Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [2]
Poor Amery was beside herself with worry and guilt. I let Kevin murmur soothing words that would’ve choked me. He promised we’d look into the situation as he escorted her to her car.
My opinion differed from Kevin’s. I figured Amery was jealous and angry her grandfather was spending her money and time with someone else, and therefore was trying to make problems. Kevin figured a couple of greedy people saw a confused old man and decided to take advantage, knowing Amery had no legal power to stop them.
4
So here we were trying to sort fact from fiction in an overheated, overdecorated reception area that reeked of sour unwashed bodies, tuna casserole, and Lysol antiseptic.
“Hey, sis.” Kevin waved me over. “Dee is ready to give us a tour.”
We’d decided to check out the facility by pretending to be looking for a place for our Aunt Rose. Hopefully we could wander around and ask the residents questions after the official tour ended, or else the idea was a total bust.
I smiled, thrusting out my hand. “Hi, Dee. I’m Kate Sawyer, Jack’s sister.”
Dee, a dowdy office drone with gooey eyes, wasn’t the type of hard sell closer I’d expected. After she released my hand I withheld a shudder at her wimpy handshake.
“Nice to meet you, Kate. We’re all set, so why don’t you follow me?”
We stopped at a set of double steel doors. Dee ran her key card through an electronic reading mechanism bolted beside the door handle. The green light flashed and the locks clicked. A mechanical hum sounded. Very high tech.
Also very much like Martinez’s various security setups.
Dee opened the metal doors and bustled down
the long, empty hallway. She didn’t bother to double check if the doors even latched behind us, say nothing 5
of if they’d locked securely. Huh. Martinez had me so paranoid about security measures that I almost double checked the damn thing myself.
Kevin whispered in my ear, “Kate Sawyer? You’ve been watching way too many episodes of Lost, babe.”
“Yeah? You started it, Jack.”
“Your fantasy of becoming a Jack and Sawyer
sandwich doesn’t bother Martinez?”
“Nope. As a matter of fact he—”
“I thought we’d start in the wing with the private entrances.” Dee spiraled around and walked backward while she lectured us. She pointed to the metal doors with a decent amount of blank wall space between each one. “These units are like condos. Residents have separate access to the outside and enjoy more autonomy than residents in the other wings.”
“I’m assuming these residents aren’t in need of daily assistance?”
“No. Actually, the residents must pass a physical to prove they’re in decent health when they initially buy in.”
My brain stumbled on the words buy in. But Kevin’s brain worked differently and he asked,
“What do you mean by initially?”
“We are in the business of providing long-term care. If a healthy seventy-year-old man buys a private residence, but at some point needs to change to a unit where he’s monitored either part-time or full-time, we can accommodate him almost immediately without a 6
huge upheaval in the tenant’s life.”
Kevin flashed his teeth. “Kate and I are both hopelessly undereducated about the differences in the types of units Prairie Gardens offers. Would it be too much trouble to ask you to clarify them for us, please?”
Nice going, Kev.
“I’d be happy to,” Dee trilled. “Our purpose here at Prairie Gardens is to provide the type of housing to suit anyone’s needs. We have private residences like these.” She made a sweeping Vanna White gesture.
“However, the majority of our living spaces are devoted to individual apartments,