Cane investigates Simon Powers

Cane Alexander investigates Simon Powers when Simon appears as a prospective buyer for Solomon Place, turning a suspicious property inquiry into a private investigation of Simon’s finances, activities, and possible threat to Jada Stanley. The inquiry produces a chain of circumstantial evidence, not proof: Cane and Max Quinn uncover discrepancies in Simon’s apparent means, and police intelligence points to suspected cartel involvement. Cane’s response shifts from business scrutiny to protective intervention, with consequences for Jada’s work and for the danger surrounding her.

The Solomon Place Inquiry

The investigation begins after Simon visits Solomon Place. Once Simon has left, Cane watches to make sure he is not being followed, then calls Max to report that Simon had looked at the property. The fact that Simon is interested in a building Cane owns immediately invites questions: Cane and Max know Simon’s family lost its wealth, and they cannot see why Simon would need the property or how he could demonstrate the financing required to make an offer.

Neither man treats the coincidence as settled fact. Cane acknowledges that Simon’s interest might be random, but considers the timing troubling. Max offers to make inquiries, and Cane agrees. He also asks Max to keep an eye on Jada, without initially explaining the request. That precaution establishes a personal stake alongside the business concern: Cane is not merely trying to understand Simon’s finances but is already considering what Simon’s return might mean for Jada.

The suspicion has a history. Cane believes Simon blames him for earlier events, although Cane regards that blame as misplaced. Max sees the possibility that Simon has noticed something developing between Cane and Jada, and warns that Jada should not be pulled into whatever Simon might attempt. Their concern remains prospective rather than certain, but it changes the purpose of the inquiry: they are assessing both a possible commercial scheme and a possible danger to someone close to Cane.

Max’s Findings and the Unproven Theory

Max’s investigation supplies details that make Simon’s finances harder to explain. He finds Simon living outside Surprise, at the end of a dirt road, in an older house that has recently been renovated. A new Camaro is in the driveway; Max also learns that Simon has an Avalanche. The vehicles and renovated property stand out against Simon’s known employment and the reported loss of his family’s wealth.

Max traces Simon’s work to a contractor in Phoenix, whose owner Max knows. Simon has been a foreman there for less than a year and is considered a fairly good employee, but he takes substantial sick leave. According to the employer, Simon travels to Mexico about once a month. These details lead Max to suspect that Simon is transporting drugs. In his account, the suspected trips could explain Simon’s unexplained money, his lifestyle, and his apparent ability to consider buying Solomon Place. The theory fits the facts they have gathered, but the investigation does not establish that Simon is trafficking drugs or that he intends to use the property for an operation.

A later report from one of Max’s contacts at the police department adds a more serious possibility: authorities suspect Simon of involvement with the Sinaloa Cartel and have been watching him for several months. For Cane, this information appears to connect the border trips, Simon’s apparent wealth, and his interest in an office building that might serve as a front. Yet Cane still recognizes the gaps in what he knows. He wonders how Simon became involved with a Mexican cartel and whether such an organization would use him. The report deepens the suspicion without resolving it.

From Suspicion to Protective Measures

Cane’s response to the uncertainty is shaped by his own rules. He reflects on a life organized around distrust and personal responsibility, but Simon’s return makes those principles difficult to keep separate from his growing attachment to Jada. Cane’s guarded, noncommittal approach to relationships had made emotional distance seem safer; his concern about Simon instead draws him toward active involvement in Jada’s affairs. His later explanation to her—that his interest began when they met at the restaurant and that he wanted to know her, not simply move on after sex—makes the personal dimension of his vigilance explicit.

That vigilance takes a forceful form in the real-estate business. Cane tells Jada that all of his properties are unavailable to Simon and that he will reject any offer she submits on Simon’s behalf. He then calls Mr. Stanley, explains that Simon is a prospective buyer for Solomon Place, and requests that another realtor be assigned to him, while acknowledging Jada’s good work. These actions show Cane using his ownership and influence to block Simon’s access, but they also place Jada’s professional role inside a conflict she did not choose. His warning is meant to spare her involvement; its method restricts her ability to handle the client herself.

The danger becomes concrete when Jada meets Simon and turns down his invitation to go home with him. In the restaurant parking lot, Simon places a hand on her lower back; she pulls away, says she needs to return home, and tries to get into her car. Simon blocks her access to the door. Jada tells him to let go and threatens to scream. This encounter confirms that Cane’s fear of Simon as a risk to Jada was not only about property or business, though the investigation itself had not predicted the exact circumstances of the confrontation.

Consequences and Significance

After Simon’s attack on Jada, Cane tells her that the blood on him is Simon’s. The statement links the inquiry’s protective purpose to Cane’s direct, violent response, rather than to a demonstrated legal finding about Simon’s suspected criminal activity. The distinction matters: the available information supports Cane and Max’s growing suspicion, and the later assault supports their concern for Jada, but it does not establish that private violence is a lawful or evidentiary conclusion of the investigation.

The investigation also sits beside, rather than replacing, formal law enforcement. The police department has been watching Simon, according to Max’s contact; later, in a related crisis at Cane’s home, officers enter in formation and call for ambulances, drug teams, and K9 units. The account does not establish that this police response is the direct product of Cane and Max’s earlier inquiries, so their private investigation should not be confused with the officers’ operation. Together, however, the strands show the story moving between informal surveillance, commercial exclusion, personal protection, and official intervention.

Cane’s inquiry therefore changes meaning as it proceeds. It starts with the practical question of how Simon can afford Solomon Place, gains urgency through evidence of unexplained wealth and frequent travel to Mexico, and becomes personal as Cane tries to keep Jada out of Simon’s reach. The evidence never fully closes the mystery of Simon’s money or purpose. What it does establish is the cost of Cane’s protective instinct: he acts on suspicions that prove consequential, but his attempt to shield Jada also intrudes on her work and culminates in a response outside the formal investigation.