Blindsided (Roman Holiday 3)

Mitzi grinned, brilliant and a little bit menacing. “One time is all it takes.”

“But he must have gotten permission already. Environmental impact statements or whatever.”

“Probably, but that doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“So he got an impact statement. So what? You say, ‘Your experts were bogus, this development is going to threaten the fragile ecosystem of our Key deer, and I have these three other experts who agree with me. I’m going to sue your ass, and we’ll let the courts figure it out.’ ”

“I can’t sue him. I don’t have any money.”

“No, darling, that’s not the point. The point is the threat. The point is the wrench. We tie him up in hearings and experts and money, and meanwhile the court—or the state or whoever—says, ‘No demolition on this property. Not until it gets sorted out.’ And while that’s all happening we dig around, talk to all the other people who knew your grandma, and find out what this guy did to her, and we can use that to force him to quit. This is perfect.”

“It is?”

“It is. It’s so perfect, it’s like it fell from the sky. It’s like Susan gave it to us. Here’s your Key deer, darlings. Hit him where it hurts.”

“I don’t know, Mitz. I’m not sure anymore that I know what Grandma would want.”

“Sure you do. You two were peas in a pod.” Mitzi picked up the paddle and turned around. “We’re going back, and I’m going to do some research and make a few phone calls, and then you’re going to cut his balls off with this.”

She twisted to smile over her shoulder, and Ashley smiled back, because that was what she was supposed to be doing. Smiling.

This was the plan she’d been looking for.

But she felt kind of dirty.

She couldn’t help but wonder why Mitzi hadn’t known about the sale. Ashley had been afraid that Mitzi did know, but somehow it was worse that she didn’t, because why had Grandma left Mitzi out of this plan, when they were such good friends?

Maybe Mitzi was right, and Roman had somehow taken advantage. But try as she might, Ashley couldn’t believe he would do that.

Or maybe Ashley’s worst fears were true, and her grandmother just hadn’t cared what happened to Ashley after she was gone. Maybe she’d considered her job done once Ashley was raised, and she’d been trying to cut the apron strings, to force Ashley out into the world so she’d find a real life, a real job, and stop returning to Sunnyvale every winter.

The youngest snowbird in Florida, Grandma had called her once, and Ashley hadn’t been able to tell even then if it was a good or a bad thing.

And there was another possibility. The possibility that the answer to all these questions was in those boxes in the Airstream that Ashley couldn’t bring herself to open.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

She didn’t know what any of it meant—the way her grandma had died, how she’d distributed her estate—any more than she knew how to change Roman’s mind. But she couldn’t help feeling that the two things were bound up together, somehow.

Mitzi paddled hard, cutting through the water with gusto. The Key deer revelation was clearly the most exciting thing to happen to her in weeks.

Ashley wasn’t excited, though. The thought of siccing a bunch of lawyers on Roman made her heart sink, and she could no longer be certain she’d picked the right ally in this fight.

It was just that if she couldn’t trust Mitzi to get her out of this, she’d have to trust herself.

CHAPTER FIVE

Cupped in his palm, Roman’s phone chirped a low-battery warning.

The alligator raised its head.

He took a step back and ran into the porch railing.

“Don’t worry about Flossie,” the man behind him said. “She just likes music.”

Roman spared him a glance. The man had wispy white hair, silky as the innards of a cracked-open milkweed pod. Khaki pants, untucked button-up shirt, glasses. He looked like a slightly nutty university professor, or the PR guy for some nature conservancy.