“Cassidy and Xavier could’ve been killed,” I said. “They were lucky this whole place didn’t burn to the ground.”
Her eyes took on that inquisitive sparkle that used to fascinate me. “They were trapped inside when the bushfire came through?”
I blinked at her. “What the hell? You telling me Bob didn’t mention that either?”
“No. No, he didn’t.” Her expression sharpened.
The mid-morning heat was brutal, radiating up off the blackened earth. The windmill behind the cottage creaked as it slowly turned in the mild breeze. I pointed at the windmill. “We were just lucky that wasn’t ruined. Those things cost a fortune to replace.”
She nodded. “So, this fire was lit the same night Bruce’s truck was damaged. Is that correct?” Sapphire asked.
“Yep.”
“But that crash happened near the Rusty Swagman.”
“Yep. And then they followed Cass out here and lit this fire.”
“Do you have any proof of that?” She squinted up at me.
“No, I don’t have any fucking proof of that.” I shook my head. “Ask Cassidy, she was here.”
I marched up the stairs, across the verandah boards that were black in patches, and strode through the open front door, into the cottage.
My ears rang in the silence as I turned to watch Sapphire’s reaction when she saw the damage inside.
Sapphire stepped into the room, and her jaw dropped. Not exaggerated shock. Real shock. Her eyes moved slowly across every bare wall.
“What happened in here?” She frowned, stepping toward the middle.
“The walls were like this when Cassidy and Xavier arrived.” The walls were stripped back to the timber framing. Every panel of plasterboard had been torn down, and the mangled boards were stacked against the back wall. The whole interior was reduced to bare studs and insulation gaps, and looked like the inside of a carcass.
Her eyes cut to mine. “Looks like someone hacked off the plasterboard in a hurry.”
“Yep. That’s what it looks like.”
Sapphire strode to the pile of plasterboard stacked against the far wall. She pulled on the front sheet, leaned it against her hip, and looked behind. Shaking her head, she repeated the move with a few more jagged sheets before she pushed them all back against the wall again.
She walked to the bathroom and stood in the doorway.
I looked over her shoulder. The bathroom roof had a massive hole in it, charred rafters jutting out like broken ribs. The remaining tin was warped and buckled, and a massive tree branch had crashed through the roof with one end in the claw-foot bath, the other sticking out of the hole in the roof.
“Cassidy filled the bathtub with water, and they got in. That’s how they survived.”
Sapphire shook her head. “They were lucky.”
“They were smart. That branch crashed into the roof during the fire. It wasn’t like that when I came here last time. Shows how unstable this place was.”
She returned to the stack of plasterboard and ran her hand over the jagged edges. Plaster dust was all over the ground. She ran the toe of her shoe through the dust. Her expression darkened. She squatted down and pushed her finger into a pile of plaster dust, spreading it aside.
It took all my might not to ask her what the fuck she was looking for.
She pulled out her damn notepad and wrote something down without another word.
I folded my arms, growing more pissed off with her by the minute.
She stood and turned to me, sweeping her gaze up to mine. “You know what’s weird?”
I stepped back. “Bob not telling you about the fire? Or about the damage here?”
