She closed the laptop, slid it back into her pack along with the foolscap notepad, and sat back in her seat. The line of her jaw was hard.
“Where could Frank go to hide on Koolaroo?” she asked.
Relieved she was talking to me at all, I said, “Plenty of places on a million hectares. Caves, gullies, dry creek beds. Frank could sleep in the middle of nowhere, keep moving, and we’d never find him.”
“I think Bob’s going after him. That’s why Frank’s running.”
I watched the GPS tick down and thought about that. “Frank wouldn’t run, Sapphire.”
“I think we already know that he is.”
“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.
