PrologueThe place was a ghost town. Despite its breath-taking locale, Appaloosa Plains had become a shadow of what it once was. The residents of the "sleepy ranching town" had drifted off, leaving behind shells of homes, crumbling remnants of Victorian architecture and empty streets.
The city tried to save its existence by offering a funding assistance program for repairs, but the program collapsed when it was discovered that nearly all the buildings were contaminated with asbestos, had unsafe lead piping, needed all-new roofs or their foundations completely redone. Historical building legislation delayed construction work to such an extent that people opted to sell their homes to the government at a loss so they could move away from the red tape and renovation nightmare that their neighborhood trapped in.
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Now almost no residents were left and there was no city government to speak of. Appaloosa Plains was nothing more than a mess that needed to be cleaned up. Luckily, cleaning up messes was something Jada Walker did best.
She drove slowly along the empty, crumbling streets until she saw the drab Victorian manor she was looking for. Workers had already set up safety barriers and brought in the dumpsters. She looked up at the building: rotting wood, patchy shingles, peeling paint. By some miracle it seemed the majority of the windows were intact even though they hadn't been boarded up. Still, was this really the place the Governor saw potential in?
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