Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(81)

His eyes lifted to the road ahead. “This is the place where I shot Peter Galveston.”

Ava put on her blinker and pulled over to the side of the road.

Dominic got out of the car and walked to the edge of the pavement and stood staring into the thick underbrush.

Ava followed slowly, tucking away her emotions so they didn’t get in the way of them doing their job.

“What I don’t get,” Dominic said quietly, “is why wait this long to exact revenge? A decade. Who the hell is that patient?”

Ava stood next to him, staring at the opposite side of the woods. “Could they have been serving a prison term?”

Dominic placed his hands on his hips. “I was wondering the same thing.” He shook his head impatiently. “DNA results and other evidence should be in by now. Frazer said he’d call me as soon as anything definite came in. Let’s head to the cabin.”

Ava followed him back to the car. “What do you expect to find?”

He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Who owns it?”

“A corporation based in New York.”

“Who owns the corporation?”

His smile was a quick slice of guile. “Alex Parker is looking into that for us.”

“Parker? Not the task force?”

Dominic shrugged as he got into the car. “They are presumably also looking into it, but Frazer says Parker is faster, and there are lives on the line.”

Ava started the engine, feeling oddly melancholic. She was eager to find out the truth but realized that when they did, she and Sheridan would no longer need one another. They’d part ways. The idea shook her. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the man.

It took another twenty-five minutes to reach the cabin, up a side road, winding through thick forest with very few houses nearby.

Dominic noticed her glancing around. “Galveston owned most of this mountain.”

“Where’d all the money go after his death?” asked Ava.

“A distant cousin I believe. Victims were also compensated.”

Ava couldn’t imagine it put a dent in the heartbreak of the families.

Dominic leaned forward and peered up the hill on her side of the road. “There’s the cabin.” He pointed through the trees.

Ava saw a massive construction. A rustic version of a mansion was a more apt description. The fine hair on her nape sprang up.

“Place gives me the creeps,” Dominic admitted, tucking his sunglasses into his jacket pocket. It was one of the things she really liked about him. He wasn’t afraid to own his mistakes or show weakness. He was comfortable about who he was and confident in his abilities.

She parked in front of the property, and they both climbed out, tense and wary, looking for any signs of trouble. Without talking they retrieved their ballistic vests from the trunk, constantly scanning the trees and the house as they strapped them on.

If she was the person orchestrating these attacks on the FBI in revenge for the death of Peter Galveston, this was where she’d be hanging out. In the place he’d committed his crimes.

Ava tightened the Velcro straps and rested her hand on the handle of her Glock.

“Let’s check the garage first. See if anyone is home.”

Ava nodded, covering Sheridan’s rear, barrel pointed at the ground so no one accidentally got shot.

No birds sang, no squirrels chattered. The only thing that moved were the leaves rustling in the breeze. Ava’s pulse gave a few unsteady beats before training enabled her to settle her breathing. This was the sort of situation that made her nerves dance, but she knew what to do, she could handle it. And so could Sheridan.

They checked the garage, looking through the murky glass of the side windows. An ATV and a snow mobile were in there, but no cars or trucks.

Silently they headed to the front door, and Dominic rang the doorbell. The sound echoed inside the cathedral ceilings, but no one answered.

Dominic held her gaze for a moment, the indigo of his eyes as dark as a shadow.

“When Galveston was active, he’d get a victim into his vehicle by first tasering them and bundling them inside, then tying their hands behind their back and gagging them.”

Dominic moved along the wraparound deck toward the back door, looking into the house through the large windows. “Once he had them terrified and firmly under control, he’d force them at gunpoint into this house and take them to a makeshift bedroom on the upper floor.”

He pointed to a top corner of the property.

Ava’s grip tightened on her weapon, but she steadied her breathing, not wanting to look jumpy.

“It was basically an unfinished storage space in the attic at the back of the house with no windows. Galveston turned it into a cell and locked the captives up in chains that were bolted to the floor. They had a toilet and when he was away in the city, he’d leave them some bottled water, a kettle, and Ramen noodles so they didn’t starve to death. He had a camera system set up so he could watch them and if they tried to escape, he’d beat them. I think there were other people involved, people who checked on them, but they never appeared in the videos, and we never caught them.

“When he entertained friends here, he’d sedate the captive women by putting GHB into their water.” Dominic’s mouth tightened as they both acknowledged the connection to what had happened to him. “He filmed himself raping victims and torturing them. He’d bring them downstairs where he had a hook in the ceiling he’d attach them to so they hung there naked. Just out of reach of the telephone.” Dominic’s footsteps on the wooden boards echoed hollowly. “He kept a couple of them in dog kennels downstairs and made them wear leather outfits and ball gags and crawl around on all fours and eat out of dog bowls. Pretty sure he was going to pretend he was into kink should anyone ever talk to the women. Those were his favorites according to the videos. His pets.”