has a brother who’s…”

“You called the police and told them you thought this Samantha might be mentally ill, is that what you’re trying to say?”

“She called them.” The woman glanced at the fallen leader.

“And it never occurred to any of you that you, not Samantha, might be the ones who are mentally ill? That she was far more
beautiful the way she was than after you got finished painting her body and dressing her up like a doll? She is a favorite,
you thickheaded, harebrained slut!”

He was shouting. It was unbecoming.

So he shot the woman in her face.

The rest were screaming again and Quinton didn’t need witnesses. He walked in and shot their cowering forms in the head one
by one,
pffft, pffft, pffft, pffft
. One was still alive.

Pffft
.

It was a bloody massacre and he hated unnecessary violence.