Chapter 5 #2
Delgado fills the doorway the way big men do, not because they're trying but because doorways weren't designed for people built like that.
Sixties, graying hair pulled back in a ponytail, a face that looks like it was carved from the same rock as the mountains outside.
He's wearing a leather jacket that's older than I am and boots that have seen more road than most people's cars.
"Ezra." He nods. Not a greeting — more like a confirmation. Yes, you're the one I need to talk to. "Knox around?"
"Upstairs. What's going on?"
"Came to give you a heads up." He comes in, lets the door close behind him.
Takes a stool at the bar — the same one Nicholas sat on this morning, which is a coincidence I don't need to think about.
His hands land on the bar top, enormous, scarred, the hands of a man who's worked with them for fifty years.
"You know a company called Coldwell Development? "
"Yeah," I say. "I know Coldwell."
"They first came at me about eight months back.
Letters, then a phone call, then a lawyer suggesting my zoning permits might need review when I told them to get lost. I thought that was the end of it.
" Delgado's jaw tightens. "Then last week some kid in a suit shows up at my range.
Polite, professional, card from Coldwell.
Wants to discuss a 'business opportunity.
'" He makes the air quotes with hands big enough to crush a beer can.
"I told him where he could put his opportunity.
Been stewing on it since, then I heard through the network that Knox's place got hit too. Wanted to come see for myself."
"Yeah," I say. "We got hit."
"This kid — rental car, laptop bag, leather notebook. Looked like a college boy playing businessman. He still sniffing around?"
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Delgado, that kid has been sitting in that booth every day for a week." I gesture toward the window booth. "Orders an IPA and the nachos. Sets up his laptop. Works for about four hours. Tips thirty percent and leaves."
Delgado looks at the booth. Looks at me. Looks at the booth again.
"The same kid who came to my range is sitting in your bar," Delgado says slowly. "Every day."
"Same booth. Same order."
"And Knox lets him?"
"Knox said he's a customer."
"He's not a customer. He's a scout. He was doing the same thing at my place — looking around, taking notes, assessing the property.
He scoped out my range before he ever came here.
These people don't just make offers and walk away.
They don't send someone to eat nachos for a week because he likes the Wi-Fi. He's building a file on you."
"Maybe." I close my laptop halfway. "Or maybe he's a guy who was sent here to do a job, figured out the job doesn't make sense, and told his boss he needs more time to figure out why his company flagged a commercially unviable property in the middle of nowhere."
"You believe that?"
"I believe he told his boss the property doesn't make commercial sense. I heard him say it to Toby on day two."
"And you believe him."
I think about Nicholas in his booth. His thirty percent tips and his leather notebook and the way he grimaced at the dating app notification. The sister who called. The napkin note about Robin's lemon bars. The way he sat at the bar this morning and asked about the wood.
"I think he's figuring out he was sent here to do something he doesn't want to do," I say. "I think he's smart enough to see the pattern once someone shows it to him."
Delgado is quiet for a long moment. He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't argue. Professional courtesy — this is Knox's territory, Knox's call. He's here to share information, not give orders.
"Then let me tell you what the pattern looks like," he says. "Because I've been digging since they came after my range."
He settles onto the stool. I pour him a coffee he didn't ask for. He takes it without comment.
"Five properties in the last two years," he says.
"All shifter-owned. All in areas like this — rural, low-density, off the main corridors.
A wolf pack's repair shop in Montana. A bear clan's camping outfitter in northern Idaho.
Couple of lone operators — a bobcat who runs a feed store, a coyote with a salvage yard. "
I turn my laptop back toward him. "That matches what I found in their SEC filings. Rural acquisitions that don't fit their development profile."
Delgado glances at the screen. His eyebrows go up — he wasn't expecting me to have data already.
"Because they're not developing them," he says.
"The wolf pack's shop? Bought, leveled, sitting empty.
The bear clan's property? Same. The bobcat sold voluntarily — offered enough to relocate, took it.
The coyote fought it for a year, then the county found code violations nobody had cared about for twenty years. He sold."
I let that settle. Five properties. All shifter-owned. All acquired and either leveled or left empty.
"They're not buying land," I say. "They're buying shifters out."
"Or pushing them out." Delgado's voice is flat. "The ones who sell voluntarily get fair money. The ones who fight get zoning reviews, code enforcement, permit audits. Nothing illegal. Just pressure."
"Why? What's the play?"
"That's what I can't figure out." He shakes his head. "There's no development plan that makes sense. You don't buy a feed store in rural Montana and a salvage yard in Idaho for a shopping mall. The properties are too scattered, too small, too far from infrastructure."
"Unless the play isn't the properties. Unless it's the displacement."
Delgado looks at me sharply. "Explain."
"I don't have it yet. Just a shape." I show him the spreadsheet I've been building. "Seven acquisitions in their SEC filings that don't match their core business. You're telling me at least five of those are shifter properties. I need to check the other two."
"Check them." He pushes back from the bar but doesn't stand yet. "And Ezra — your guy in the booth. The nachos kid."
"He's not my guy."
"Whatever he is. You said he's smart enough to see the pattern.
That means he's also smart enough to be running one.
" He stands. "I've seen these corporate types before.
They send the nice ones first. Polite, professional, tips well, asks about the history of the building.
Makes you feel like he sees you as a person instead of a property value.
And maybe he does. Or maybe that's just how the good ones operate. "
I don't have an answer for that. The uncomfortable truth is that both things could be true at the same time.
"My range isn't going anywhere," Delgado says.
"Your bar isn't going anywhere. But somebody at Coldwell doesn't know that yet, and the longer they don't know it, the more people like us they're going to squeeze.
" He heads for the door. "Find the pattern, Ezra. You're the one who reads spreadsheets."
"I'm aware."
The door closes behind him. His bike starts — the rumble of it fading down the road until it's just the night and the neon and the hum of the refrigerators.
I turn back to my laptop.
PREVIOUS OWNER. I start filling in the column, cross-referencing public records with the names Delgado gave me. Wolf pack in Montana. Bear clan in Idaho. Bobcat feed store. Coyote salvage yard.
It takes an hour. By the end of it, I have five confirmed shifter-owned properties and two I haven't identified yet. The two unknowns are in Washington state — a small parcel outside Spokane and a larger one near the Oregon border.
I add a note to the spreadsheet: Check Spokane property. Previous owner — shifter?
It's almost midnight. The bar is dark except for my laptop screen and the blue glow of the sign behind me. Tomorrow Nicholas will walk in, same booth, same IPA, same nachos. He'll sit in his routine and work on his assessment and not know what I know now.
I could tell him. Show him the spreadsheet. Watch his face when he realizes what his company's been doing.
But I don't know him yet. Not really. I know his tipping percentage and the way his shoulders drop two degrees when Jason brings him water. That's not enough to trust someone with the safety of my pride.
So I'll wait. I'll watch. I'll keep filling in the spreadsheet.
And I'll figure out whether Nicholas is someone who sees the pattern and walks away — or someone who sees it and stays.
I close my laptop and go upstairs. The bar settles into its nighttime sounds. Oak and neon and sixty years of shifters calling this place home.
Nobody's buying it. Not Coldwell, not anyone.
I just have to prove why they're trying.