Chapter 21 #3
Sapphire took out her phone and marched toward the entrance to get a signal. She moved like she was running on fumes.
“Detective Callahan. It’s Constable Sapphire Delaney from Winton Police Station.” Her voice bounced around the cave.
A pause.
“Yes. I need urgent help. I’m at a cave on Koolaroo Station, about two hundred miles past Winton.”
She paused.
“Yes, correct. Where Doug went missing. Listen. Senior Sergeant Bob Ackerman is a corrupt police officer. He attempted to kill me yesterday, and I’m with a civilian who’s bleeding from a close-range bullet wound to his stomach. Bob is the perp.”
Another pause.
“No. I didn’t catch him. He’s escaped on foot. I have a second victim Bob shot in the back and is possibly paralyzed. We’re flying the first victim out now, but I need urgent medivac for the second.”
A longer pause.
“Yes. RFDS would be ideal. Plus, your own people. I don’t know who else to trust. I have proof that Bob has been corrupt for a very long time.”
She listened. Her shoulders dropped half an inch. “I also believe the cave I’m in is the scene of multi-homicide crimes going back decades.”
She caught my eye, exhaling hard.
“Thank you. Yes, I understand. Hopefully, you’re quicker than that. I’ll send coordinates now.”
She hung up and stayed at the cave mouth for a beat longer, typing out a message on her phone. Finally, she wiped her brow and strode back to where Mitch and I were trying to stabilize Lyle.
“How long will they be?” I asked.
“They’re coming from Rosebud, so at least two hours.” She shook her head.
I’d figured as much. Koolaroo was a bloody long way from anywhere, even in a fixed-wing aircraft.
The chopper noise built outside.
Lyle’s eyes opened, and he reached for my hand. “I don’t wanna die.”
“You ain’t gonna die, mate,” I said. “You have to help us bring that bastard Bob Ackerman down—and Frank.”
Lyle’s lip twitched like he wanted to smile but couldn’t.
I squeezed his hand. “Hang tight. We’re gonna get you in that chopper, and Cassidy will get you to the hospital ASAP.”
Mitch and I lifted Lyle between us and carried him out.
My arm screamed with every step. Lyle was lighter than I’d expected, but his weight was wrong—that dead-limp weight of a man who’d already given up.
Outside, the rotors beat dust into a red cyclone around the chopper.
We got Lyle into the back, and Mitch climbed in beside him.
I opened the pilot’s door. “Fly safe, Cass,” I yelled over the rotors.
Cassidy looked at me. “What about you guys?”
“The RFDS is coming for Frank. We’ll be fine.”
She nodded, and I shut the door. The chopper lifted, and as the wash hit me hard, I turned my back and braced against it. They rose up, banked east, and the noise dropped as they flew away.
I turned, searching for Sapphire. She was at the cave mouth, covered in dust and blood that wasn’t hers.
She looked wrecked.
I joined her, and we went back inside.
Frank had passed out. His breathing was still going, but it was slow and shallow. He was a tough old bastard, though. He’d probably live. Either way, I hoped Mitch was right about the spine. The best punishment for Frank was him not being able to get up.
Sapphire stood in the middle of the cave and looked around like she was cataloging evidence.
The rusty drum. Lyle’s blood pool by the entrance. Frank in the dirt. The unloaded gun she’d settled on that rock at the back.
“This whole place is a crime scene. Decades of it.” Her voice was flat with exhaustion. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“That’s not your job right now.”
“No. Right now, my job is keeping him alive.” She looked at Frank with something close to disgust. “Which is the part I’m finding the hardest.”
I crossed to her and put my good arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against me. Her breathing was shaky, as if she were trying to get her body back under her control.
“Bob got away.” She sniffed.
“Yeah. But you’ll still get him, Fire. I know you will. Besides, once every cop in the country knows what an asshole Bob is, he’ll have a target on his back.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “That’s something, I suppose.”
“It’s a lot.”
She pulled back and looked up at me. Her eyes were tired in a way I’d never seen on her. “How’s your arm?”
“Killing me,” I said. “But still attached.”
She released a half chuckle, but a real one.
After checking on Frank, there was nothing for us to do but wait.
We moved out to the cave mouth and sat down on a flat boulder just inside the shade. The country stretched out in front of us—red dirt, blue sky, and heat shimmering off the ground in waves. Somewhere in that distance, Bob was running.
Behind us, Frank’s breathing was a wet rattle in the dark.
I looked at the woman I’d loved and lost and somehow found again, sitting on boulder after the worst day of our lives. “What are you going to do now?”
She stared out at the horizon for a long time. “I have absolutely no idea.”
I nodded. Neither did I.
We sat together in the heat and the silence, waiting for justice to arrive.