Jack was unusually distracted. He checked his phone twice before breakfast, then put it face down whenever Ethan looked in his direction. A shipment from a supplier had arrived without problems for the first time in weeks, and Jack seemed determined to act as if that meant the trouble was passing. Yet he walked around the outside of the building at nine, inspected the locks, and asked Ethan to make sure the customer files were backed up. Ethan did as he was told without asking whether Jack expected a new threat.
Around ten, Nora stopped in with two containers of chicken soup and found Jack tightening a bolt that was already tight. She watched him a moment before saying, “You can't keep this up alone.”
“I'm not alone,” Jack muttered.
“No, but you keep pretending you are.”
He gave her a look, and she wasn't impressed. “I've known you since you bought this place,” she continued. “Every favor you did for somebody in town, you called it nothing. Now you're in trouble and you act as though letting anyone help would turn you into a debtor. That's not how friendship works.”
Jack set down the wrench. “I've made calls.”
“Good. Make more.”
Ethan heard enough to understand that Nora knew something he didn't. He wasn't offended, exactly, but he felt the old unease of being the last person told what mattered. After she left, he asked Jack whether the older man was planning to send him somewhere safe. Jack leaned on the workbench and considered lying. Instead, he said he'd talked to Padre, and a group of riders was coming into town that weekend to support the shop and make it harder for Caldwell to isolate him.
“You mean a few friends?” Ethan asked.
“Enough.”
“How many's enough?”
Jack glanced toward the highway. “Padre's idea of a few is usually different from mine.”
Ethan returned to work with a nervous smile. The fact that Jack had accepted help mattered more to him than the number of motorcycles expected. He had spent weeks documenting the threats, but he understood that evidence was slow and fear operated immediately. A few steady people standing nearby could mean someone didn't have to face intimidation alone while the paperwork caught up. He wanted to see what kind of people Jack trusted enough to call.
At midday, Mr. Hollis came in carrying a second signed statement. The man who had threatened his feed store had returned and claimed the county would seize the land if he didn't agree to a sale. Hollis had contacted the county and learned that no such action was pending. He'd written down the conversation, included the name of a neighbor who overheard it, and brought the paper to Ethan. The young man checked the dates, scanned a copy, and thanked him without making grand promises.
“What's going to happen to all this?” Hollis asked.
“I don't know yet,” Ethan said. “But when somebody asks you what happened, you'll have more than a memory to show them.”
Hollis looked at the growing folder and then at Jack. “Your boy thinks like a good investigator.”