Chapter 12 #2
“No. You don’t know Frank. He’s never backed down from anything in his life. He wouldn’t run. He’d find somewhere to make a stand and wait.”
She turned in her seat to look at me. “Okay. So how would he do that?”
“Bob sent the Hendersons to bring Frank in. Frank took them both down. The way Wayne was tied up, I think he was tortured for information first. If Wayne talked, then Frank knows Bob put a bounty on his head.” I paused.
“Frank confessed in that note I read that he took Bob’s cash.
I think Bob and Frank want to kill each other. ”
She nodded slowly, turning it over. “They’ve known each other for decades. Something shifted between them to make it come to this.”
“Looks that way. Maybe it’s in those notes.”
She picked up the box and pressed her hand flat on the top. “I hope so because I can’t make sense of any of this yet. Why would Frank write down crimes that implicate himself?”
The lights of Koolaroo appeared out of the darkness ahead of us, a faint warm cluster against all that black. “Frank has his own set of rules. Always has.”
“Or maybe he has a death wish.”
I looked at her. “Why do you say that?”
She shook her head slightly, like she’d said more than she’d meant to. “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
“Frank would rather die than go to jail,” I said. “I can tell you that much.”
“What I want you to tell me is the truth, and not just answers to the questions I ask. I want to know everything that’s going on.”
“We will. I promise.”
“And not just you and your siblings. Charlie looked like she was going to throw up when I asked her questions about her missing boss. There’s more to that story, and I know it.
It could have something to do with Frank.
If I don’t have all the pieces, Kayden, we may not find your dad until it’s too late. ”
“I know. I get it. I’ll tell them it’s time to tell you everything. I promise. And what do you mean by too late?”
“Bob and Frank want each other dead, so if Bob is heading to Koolaroo, we need to figure out where they are before they find each other.”
As I set the chopper down behind the machinery shed, Mitch was crossing the yard toward us. I climbed out into a cool wind off the western paddock and raced around to help Sapphire. She handed me her backpack but kept the Chivas box tucked against her hip as she climbed down.
Mitch reached me. “Jesus.” His hand went straight to my bloody arm. “What happened?”
“It’s just a graze. I’m fine.”
His eyes moved past me to Sapphire. “Officer Delaney.”
“Mitch. And I already asked you to call me, Sapphire,” she said. “Is everyone here?”
“Yeah.” Mitch fell into step beside us.
The dining room light spilled out across the verandah, and three silhouettes leaned on the railing, watching us approach. Cassidy, Xavier, and Declan. As we got closer, Cassidy’s expression was that particular look she got when she knew something was wrong.
“Have you found Frank?” Declan called out.
“What’s going on?” Cassidy said at the same time.
“We’ll tell you inside,” I said, stepping onto the verandah.
“Oh my god, what happened to your arm?” Cassidy strode toward me.
“It’s nothing.” I opened the door, stepped back, and nodded at Sapphire. “After you.” Sapphire moved past me into the house without breaking stride.
Charlie and Bella stood at the end of the dining table. Their pale faces made them look as guilty as hell. I caught Sapphire clocking them both in the same second I did.
She was right. We were all in this together, whether we liked it or not.
Cassidy, Xavier, and Declan filed in behind us, and we gathered around the table.
“What’s going on, Kayden?” Mitch stood at the far end with his arms folded, jaw set, already in whatever mode he went into when things were about to get bad.
“I’ll tell you when everyone sits down.” I pulled out a chair for Sapphire.
She didn’t take it. She eased back from the table slightly, the Chivas box held against her hip, eyes moving around the room. Taking stock. Reading everyone.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cassidy asked, still watching my arm.
“I was shot. It’s a graze. I’m fine. Sit down, we have something—”
“You were shot?” Declan said. “By who?”
“Sit. Down.” I slapped the table hard enough that Charlie flinched. “All of you. Now.”
“Jesus,” Cassidy muttered, dropping into her usual chair. “Since when are you the bossy one?” Her eyes moved from me to Sapphire and back again.
One by one, they settled. Mitch sat across from me, both palms flat on the wood as if bracing for another family nightmare. Charlie sat beside him, her arm pressed against his. Declan and Bella sat next to them. Cassidy sat across the table with Xavier at her side.
Six people. Waiting.
The room went quiet.
“Have you found Frank?” Cassidy asked. “Is he dead? Is that why you’re—”
“No.” Sapphire set the Chivas box on the table in front of her. Six pairs of eyes went straight to it. “We haven’t found Frank.”
I cleared my throat. “We have a lot to tell you, and Sapphire needs you to answer her questions honestly.” I glanced around the table.
