The Bride Collector (47 page)

Quinton stood. He was talking, but Brad didn’t hear him. His mind was begging all the more earnestly.
Please, please save her. Save her, please. She’s your child. Save her…

Movement from the corner of his left eye stopped him, and he looked and he saw what he had begged not to see. She stood in
the wide barn doorway, like an angel of mercy.

Brad could not breathe.

“Hello, Quinton.”

Quinton started. Then slowly turned. For a moment they stared at each other and Brad could only imagine what vile thoughts
were running through the mind of this psychopath.

“Hello, Paradise.”

Brad wanted to scream out to her.
Run, Paradise! Run away! He’s a monster and he’s going to hurt you. You’re too naive! Run!

A moan broke from his mouth, nothing more. He struggled to keep from passing out. It couldn’t end this way! She had to run.

Paradise just stood there, staring at the killer. And Quinton stared back.

Brad found his voice, breathy and stretched with fear. “Run…” Then again, in a cry. “Run, Paradise, run!”

“No, Brad. Not this time.”

Her voice was so light, so sweet, so innocent. And it sent a shaft of searing anguish through his chest. She was going to
die on account of him! And she was too stubborn to see it.

Quinton walked over to the table, set down the drill, and picked up his pistol.

Paradise looked at Brad, cheeks wet by trails of tears. But she didn’t flinch.

He leaned against his ropes, frantic for her to run. “Please, Paradise, you can’t do this…” But she wasn’t listening. “Please…”

Her head turned back to Quinton, who stood in the middle of the quilted stage, before the wall on which he intended to drain
Paradise.

Brad started to speak again but couldn’t. His words were only noise in his mind. A great lament rolled through him.

Forgive me, Paradise! I’m sorry that I let you love me. I’m sorry that your tormented life has led you here to me, to the
first man who showed you any love. You don’t have to give your life for me! It doesn’t work that way! Those are the foolish
ideas in stories. I’m not worth it, I’m a wretch. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Paradise!

Twenty feet down the middle of the barn separated them now. Quinton seemed caught in some kind of trance, as if in facing
the culmination of his plans he could not find the words to express the import of the moment. He stood with his gun at his
side, watching her. No wise words, no gloating, no expression of hatred, no cursing, not even a twitch on his face or a tremble
in his hand.

He just stared at her, dumb.

Perhaps he couldn’t believe that she really was stupid enough to come back, knowing what faced her. Yes. Yes, that had to
be it. Both he and Quinton saw the same thing. Only someone so raw, so idealistic could have stepped willingly into harm’s
way with no hope for survival.

“You’re wondering why I would come back,” she said.

She stepped forward cautiously and stopped ten feet from him. Her face showed no expression, but new tears broke from her
eyes.

“It makes no sense to you,” she said. “Does it?”

He answered after a moment. “You’re innocent and foolish,” he said. “That’s what makes you so beautiful. That is why I have
to kill you.”

“Then you’ll be killing the one thing you want.”

They watched each other.

“I’ve been thinking about it, Quinton. That’s why you came to me that night seven years ago. You wanted the innocence and
beauty that you saw in me.”

“You can’t manipulate me with your words. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and I have been sent to kill you.”

“Because you can’t possess me?” Her voice quivered.

“Because you’re God’s favorite and no one can have you.”

“The truth is, you’re afraid of me, Quinton. I terrify you.”

“I can break you like any doll.”

But she was undeterred. “I terrify you because you’re afraid that you can never be beautiful like me. You’re like a jealous
boy, and now you’re throwing a fit.”

Brad stared, caught off guard by the exchange between them. This was the Paradise who had first drawn him with her simple
insight and logic, seeing and speaking about what only she could see outside the window. The naive girl who could see ghosts
when others could not.

“You were mixed up then and you’re still mixed up now,” she said. “You are a lost, lonely boy who was hurt by his father.
Just like I was.”

HER WORDS CAME
to him and in an instant the buzzing stopped. The world went silent, as if someone had pulled the plug.

She knew this? It was a guess, of course, anyone could guess that someone had been abused as a boy, hadn’t half the world?
But her tone didn’t hold even a hint of question. Her eyes were reaching past him, into the place of secrets. This was hallowed
ground, a place so deep and holy that he himself was only rarely allowed to step into it.

And yet she was walking in, trampling his soul underfoot. Quinton felt suddenly and forcefully violated.

The silence between them stretched, and he searched for the buzzing, the voices, the calm, the intelligence that had made
him so powerful and such a worthy servant. He hated her for stripping them away.

And then the buzzing was back, screaming in his mind like a swarm of angry hornets. His whole body tensed and his fingers
clamped down on the gun by his side.

He’d removed the silencer when he’d replaced the weapon in the case. The discharge thundered through the barn as the gun bucked
in his hand and sent a bullet into the ground by his feet.

Paradise did not flinch.

“Your father hurt you just like my father hurt me. That’s what first drew you to me,” she said.

“No.”

“I didn’t have a father to tell me that I was one of God’s favorites,” she said.

He saw something so unnerving that he would have lifted the gun and shot her in her forehead if not for the fact that he had
planned so long to drill her. There was empathy in her eyes.

“But that’s one thing you’re right about, Quinton. I am one of God’s favorites.”

“Please, be quiet.”

“My father never told me who I was, just like your father never told you who you were.”

Why didn’t he move? Why didn’t he just shoot her? Why didn’t he grab her and tie her down and drill her full of holes? Why
did he feel as if the glue that held him together was melting?

“Because you are one of God’s favorites, too, Quinton.”

