“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, but you should know. It was pure torture. Sexual. S and M. Men, women, even a kid. Most of them appeared Latino. Poorly dressed, maybe immigrants? A few park rangers who had wandered his way.”

“Not Sandrino?”

He shook his head. “I even went downstairs into the basement hoping that maybe there might be a cell down there. Nothing.”

She drew a sigh of relief. “So we’re finished here?”

He was silent. “Not yet. But there might be something else. Not in that hideous bunch, but he kept talking about the waterfall. He asked some of the victims if they thought they deserved the waterfall.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Don’t ask me. I can’t tell you yet. But I will.” He got to his feet. “I’m going to follow that waterfall all the way down to the rocks and see what I find.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, you won’t. Because you’re okay, and I want to think of you being okay while I’m on my way down there.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Stay here. It may be nothing. I’ll be back soon.”

Then he was gone. She jumped to her feet and ran to the edge of the cliffs. She could see him moving in and out of the trees as he negotiated the falls. She lost sight of him! Her hands clenched in frustration. Then she slowly moved back to the rocks and sat down. It would be fine. It had to be fine.

It may be nothing. I’ll be back soon.

* * *

Lara was still sitting there on the rocks when Tanner came up the hill over two hours later. She jumped to her feet and met him as he jumped over the last rocks from the falls. His jeans were wet and so was his hair. “You’re wet. What on earth—” She stopped as she caught sight of his face. It was haggard and almost as wet as his hair. “What happened?”

“Bloody hell,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s get out of here. It will be dark by the time we get back to the house.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll talk on the way back.” He took off his shirt and was wiping his face and hair with it. “Go back inside and lock everything up tight. I don’t want Volkov to know we were here, if he drops in.”

She ran back to the house and locked it; a few minutes later she was running back out. Tanner was already striding down the path toward the Mercedes. She caught up with him at the car. She didn’t even ask, just climbed into the driver’s seat and started to back out as soon as he got into the passenger seat.

She didn’t speak until she’d driven over fifteen minutes away from the house. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” she asked quietly.

“There’s a cave at the bottom of the waterfall that you can’t see unless you’re right on top of it,” he said curtly. “Volkov has made a room of it. He has several skeletons mounted there like trophies.” He cleared his throat. “And Sandrino’s is the prime trophy.”