“I’m in the chopper with Sapphire. Headed for Winton. We’ve got something.”
“What?”
“Did Dad have a brother?”
A long silence.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one. Did Dad have a brother? Alive or dead?”
“No.”
“Do you know a William Branson?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Mate, if Frank had a brother, I would’ve known.”
“Well, he did. William Branson was two years younger than Frank. He died seven years ago of an overdose.”
“Seven years ago? What? Are you sure? We would’ve known.”
“Sapphire just looked it up. Another thing, do you know anything about a house in Winton?”
“A house in Winton? No. What house?”
“William owned a house, and it looks like Frank’s been paying for it since William died.”
“There’s nothing in the books about any property other than Koolaroo. There is nothing, Kayden. Not with any account I’ve ever touched, that’s for sure.”
“He must’ve been paying with cash. Or he has accounts we don’t know about.”
I heard him breathe out hard. “Fuck.”
“That’s what I said. Okay, buddy, Sapphire and I are heading to the house now. I’ll let you know what we find.”
“Okay, but, Kayden … be careful. There’s something fucking weird going on.”
“I know. We will.” I clicked off.
Sapphire was watching me. “Did you want to ask Mitch or Cassidy if they knew about William?”
Mitch and Frank had some seriously messed-up history. Cassidy, too. But if anyone would’ve spotted unusual spending, it was Declan. “No point. Declan runs the books. If Frank had been funneling Koolaroo money toward a brother or a house in town, Dec would’ve found the trail eventually and asked questions. Frank was hiding it from all of us.”
“Or someone was hiding it for him.”
“Yeah. And there’s only one person Frank ever trusted with anything.”
“Bob.”
“Yep.”
She held the laptop open a moment longer, then closed it slowly, like she was closing a case file she wasn’t ready to put down.
“If Bob knew about William, he’d have known about that house,” she said, more to herself than to me.