BRAD DARED NOT
utter a word, not now, not while Paradise was speaking and Quinton was listening. The slightest shift in tension might set
him off, as it had discharged his gun moments ago.

Quinton had gone stiff. Sweat beaded his forehead. His hands were balled into fists, and his blood vessels ran like cords
down his forearms. At any moment it would all end. Brad knew what Paradise was trying to do, but it wouldn’t work!

The rage in the killer would overtake him and he would crush her. She was naive enough to believe that if she just reached
out to him he would understand and change.

But men like Quinton Gauld did not change, not this side of a cosmic shift in their souls far beyond human words or any kind
of psychiatric soothing. He might play along. He might even give in to the pain that her words clearly evoked. But in the
end the monster would rise up and rip into her.

Even so, Brad dared not utter a single word.

He hopelessly worked to free the ropes that bound his wrists, but there wasn’t a millimeter of play in them. He pulled at
the post, but it was anchored deep.

And then in the long silence, something changed. Paradise began to cry. Her small shoulders began to shake in a sob.

She drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

What was she saying?

“I’ve lived with this pain so long. I can’t do it anymore.” She sobbed and sucked at the air, lips trembling. “I don’t want
to hide in the closet anymore. I can’t take the darkness. I can’t take the fear!”

Her words sounded obscenely loud in the barn. She stood shaking, gasping for air, looking now at Brad with pleading eyes,
then back at Quinton.

“I can’t do it… I can’t live like this…”

She was crying for herself, he realized. She’d said it in the field and now she was saying it here. Paradise was here as much
for her own rescue as for his. She needed to free herself from the claws piercing her heart.

This wasn’t about manipulating the man who’d violated her seven years ago in the hope of destroying him; this was about casting
off her own fear so that she could be free.

“I can’t fear you anymore, Quinton. I can’t fear my father. I can’t take the hate and fear that’s trying to kill me.”

Quinton stood on the quilts, eyes wide. His fists were shaking.

“I forgive you, Quinton.” She spoke the confession in a sob and then walked forward, stood in front of him, and reached out
her hand slowly.

Pressed her palm against his belly.

The moment her fingers made contact with him, she sucked in a short gasp. But then, she could see ghosts, couldn’t she? She
was seeing something now, or was she only shocked at her own audacity?

Quinton was so appalled, so stunned, by her actions that he seemed to forget his options. He looked frightened. Lost.

Now in a soft voice, Paradise pleaded with him through her tears. “He’s trying to kill you. The same monster that’s trying
to kill me because I’m God’s favorite is trying to kill you, too.” Then very quietly so that Brad could barely hear her: “You’re
like me. He’s trying to kill us both.”

A slight quiver had swept over Quinton’s whole body. Brad didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell her to run, to claw at
Quinton’s eyes and sprint, to dart around him and throw the lamp to the ground and then run for the back door.

Instead she spoke softly, now without tears, like an angel sent here for his sake. “I’m sorry you were hurt by your father,
Quinton. But you’re still a favorite. You don’t need to prove yourself to God, or be jealous of his favorites.”

What happened next drained Brad’s blood from his face. The quiver that had reached Quinton’s extremities intensified. Tears
pooled in his eyes, ran down his face. His lips twisted with despair and right there with the seventh favorite’s hand on his
belly, Quinton began to cry.

And Paradise cried with him.

But Brad could see no reason for gratitude or relief. He could only see this monster’s guilt being exposed by his own innocent
victim, and it made him sick with fear.

“Paradise…” He still didn’t know what to say, because to say the wrong thing could as easily bring about her end as save her.
And she wasn’t paying Brad any attention.

“If I’m his favorite, then so are you,” she said. “And he loves them all. Even me. Even you.”

Now the man towering over Paradise came unglued. He broke apart from the inside out. Shaking with his sobs, he began to sag.
His hands went limp, spread wide. The gun fell from loosed fingers and he sank slowly to his knees.

Brad could not shout down the warning bells that clanged in his head.

Run, Paradise! Run!

Run because you are right and he knows that you are right and he can’t live with that knowledge. He’s going to snap, he’s
going to cut you, he’s going to kill you, Paradise! Run!

Brad’s mouth was parted, but he couldn’t risk undoing what she was doing. He could only beg God for mercy.

Paradise did not run. To Brad’s continued horror, she placed her hand on Quinton Gauld’s shoulder, and he settled back on
his haunches, a sobbing, slobbering mess of a man.

It was true, Paradise was the most beautiful woman in the world. She, who stood just a hair over five feet tall and wasn’t
too experienced in the fine arts of hygiene, makeup, and fashion, was the most stunning creature God had created.

And Brad knew that the Bride Collector was going to kill her.

QUINTON DIDN’T KNOW
what had happened except that he’d been thoroughly violated. The very woman he had violated had returned and with a few simple
words peeled back the layers he’d so lovingly wrapped around himself over the years.

He was a man who could not deny the truth, but neither could he accept that truth, not now.

He could only feel its effects and mourn his own pathetic nature, while before him stood the one whom God had granted such
a lofty status.

He had been right. She was the most, most, most beautiful! It was no wonder he’d fallen madly in love with her. And he would
again, because the man who could not or did not love Paradise needed to be summarily shot and buried in a deep bed of wet
concrete.

And when she said that he, too, Quinton Gauld, the man who had violated her, was as loved… The earth had crumbled beneath
his feet and hell itself had sucked him deep. It could not be true. To compare him to Paradise was to compare a slug to a
peacock, a dove, a bird of paradise.

Yet it
was
true. He knew it the moment the words came from her mouth.