Ethan nodded, not promising what Jack wanted him to promise. That evening, Jack called Padre for the first time in several months. He told him that Caldwell's people were getting aggressive and that he had a young man working at the shop who reminded him of someone he'd known a long time ago. Padre asked whether the boy was safe. Jack said he was doing his best, but added in a quieter voice, “I got a kid here who reminds me of us. Don't let me screw it up.”
Padre didn't laugh. “Bear, you called the right man.”
“I'm not asking you to ride across the state.”
“Didn't say you were. I said you called the right man.”
Over the next ten days, the trouble arrived in pieces so small Jack initially struggled to connect them. A parts shipment scheduled for Wednesday went missing from the back step, though the driver swore he'd left it at the shop. The insurer called about an anonymous complaint alleging unsafe storage of flammable materials. A county inspector arrived to check a permit that had been approved the previous year. Jack supplied the paperwork and watched the inspector leave with an embarrassed expression.
Then came the broken window. At just after midnight, Ethan heard glass shatter near the front entrance and rolled out of bed. He found a brick on the concrete beneath the waiting-room window, surrounded by bright fragments that glittered under the security light. A paper had been wrapped around the brick with black tape. On it, someone had written a single word in block letters: SELL.
Ethan didn't pick it up immediately. He photographed the window, the brick, the note, and the glass where it had landed. He called Jack, who arrived from the little room he kept in a nearby farmhouse wearing boots he hadn't fully tied. Together they checked the building and reported the vandalism. When Deputy Noah Mercer came to take a statement, he seemed sympathetic but warned them that a brick with no eyewitness might be difficult to connect to the developer.
“Then don't connect it without evidence,” Ethan said. “Just record what happened.”
Mercer looked at him, surprised. “That's what I'm here to do.”
“Good. Could I have the case number before you leave?”
The deputy gave it to him. He was in his late twenties and new enough to county law enforcement that his uniform still sat a little stiffly on his shoulders. His eyes lingered on the note and then on Jack's face. “You have disputes with anybody?” he asked.
“Man named Harold Caldwell wants this lot,” Jack said. “His representative implied things could get unpleasant.”
“Did he threaten you directly?”
“His exact words are written down,” Ethan replied. He produced the page from his folder. “And there's a photograph showing who was here that day.”
Mercer read it carefully. He couldn't promise an arrest, but he agreed the incident deserved to be documented alongside the earlier contact. When he left, he gave Jack his direct work number. Jack put it beside the register and muttered that the deputy seemed decent enough. Ethan copied the number into his phone and into the evidence file.