Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(82)

The imagery was caustic.

“Why did he kill them if they were his favorites?”

“They’d displease him in some way, or try to escape, or he’d go too far with his sadism. He kept some of them for months. Often several at once.”

Ava shuddered. “How many altogether?”

“Victims?” Dominic knocked harder on the back door.

“Yeah.” Ava scanned the forest as Dominic examined the house.

Nothing moved except the ghosts of victims past.

“We identified the DNA of fifteen women on his sex toys—although the youngest was only fourteen years old at the time of her abduction.”

Ava felt chilled to the bone. That these monsters existed…

“There’s no one here.” Dominic glanced upward and frowned.

How many times had those imprisoned women heard someone at the door? How many times had escape and rescue been just out of reach? They’d never know.

“Let’s take a scout around as we’re here.” Dominic seemed reluctant to leave. He wanted answers. They all wanted answers.

Ava nodded and holstered her weapon as they stepped off the porch.

Dominic headed up the hill to the ridge behind the cabin. At the top they both stood for a moment, Ava a little freaked out by Galveston’s crimes. The malevolence and narcissistic nature of a psychopath’s mindset was one of the things that set them apart from the rest of humanity.

“If you hadn’t caught him, he might have carried on killing for years.”

“It was luck.”

Ava shook her head. “No. It was good police work. You set a trap, and he walked right into it.”

Dominic’s mouth pulled downward. “I’m going to call Sandy, see how her husband is doing.”

The attacks seemed to be weighing heavily on his conscience. She understood it and didn’t bother to reassure him. That kind of self-forgiveness took time and perspective.

Dominic looked at his cell and swore. “At least I would if I had service.”

Ah, crap. She rested her hand back on her weapon as they went for a short walk around the property. The brush was thick with summer growth, making it possible for someone to easily hide from them. They circled the entire property and came up beneath their rental car. Rather than return to the vehicle, Dominic headed back up to the top of the ridge.

“What is it?” Ava asked, feeling slightly out of breath trying to keep up with Dominic striding up the steep incline.

He pulled a face. “I don’t know. Just…something. I feel like there’s something here. I want to find it.”

“Well, it certainly has an atmosphere,” Ava commented dryly.

They walked together back down the hill. Taking another route through a different section of woods.

Ava spotted it first.

She grabbed his arm, and they both stopped, then pulled their weapons.

Slowly they advanced upon a cleared patch of the forest floor. Bushes prevented anyone seeing it from the driveway.

“What is this?” Ava murmured under her breath. She stayed behind Dominic, covering their rear.

“A makeshift graveyard.”

“I can see that.” There were dozens of white-painted crosses staked into the ground. “You think anyone is actually buried here?”

“I don’t know.” Dominic walked carefully toward the crosses, some of which bore names. “Molly Jenner. Olivia Lopez. Frauke Holland. These are some of the names of the victims.” In the center was a larger cross, one that was more ornate. Peter Galveston was written first in big letters and then in small beneath. No dates of birth or death were listed.

On the right-hand side were crosses bearing the names of the FBI agents who’d caught him. Ava looked closely. Van’s name was there. So was Dominic’s.

“You have a cross.” She felt sick.

“Still not dead.”

“I’m glad.”

He flashed her a smile.

“So do Fernando Chavez and Sandra Warren. Think this is Caroline Perry’s work? Did she set everything in motion and then assume she’d successfully killed you all? She killed herself so she wasn’t caught and had to pay for her crimes?”

He sniffed. “I don’t know. I do think it’s possible. I also think it’s possible she’s a decoy. Rooney said there were drag marks beside her vehicle next to the river.”

“Maybe she was working with someone else, and they decided they didn’t need her anymore and didn’t want any loose ends?”

“It’s a lot of people to kill without someone giving you some kind of assistance. A lot of geography to cover.”

Ava took some photos with her cell. Then she squinted at the crosses on the victims’ side.

“There are only fourteen victim crosses.”

“What?” asked Dominic.

“Fourteen crosses. You said there were fifteen victims…”

“We thought there were from the DNA profiles we found.”

“How many bodies did you recover?” asked Ava.

“Eight partial remains on top of the three bodies of the women that led us to believe we had a serial killer operating in the area in the first place.”

“So, conceivably, the FBI might have—”

“Accidentally labeled one of the women as a victim when she was actually a willing accomplice,” Dominic finished Ava’s thoughts.