“We found this on the table at William’s house,” I said as she set it down.
“Does anyone have a pencil?” Sapphire glanced around the table.
“I do.” Declan pushed back his chair and disappeared down the hallway.
Sapphire flattened the pad on the table, gently smoothing down the curled edges with her palms.
Declan returned and handed her a pencil. “What’re you doing?”
“Hopefully, revealing the last note Frank wrote.” She angled the pad under the dining room light and started working the pencil across the page in light, steady strokes.
I leaned over her shoulder to watch.
Big mistake.
She smelled the same as she had ten years ago, amazing. That hit me harder than it should have. How the hell had I not noticed that all day?
I forced my damn attention back to the page.
Frank’s writing emerged in white against the gray pencil shading. His heavy ballpoint had gouged deep into the paper, and each pass of the pencil pulled the words out line by line.
“There’s his title.” I tapped the first line. “The laundry that don’t smell too good.”
Cassidy clicked her fingers. “He’s referring to the money laundering again.”
Sapphire kept shading, her hand moving in smooth passes.
I leaned closer, squinting at a paragraph taking shape. “Yep, money laundering stuff. We already know that.” Then another line appeared, and I read it aloud. “Soon I had more than I could launder, and we started hidin it in plastic bags in a cave that we found decades ago, the one with them ancient hand and croc paintin’s that them black fellas did.”
Sapphire’s pencil stopped mid-stroke. She frowned. “Frank wrote about burying Kat in a cave.” Her gaze cut to Mitch. “Could this be the same one you found that pilot’s skeleton in?”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember any Indigenous art. Do you?” He glanced at Charlie.
“It was dark,” Charlie said, frowning. “But no. I don’t think so.”
Sapphire’s gaze swept the table. “Does anyone know a cave like this?”
“I do,” Cassidy said, and every head turned to her. “Found it years back. A young steer bolted into it during a muster, and I had to go in after the stupid thing.” She paused, her fingers tapping the table edge. “I remember seeing a couple of white handprints on the walls. No crocodiles, though. But I wasn’t in there long enough to look properly.”
“How far away is it?” Sapphire asked.
“It’s too far away to ride.” Cassidy shook her head. “A couple of hours by chopper, maybe more. It’s deep in the western country, near The Narrows, where Bazza had his leg crushed in that stampede. We don’t go that way much because it’s useless cattle country.”
“You think Frank knew about it?” Sapphire said.
“Frank knew every bloody inch of this place.” I dragged a hand across my jaw.
Nobody spoke for a beat.
“That’s where he’s gone,” Sapphire said, like she’d been turning it over and finally landed on the only answer that made sense. “If Frank’s coming back to Koolaroo to die, that’s where he’d go. He buried Kat there and hid the money there. It’s the beginning and the end of everything.”
“And we know Bob knows about that cave,” Mitch said, “so he’ll be headed there, too.”
Sapphire’s eyes locked on mine. “I need you to fly me out there.”
“Yeah.” I held her gaze. “I agree.”
“Tonight.”