Neighbors - Danielle Steel Page 0,2

people’s fancy homes. They could do whatever they wanted, hire other people to clean toilets, the house, do the gardening, and skim a nice living off the top. They could even pocket a few valuables while their employers were away, blame someone else, and steal some cash, and at the same time earn a handsome salary for living well in someone else’s home. He made it sound so appealing that they tried it when they got out of rehab. They went to a reputable employment agency in L.A. with fake references Jack had written for them, on stationery he had made, allegedly written by a couple who had died, leaving no heirs to check their story with. The agency was cavalier about checking references and did no criminal check, unless the client requested it.

They got fired from their first job, for general incompetence and not knowing what they were doing. They rapidly learned what was expected of them, and moved on to the job in Palm Springs, for the couple who really did die. They were so old that they paid little attention to what Jack and Debbie were doing. Their children were grateful to have friendly, caring, responsible people with their parents, and the couple even left them a small bequest when they died. This time, their references were genuine when they applied for the job with Scott and Meredith in San Francisco, who were looking through an L.A. agency they trusted and knew well. Jack and Debbie were in no hurry since they were living on the money they’d been left by the elderly couple. When they were offered the job with Scott and Meredith, neither of them could resist it. It was a major step up for them, and they knew what was expected of them by then. They understood how obsequious they had to be to ingratiate themselves into the lives of their employers. Scott hadn’t liked them when they started. He told Meredith he thought they were slimy, but it didn’t matter in the end, since less than a year later, Scott left for Bangkok, on location, and after that he was gone for good. Meredith bought their act more readily than he did.

They’d been in the job for fifteen years now, and Meredith had become completely dependent on them to shield her from the outside world, and attend to whatever needs she had, which were minimal. She was not a demanding person, and spent most of her time reading in a study just off her bedroom, or sitting in the garden. She never entertained anymore. The world had passed her by in the past fourteen years, or more accurately, she had removed herself from it, and preferred to live a more quiet life than the one she had lived as a star. But the world had not forgotten her. She became a legend once she was a recluse.

Six months after Scott moved to New York with Silvana, and filed for divorce so he could marry her, their son, Justin, went to stay with his father and Silvana at a house Scott had rented in Maine for the month of August. Kendall and her husband were going to come and stay with them, with their daughter, Julia, for the last two weeks of August. Kendall didn’t like Silvana any more than Justin did, but she was close to her father and adored her little brother. She was unhappy about the separation, but she was closer to her father than her mother, and happy he was living in New York now. Kendall was married to a successful investment banker, and they had a very nice life in New York.

There was a speedboat Scott was looking forward to using at the house in Maine, and a small sailboat he knew Justin would love, since he had gone to sailing camp in Washington State two summers in a row. He was a fairly adept sailor for a boy of fourteen. Meredith had warned Scott that she didn’t want Justin sailing alone in the unfamiliar and unpredictable waters off the coast of Maine. Scott assured her that he would sail with him, but said that Justin was a better sailor than most men twice his age, and, it was a sport he loved. Justin always said he was going to buy a sailboat of his own one day and sail around the world.

They had agreed to Justin spending the month of August with his father, he was