might make the contractors think twice about supporting a
venture like this."
"Good thinking," agreed Abigail. "A lot of these guys are
uni on too. I'm surprised they haven't considered these things
already."
"Well, who knows what kind of promises Greg and Rick
are making right now."
"Did you hear Greg has officially quit his postmaster
job?"
"No. I hope he's not sorry about that later.
"I also heard he's already flattened and removed all the
old buildings from his folks' property. Everything's in the
process of being surveyed for the streets and utilities. And I
heard if the weather holds out, they might start working on
it right away."
198Melody Carlson
Maggie groaned. "There seems to be no real way of stop-
ping them, but at least we can put up a good fight. Say, Abi-
gail, would you give Mr. Westerly's niece, Jeanette, a call?"
She wrote down the number and handed itto her. "Find Out
if she's learned anything from their lawyer yet, even though
I assume that because we haven't heard from her they
haven't uncovered anything to make a difference."
Suddenly Abigail sat up straight in her chair. "You know,
a letter came today. It looked like some sort of government
thing, but not that interesting compared to all this local
riffraff. I figured it could wait until later, but now I'm won-
dering..."
Maggie followed her out to the reception area, and then
waited while Abigail slit it open. She smiled as she handed it
over. "It's from the EPA, and I'm guessing they read your
wetland issues article that I sent."
Maggie quickly skimmed the letter and then let out a
whoop. "They're sending an investigative team as soon as
they can mobilize!"
"Wonderful!"
"What is it?" asked Scott.
Just as Maggie was about to read the letter out loud,
Gavin stepped in. ''You better listen to this too, Gavin.''
Then she read about how much their organization appreci-
ated thoughtful journalism like hers that brought these issues
to light, and how it took everyone working together to pre-
serve important lands that were becoming more and more
rare and endangered.
"Way to go, Maggie," exclaimed Gavin. "You'll be
pleased to hear that some of the local businesses are behind
you a hundred percent in your stand against TS Develop-
ment now that they read your latest investigative report. Not
all of them, of course, but some. I actually sold some ad
1:space today.