Second Chances(54)

"Oh really?" She tried her best to sound innocent and gave him a big smile. She thought about batting her eyelashes at him, but figured she was too old to get away with such an obvious gesture.

"Yeah, ten minutes until visiting hours start."

"Guess traffic wasn't as bad as I feared. Can I still go in, Dave?"

"Sure," he said, smiling because she'd remembered his name. He returned to the guardhouse and a moment later the crossbar at the entrance to the grounds began to rise.

She waved to him and then put her car in gear. She drove slowly up the long driveway. The vast, immaculately kept grounds of the Ocean View Estates spread out on either side of the gravel drive. She pulled up to the parking area in front of the massive home and got out. She turned and looked back, as she always did, past the gate to the ocean beyond.

The name was no lie. The view from the top of the hill she'd just driven up was spectacular. Just beyond on the other side of the road was an almost unrestricted view of Gooseberry Beach. While much of the beach itself was open to the public, the Bastion Beach Club, which she could just see from her vantage point, was anything but. Like much of Newport, the rich and privileged lived side by side with the commoners, but never together. Together but separate was how she always thought of it.

She shook her head. What was she thinking? She wasn't here to sightsee. It was just so hard not to appreciate the majestic beauty of the surroundings. She was certain a part of her would actually miss it. She turned back to the house. An understatement. She was always in awe of the fact that at one time the building before her had been home to a single family. She had called it a mansion the first time she had seen it, but had been quickly corrected on that. There were certainly plenty of mansions in the area, but this wasn't one of them. At originally only seven thousand square feet, it had been a thousand square feet shy of earning that distinction. While that meant little to Julie, to those in the know it was quite unseemly to make such an error. She often wondered what it had been like before its conversion. The inside had been gutted and remodeled long ago, with massive expansions added to make it bloom well beyond its original size. It was now home to twenty full time residents when operating at full capacity, which it almost always was. Despite the exorbitant cost of being a resident at the facility, there was always a waiting list and it was often a matter of who you knew not when you applied to the facility that garnered a person one of the coveted spots on the rare occasion one became available.

Part of Julie almost wanted to be grateful to Cameron for arranging his placement here, until she reminded herself that if it weren't for Cameron then he wouldn't have a need to be placed anywhere. Damn catch twenty-two situation if she ever saw one.

"Well hopefully we can bring an end to this soon," she said to herself as she reached into her car and grabbed her purse before heading up the ramp to the front door.

She grasped the doorknob and took a slow deep breath before turning it and opening the door. She always felt as if she were entering the lion's den when she came. She knew all the people who worked here, but was unsure just who they actually worked for, and that made her paranoid. But she believed that was a good thing, a survival instinct perhaps.

The door opened into a large open room which had likely been a grand hall before the remodel. There were couches and love-seats arranged around the room by the front windows, all but one was vacant. Seated upon the farthest couch to the left was an elderly gentlemen dressed in a full three-piece suit, his hands resting atop a hand carved wooden cane. He stared off into the distance. Julie knew his name was J.P. Sanders and he had at one point been a financial wizard. These days he couldn't even remember his children's names, but he never failed to dress as if he were still heading for the office. Standing a foot or two behind him, Julie saw Peggy Jennings. She was dressed in a plaid skirt and dark blue top, the unofficial uniform of the resident caregivers. Each resident had their own personal caregiver. Ocean View insisted that they work six days a week, keeping continuity with each resident was important. Not long ago Julie had a chance to talk with Peg, as she liked to be called, and learned she'd been J.P.'s caregiver for almost eight years. Julie could tell that she cared deeply for the man and it was no doubt thanks to her dedication to his care that he continued to thrive. Julie guessed it was like that for most of the residents and their caregivers. They spent so much time together, how could they not get close? She gave Peggy a wave and then headed to the front desk, straight ahead on the right just beyond the entrance area. Peggy flashed her a smile and returned her greeting.