Because what I need you to be is a plaintiff, he leaned forward slightly. There are three other property owners in Yavapai County that Reyes has identified in the last 6 hours who are carrying apex modifications with the same compounding structure. At least one of them has already received a foreclosure notice. Ethan went very still. How fast can you talk to them?
He asked. Reyes is already making calls, Jackson said. The two men sat at the kitchen table while the afternoon light shifted and Decker moved around in the background, finishing the last items on his list, and they talked about what it would take and what it would mean and what the risks were on both sides and what the alternative was if nothing was done. At one point, Jackson's phone rang, and he looked at the number and set it face down on the table without answering it. His attention didn't waver.
At another point, Ethan made a third pot of coffee and Jackson Morgan, the president of the most feared motorcycle club in Northern Arizona, sat at a retired mechanic's kitchen table and drank it out of a mug that said, "World's okayest fisherman that had been a gag gift from Margaret's brother at Christmas 15 years ago." Neither of them mentioned the mug. When Decker came in to say he was done and leaving, Jackson nodded and said, "Thank you, Decker." And Decker said, "See you, boss." and left. And then it was just the two of them again.
Outside, the desert was doing what it always did in the last hour before sundown, holding all its heat close for one final hour before releasing it to the night sky. Ethan had lived in Arizona his whole life, and he still wasn't sure whether he loved or hated that hour. It was very honest in its way. All that banked heat, impossible to pretend away. "What do you need from me?"
Ethan asked. "Right now," Jackson said. I need you to call Reyes tomorrow morning and tell him you want to proceed on the litigation path. He'll walk you through the rest. He paused.
And I need you to understand that when this starts moving, it might draw attention to you, to this situation. What kind of attention? Jackson's expression didn't change, but something behind it did. The kind that comes when a company realizes that the quiet solution isn't available anymore. Ethan thought about that.
I've been a mechanic for 40 years, he said. I've had parts suppliers try to overcharge me and manufacturers try to avoid warranties they knew were valid and shop owners tell me stories about what was and wasn't my legal recourse. I've been managing people who didn't want to be managed my whole life. He looked at Jackson. I'm 72.
I own my house or I will when this is done. I don't have much left that they can threaten. They'll try anyway, Jackson said. Let them, Ethan said. Jackson picked up his coffee mug.
He looked at the kitchen, at the window, at the counter, at the filing cabinet drawer that was still partially open from where Ethan had retrieved Margaret's documents the night before. Tell me something, he said. What? When you called me, Jackson said, "When you made that first call, did you know any of this was coming?" Ethan thought about it honestly, the way Margaret had always required of him.
No, he said, "I wasn't thinking about what was coming. I was thinking about the photograph of your daughter and the fact that it didn't belong to me. He paused. That's all I was thinking about. Jackson nodded once.
The way he nodded wasn't an acknowledgement of something simple. It was the nod of a man who had lived long enough and hard enough to understand the weight of doing the right thing without any expectation of return and who had not seen that demonstrated very often and who was filing it away somewhere permanent. All right, Jackson said. He stood up. I'll talk to Reyes tonight.
He'll call you first thing. He moved toward the door. Ethan followed. At the threshold, Jackson stopped and turned back. He looked at Ethan the way he'd looked at him at the clubhouse in the story.
The men were already starting to tell the old man who'd come to the door of the Hell's Angles without hesitation, carrying a wallet that wasn't his, returning every dollar. The look of a man who was still doing the math on something that kept coming out differently than he expected. The lawyers I'm going to connect you with, he said, they don't charge in cases like this. They work on contingency when there's a public record interest. He paused.
I want you to know that so you don't spend the next week worrying about it. Ethan nodded. And I want you to know something else, Jackson said. Ethan waited. Lily would have liked you, Jackson.
Morgan said. He walked out to his truck. The engine started. The tail lights moved down the drive and disappeared around the bend for the second time in 2 days. Ethan stood at his open door.
The night air came in off the desert, warm and dry, and carrying the specific smell of the scrub brush after a day's heat. A smell Ethan had known his entire life, a smell that was completely indistinguishable in his memory from the smell of home. He stood there for a long time. Then he went inside and he sat down at the kitchen table and he looked at the space where the envelopes had been and he thought about what it meant that a man who'd spent his whole life doing the next right thing quietly without announcement without expectation of return could find himself at 72 at the beginning of something. He picked up his phone.
He called Rehea's number. I know it's late, he said when Reyes picked up. But tomorrow morning first thing I want to move forward. I know, Rehea said. Jackson already called me.
Of course he did, Ethan said. Mr. Carter, Rehea said, and there was something in his voice that was younger than his professional efficiency, something that was closer to what Ethan would have called conviction. I want you to know what you started here by returning that wallet. I don't think you understand yet what it might turn into. Ethan looked at the open filing cabinet drawer across the room.
At the rubber banded stack of Margaret's careful documentation, at the sticky note in her handwriting that he'd left sitting on the kitchen counter when he brought the documents out. House documents. All of them, Ethan. Not just the ones you think you need. I think maybe I'm starting to, he said.
Reyes called at 7:58 the next morning, two minutes before the hour, which told Ethan something about the man that he'd been ready at 7:45 and made himself wait so as not to seem impatient, but couldn't hold it the full distance to aid. We have a problem, Reyes said without preamble. Ethan was standing at the kitchen counter with his first cup of coffee. He set it down. Tell me, I found a fourth property owner last night.
Man named Gerald Shu, 78 years old, lives out past Ash Fork. His foreclosure notice isn't a notice anymore. Apex filed the actual proceeding three days ago. Reyes paused and the pause had the weight of someone who'd been up most of the night with information they didn't like. If we're going to include him in anything we build, we need to move faster than I told you last night.
A lot faster. How fast? I need to be in front of a judge with a temporary injunction by end of business Friday. Rehea said, "That's 4 days." Ethan looked at the clock on the microwave.