Chapter 7
SEVEN
Cane
I turned around as soon as the door closed. I watched her walk to her car and drive away, no sign of the Avalanche Simon had been driving in sight. Satisfied that he wasn’t following her, I flipped the lock on the door, retreated to the back office, and called Max.
Max answered quickly, the sound of hammering loud in the background. “What’s up, Alexander?”
“Quite a bit, actually. You’ll never guess who just looked at Solomon Place.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Simon Powers.”
“No shit,” Max said in disbelief. “Hang on a second.”
I heard a door slam and the tell-tale sound of Max’s diesel truck start. “Sorry. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of everyone. Simon Powers, huh?”
“I walk in and Jada is standing there with that piece of shit. What the fuck?”
“Man, I don’t know. Do you think he knew you owned the building? What are the odds of that, Cane?”
I leaned forward on the desk, my mind going a mile a minute. “They’re not good. Even if he did know, why would he want to buy anything from me?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“I guess it could be a coincidence. It just seems fucked up.”
The line grew quiet as we both tried to process the possibility of it being random.
“It’s either the strangest coincidence in fucking history or something is going on.” Max paused. “Why would he even need a building? I mean, what does he do these days? Didn’t his family lose everything when all that shit went down?”
“Yeah, they did. So how would he even have the money to think about buying this place? He would have had to have proof of funding to get past Stanley, so where is he getting his money?”
“I don’t know. This ain’t good either way. Do you want me to see what I can come up with?”
I released a breath that felt like I had been holding forever. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll make some calls now.”
“And Max? Let’s keep an eye on Jada.”
“I’m not even going to ask.”
“Trust me on this one.”
He shook his head. “I’ll get back with you as soon as I have something to go on.”