“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.
