He crested the ridge, bracing for a bullet. Scanned the area. Ammunition casings were strewn in the grass. Then he heard the sounds of running and caught sight of a flash of a white shirt through the trees. Ava.
Dominic ran down the hill in the same direction but about two hundred feet parallel still along the top of the ridge. The desire to go to Ava was nearly overwhelming and had nothing to do with tactics or training. It was personal. He wanted to protect her. He wanted her safe. He fought the desire. He needed to trust she could do her job and although she might be a little reckless, she wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t have a death wish.
A shadow moved ahead of him in the woods. The shooter had cut left rather than right and was headed for the road. He probably had a car there. No fucking way was this guy getting away. Hell no.
Dominic was elevated above Ava and the UNSUB. The guy was wearing black including a ski mask. He’d dropped his rifle at some point and was running in a flat-out sprint toward the car. But Ava was faster, those long legs of hers eating up the ground. She was almost upon him when she tripped and the Glock went flying out of her hand.
The UNSUB realized what happened and stopped, walking back to where Ava lay panting on the ground. The UNSUB looked around but did not see Dominic high above him.
The man pulled out a handgun and aimed it at Ava as she desperately tried to lunge for her weapon.
Dominic put four bullets into the bastard, praying his aim was true and he didn’t hit the woman who had somehow snuck under all his defenses. At this distance and elevation, it was a possibility.
Ava covered her ears and curled into a ball, making herself as small as possible. When the UNSUB crashed to the ground, Dominic stopped firing. She rolled to her feet, grabbing her Glock before kicking the bad guy’s gun away from his uncurled fingers.
She stood there, holding her weapon on the guy as Dominic found a way down the short cliff.
“You see anyone else?” Dominic asked, glancing around a forest that seemed to echo with the sounds of gun shots and desperation.
Ava shook her head. Her nose was bleeding from where she’d gone down hard on her face. She ignored it and didn’t shift her stance over the prone man.
Dominic cuffed the guy and then felt for a pulse. He looked up at Ava’s pale features. “He’s dead.”
He pulled the ski mask up, revealing the man’s face.
It was Robin Elgin, the pastor from the church.
*
Ava spent hours being debriefed by other FBI agents about what had gone down in the woods. The most aggressive interrogation had been by the head of the task force looking into the FBI deaths, Mark Gross. Gross had gone at her like a bulldozer, less about the fact she’d almost died that afternoon, more about the fact she and Sheridan had been snooping around the house without a warrant.
She’d told him the truth. They’d been so close it had been a natural progression to visit the property where Galveston had committed the crimes and talk to the people who lived there now.
Neither of them had expected to find the crosses, or get involved in a shootout or for her to look down the barrel of a gun and expect to die any second.
“Are we done yet?” she asked after the man was silent for a good five minutes.
Gross looked up from his notes, but he didn’t fool her. The guy was wasting her time to piss her off. Good news. He’d succeeded.
“You can go. Try to remember you’re assigned to watch SSA Sheridan’s back, not investigate the deaths of the FBI agents.”
“Well, I could hardly let him go to the cabin alone, now could I?” she snapped back.
His eyes were hard as the glass beads she wore on her wrist. “I don’t expect to see you again, Agent Kanas.”
She could only hope.
Her chair scraped against the floor as she pushed back. Rather than stretching out her aching body the way she wanted to, she walked from the room with her chin angled to screw-you.
Men like Gross had a job to do, but it didn’t mean they had to be assholes or that she had to like it.
Outside the interview room, the Resident Agency was in total chaos. Half the task force appeared to have relocated here and were working on processing the scenes. Galveston’s old home—which, it turned out, was where Robin Elgin lived, and the church. It turned out the same corporation that had donated land to the church also owned the cabin. It was a shell company registered in the Caymans, and someone was going to have to go down there to get more information.
It seemed obvious Robin Elgin had applied for the job of pastor in that church due to either a sick obsession or a previously unknown involvement with Peter Galveston. Now Evidence Response Teams were using ground penetrating radar and cadaver dogs at the site, before digging up the possible graves.
Was Robin Elgin the one who’d orchestrated these murders? Did he know Caroline Perry?
Ava spotted Dominic looking at a report and talking to Jerry Pine. She headed toward him. Some of the local agents were looking a little wild-eyed at the invasion. Makeshift tables and desks had been brought in and set up in every available inch of space. Phones rang constantly. So much for sleepy Binghamton.
Ava squeezed behind a couple of agents who had pictures of Robin Elgin strewn across their desk, including one of him dead. She looked up to find Dominic staring at her.
“I can’t believe I tripped over a fricking tree root,” she said when she got to him. Without him, she’d have been dead.
He said nothing.
She crossed her arms over her chest, weary beyond belief but not willing to admit defeat. “What’s the plan?”
Dominic raised one brow. “I’m persona non grata around here. I was waiting for you before starting the drive back.”
Ava nodded even though what she really needed was sleep. Since waking in the middle of last night and getting up close and personal with Sheridan, she’d helped end a prison siege, witnessed an exhumation—or an attempted one—and been involved with a shootout. A busy day by anyone’s standards.