When I came back, I poured another rum and glanced out the kitchen window at the backyard.
I had my hand on the bottle when I saw movement. Low and fast, along the side fence. Two men broke from the fence line, crossed the yard in a crouched run, and dropped behind the lemon tree.
I hit the floor. Knees screaming. Bottle still in my hand.
I pressed my back against the kitchen cupboards and sat there with the rum and my heart hammering so hard I felt it in my teeth.
Slowly, I inched up. Just enough to see over the sill.
Two men were crouched behind the lemon tree.
Fuck.
They’d found me.
Chapter 4
Sapphire
* * *
After Kayden stormed out the back door, I stayed in the kitchen and finished the coffee Rose had made me.
I’d expected him to come back. He hadn’t.
I set the mug down and went to find him. Or another Branson. Any Branson would do.
I was halfway along the hallway when a man appeared at the other end.
I knew enough about this family to make an educated guess. “Mitch Branson?”
“Who wants to know?”
I strode the rest of the way and offered my hand. “Senior Constable Sapphire Delaney.”
He took my hand in a firm grip. Mitch was ex-military, if my memory was right, and it showed; not in any obvious way, but in the quality of his stillness. He wasn’t tense. He was composed. I’d learned early in this job to tell the difference.
“What can I do for you, Constable Delaney?”
“Oh, please, call me Sapphire. I hate all that formal stuff, don’t you?”
“Depends.” The look he gave me said he’d been in far worse situations than a police interview.
“Can we sit somewhere? I’d like to ask you a few questions about your father.”
“What about him?”
“Well, for starters, the fact that he’s been missing for a few weeks.” I smiled like that were a perfectly normal conversation.
Mitch groaned. He wasn’t fooled by the friendly routine. Some people weren’t. I could usually tell inside the first thirty seconds.
He turned on his heel, and I followed him back to the dining room I’d walked through earlier.
“Sit,” he said.
I took a chair on the side that gave me a view out the window and scanned the yard for Kayden but couldn’t see him. Just a paddock full of enormous cattle on the other side of a bulky timber fence, standing in the heat like they were waiting for food.
Mitch dropped into the chair across from me and fixed me with a scowl that could sour lemons. “Why did Bob send you and not come himself?”
