Madison Westin lives by the Unbreakable Rule of IOUs: When it’s time to collect, no whining allowed. So, when the four kids of an undercover Miami detective temporarily land in her care, she doesn’t panic. She raises a village—more accurately, the motley crew of The Cottages—to lend a hand. Things are going swimmingly, and home schoolingly, and alligator-farm field trippily, when Madison learns the apartment building next to The Cottages is about to be sold to a crime kingpin known as Trigger. Crossing Trigger is a very good way to wind up dead, but with the neighborhood poised to go to hell in a handbasket, Madison and her bestie, Fab Merceau, figure out a way to swipe the done deal right out from under his grabby paws. But Trigger isn’t going away quietly, especially since Madison and Fab have unwittingly disrupted a much larger scheme. Madison and Fab find themselves neck-deep in alligators. And the danger of losing everyone they love is rising.