MURDER FOR PROFIT

Ellie Quicke tries to resolve a real estate dispute that escalates into violence.

Ellie and her husband, Thomas, return home from an extended trip to Canada to find their household in disarray. Susan and Rafael, who share their two-family house, have allowed their daughter and two foster children—who are Ellie and Thomas' grandchildren—to trample the shared garden, flinging mud everywhere. Worse yet, Susan, in her ninth month of pregnancy, is at odds with her husband, and their clamorous arguments send the children fleeing to Ellie and Thomas’ house for safety. A look at the books of the housing charity she heads gives Ellie an idea about the source of the couple’s disagreement. While Ellie was away, a student died in an unexplained fall in a house owned by the charity and managed by Walker & Price, a local estate agency. Stewart and Kate, two of the charity’s trustees, want to end the relationship with Walker & Price and move on to Streetwise Estate Agency, a younger, trendier firm. But Rafael, also a trustee, digs in. He suspects that Streetwise may be behind the social media campaign trashing Walker & Price. Susan wants Rafael to remove himself from the dispute and help her out at home. The disagreement among the trustees is tricky for Ellie to negotiate because Stewart is father to one of her three grandchildren, abandoned by her daughter Diana, while Susan and Rafael are serving as foster parents to the other two. The situation heats up further as the social media trolling of Walker & Price morphs into vandalism. Ellie worries that she’s the last hope before utter mayhem descends.

Salvation seems a long shot, but with Heley all things are possible.