American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (32 page)

Nash wasn’t sure if he should be
concerned or laugh with her.  “Are you okay?”

She giggled, trying to catch her
breath. “I’m fine,” she sighed. “It just startled the hell out of me. Wow… that
was really something!”

By this time, Beau, