Chapter 8 #3
We came up on the back of the property through a vacant block somebody had been using as a dumping ground. An old fridge on its side. A couch with the stuffing oozing out. A stack of crates crumbling slowly back to the earth.
“Stay back,” Sapphire said, not breaking stride.
“Like hell.”
She slowed and glared at me. Then she picked up speed again.
She didn’t argue. Not the way she had an hour ago on that creek bank. Maybe she’d figured out I wasn’t going to back down. Or maybe she’d decided having someone at her back wasn’t the worst idea when we didn’t know what we were heading into.
Either way, she let me keep up and didn’t say another word about it.
We came up to the back fence made of old timber palings, half of them leaning or missing, easy to see through.
The yard on the other side was small and unremarkable.
A lemon tree in the right corner hadn’t been trimmed in years.
A frangipani on the left was still dropping flowers onto the dead grass beneath it.
A Hills hoist stood in the middle of the yard, empty, one arm bent at an angle like something had hit it.
The house sat on timber stumps the way old Queensland houses did, too low to stand comfortably under.
The underneath was enclosed with vertical palings weathered to gray, many of them missing like the fence.
A narrow door was set into them fronting a tiny room.
Laundry or storage. The kind of space that collected decades of crap.
Weathered timber stairs climbed to the back landing.
No verandah. Just a small platform at the top where the screen and back door hung half open, wide enough that I could see the fridge through it.
To the left, a window looked into the kitchen, with a row of old timber cupboards along the back wall.
No light was on in there, but dim light came from somewhere deeper inside the house.
Sapphire pulled her service weapon from the small of her back, checked the chamber, and eyeballed me. “Stay here.”
“Like hell.”
She growled at me, then crouched low and moved along the inside of the fence toward the lemon tree, stopping where the palings were gone. She slipped through into the yard, and I followed her. We crouched behind the lemon tree and peered up at the house.
“Shit.” Sapphire’s breath caught.
Mine did, too.
Two bodies were on the kitchen floor.
One was hog-tied, rope around his wrists and ankles, another length running up to his neck.
The other body was on its side. Even from our limited view, I could see a large knife buried in his ribs with the wooden handle sticking out.
Was one of them Frank? Or had Frank killed them?
Sapphire gripped my forearm hard. She shook her head once, her eyes fierce.
I shook my head right back.
She mouthed, “Kayden.”
I leaned into her ear. “I’m coming with you. Not negotiable.”
She held my gaze for one long beat, then she turned back to the house.
A man stepped into view inside the kitchen, and she gasped.
My blood went cold.
Bob.
His back was to us, broad shoulders filling the doorway as he crouched over the hog-tied body. From this angle, I couldn’t see what he was doing. Couldn’t tell if the man on the floor was breathing.
I couldn’t tell if either of them was.
Sapphire started to move, and I caught her arm.
“Wait,” I breathed into her ear. “Just wait. See what he does.”
Crouching shoulder to shoulder behind the lemon tree, we watched.
Bob was still stooped over the hog-tied man, doing something with his hands we couldn’t see from this angle. Then he stood, pulled a rag from his back pocket, wiped his hands slowly, and looked down at the kitchen floor as if taking inventory.
It didn’t look to me like he was doing anything that a cop would do at a crime scene.
Sapphire pulled out her phone.
I scowled at her and shook my head.
She glared back, pressed a button, held it to her ear, and pointed at the house.
Through the kitchen window, Bob’s hand went to his hip. He pulled out his phone and looked at his screen. Then he pocketed the phone and went back to wiping his hands.
His expression hadn’t changed once.
Sapphire lowered her phone.
She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. But her expression shifted to something I’d seen on her a decade ago. Pure rage.
She hadn’t known Bob was crooked. She’d trusted him completely, and clearly, it had never occurred to her that she shouldn’t. She was seeing it now, and it gutted her.
She turned to me and gripped my arm hard. The look she gave me was unmistakable.
Stay here. This is mine.
I nodded.
I lied.
She rose into a crouch, watched the house for a few beats, then moved fast along the side fence. Once she reached the house, she darted across the grass and pressed herself against the side of the house, weapon up.
I went after her, matching her moves exactly.
Frank’s voice was in my head the way it always was. Don’t trust a cop. Never trust a cop. I’d carried that my whole life like a scar I’d stopped noticing.
Fuck that.
Sapphire was nothing like Bob, and no way was I letting her walk into that house alone.
I didn’t have a weapon.
I had rage. And I had every intention of using it.