“So I’m just going to stay in the extra cottage for now. But I do need the original keys.”
“Yes, I was sorry to hear about the renter. Mr. Cross?”
“Krause. While I’m here, I think I’d better get his file, too. I need information on his next of kin.” She paused. “Might there have been a deposit? You know, to give back, after I’ve assessed damages?”
“Not that I recall. The terms of those leases were so loose. As enticement, really, to get somebody to live out there when they might have to vacate so quickly.”
Tracy was disappointed. “Well, that’s not very likely now.”
“Then you might be around for some time?”
Tracy didn’t want to tell Maribel she had no place else to go. That sounded so lame, so fricking pathetic. Almost as pathetic as using poor Herb’s mythical deposit to pay her bills. She put a better spin on it.
“I’m a very motivated seller. I want to stay on top of things. I know the market can change in a heartbeat, so I want to be right here for the kill.”
“Now that’s the can-do spirit.” Maribel toddled on impossibly high heels to a wall of wooden filing cabinets behind the reception desk, unlocked one and began to paw through it. “I tell my staff they need to stay on top of things that way, but lately I’ve lost some of my best. Of course, I’m planning to sell your land myself, so you have nothing to worry about. You’re my top priority.”
“I like being somebody’s top priority.” Tracy tried to remember if she ever had been.
Maribel pulled out a file folder and brought it over. Then she opened the top drawer of the desk, took out a ring of keys and handed her everything.
“I did make copies for all the cottages, so we’d have spares if a buyer wanted to see the inside. Of course, that’s unlikely, since whoever buys the property will simply bulldoze them.”
Tracy stored everything in the Fendi Doctor B Bag CJ’s secretary had picked out for her last birthday, probably the last designer purse she would own for a very long time. She wouldn’t be one bit sorry to see the cottage she was living in bulldozed. And now that she’d spent part of an afternoon in the bedroom with the very dead Herb Krause, she wouldn’t be sorry to see his cottage disappear, either.
“You must be feeling at loose ends,” Maribel said. “How are you keeping busy?”
Tracy had been forced to spend a lot of time cleaning her cottage so she could tolerate sleeping in it, but that was boring and made her sound like a drudge instead of the glamorous ex-wife of one of California’s most colorful felons.
“I’ve spent some of it reading up on Florida and federal wetlands laws,” she said.
“Don’t you worry. Somebody will come along with the money to make Happiness Key a reality. I promise, we’re in this together.”
Tracy wasn’t sure she wanted to be in anything with Maribel Sessions. Right now Tracy’s property was a sizable blip on Maribel’s radar. The moment it became clear Happiness Key, as originally envisioned, was completely dead in the water, then Maribel would throw Tracy overboard and sail off without a backward glance.
The door opened behind her, and Tracy turned to find the most interesting man she’d seen in a long time walking into the office. He was probably just under six foot, lean, and, despite a thick head of silver-gray hair, young. He wasn’t sixty, not even fifty. She pegged him in his early forties, a man with enough confidence not to dye his hair. The confidence showed in the way he held himself, the set of his shoulders, the length of his stride. And, when he caught sight of her, his smile.
“Lee,” Maribel said. “Come meet Tracy Cr— Deloche. She happens to own your mother-in-law’s cottage. Tracy, Lee is one of our agents.”
Tracy was trying to digest that when the man stepped forward and held out his hand. “Lee Symington, Miss Deloche. How are you?”
Lee Symington had one of those voices a woman could wallow and drown in. Deep, soothing, yet simultaneously intense. And giddyup! Blue eyes that almost leaped out of his tanned face.
“Tracy,” she told him. “Call me Tracy. And your mother-in-law?”
“Alice Brooks.”
It came together now. She was just glad Lee wasn’t related to Wanda. “Sure. Of course. I sort of met your daughter yesterday.”
“Olivia. I was just about to hop in the shower when you arrived. I’m sorry I didn’t