“Kayden.” Mitch’s voice dropped to a growl. “We agreed—”
“I know. But everything changed tonight. You need to trust me on this, and you need to trust Sapphire.” I held his gaze. “We found out a hell of a lot about Frank and Bob, and we have proof that Bob’s corrupt.”
“We already thought that, didn’t we?” Xavier said, glancing at Cassidy.
Cassidy shot him a look.
“What?” Xavier shrugged.
Cassidy turned to Sapphire. “What proof?”
Declan’s chair creaked as he leaned forward, but other than that, the room went very still.
Sapphire rested her hands on the back of the chair. “Did any of you know Frank had a brother?”
“A brother? No,” Mitch said.
“I already told you I didn’t know,” Declan said.
Cassidy shook her head. “No.”
Sapphire walked them through it. William Branson. The mental institution. The overdose seven years ago. The house in Winton registered in his name. The evidence that Frank had been living there for weeks.
“What the hell was he doing there?” Mitch said.
“We don’t know why,” Sapphire said, “but it seems your father was writing some sort of confessional memoir.”
“What?” Declan said. “Frank? Are you sure?”
Sapphire opened the box lid and pulled out the top note. As she unfolded it, everyone leaned forward.
“What does it say?” Declan asked.
“This one is titled: Every problem has a price, and he dated it three years ago.” Sapphire glanced at Cassidy. “The opening section is about a cattle muster you did with Frank.”
“Which one?”
“Do you remember a man getting his leg crushed during—”
“Of course,” Cassidy said. “Bazza had his leg crushed during a stampede, and the poor bloke had to have his leg amputated. Don’t tell me Frank’s blaming me for that because I’m telling you right now—”
“No. He blamed himself. That’s what I mean about these notes being confessional.”
“What the hell?” Cassidy frowned.
“How many are there?” Declan asked.
“A lot,” I said, answering for Sapphire.
“So, what does it say?” Cassidy asked.
“I’ll let you read the section about Bazza yourself,” Sapphire said to Cassidy, “but I’ll read this next section aloud.” She lifted the page.
“Frank first mentions seeing Bazza with a fake leg and using crutches a couple of weeks after his leg was amputated, and then he wrote:
But Bazza got to thinkin I owed him. That it was my fault he had a plastic leg. He demanded compensation. Sayin it like he thought I had money to burn.
Truth is, I didn’t, but I knew where I could get my hands on some cash. A fuckin ton of it.
Bob’s laundered money.
Bob asked me to start hidin his cash years ago, maybe ten or twelve years back.
“Twelve years!” Declan said. “Bloody hell.”
“That can’t be right,” Mitch said. “We would’ve—”
“Let her finish.” I scowled at them.
Sapphire lifted the note again.
At first, we stuck it in the back of the stables, but then fuckin Kayden decided he was claimin that space for his own, and the angry bastard wouldn’t take no for a fuckin answer, so Bob and I had to move it. We moved it to a cave, and that didn’t work either.
That’s when he came up with the idea of hidin it behind the walls. It’s amazing what a sheet of plasterboard can hide. You know what else plasterboard is good for? Patchin up fuckin holes.
Sapphire stopped reading. She lowered the page and stared at nothing for a moment.
“So it was money in the walls at the eastern outstation,” she said.
Everyone froze.
“They hid Bob’s laundered cash behind the plasterboard.” She shifted in her seat and her gaze landed square on me. “You knew it was money, didn’t you?”
I held her stare.
Across the table, Cassidy’s fork went still. Declan found something fascinating in the timber grain.
I clenched my jaw so hard it was a wonder I didn’t crack a tooth. “Yes, but I—”
“You stood in that cottage with me today and told me you had no idea what had been in those walls.”
“Yes.”
“And in the chopper. When I asked you again.” She glared at me. “You looked me straight in the eye and lied to my face.”
“Yeah, I did, and I’m not proud of that.”
She huffed. “I know you’re holding back on me.” Her gaze swept around to everyone. “You all are. But I’ll figure this out. I promise you that.” She picked up the page again.
I glared at Mitch. He shook his head.
I knew that look. Don’t say anything. A part of me still wanted to agree with him. But I’d looked Sapphire in the eye and lied to her twice today, and it had carved something out of me both times.
I wouldn’t lie to her again.
Next time she asked me, and I know she would, I was not holding back.
Sapphire continued reading aloud.
So, when Bazza Crawford demanded I pay him out, that’s exactly what I did. Gave him 500K. Cold. Hard. Cash. Told him he didn’t wanna know where it came from. And if he told anyone, he’d lose more than his fuckin leg.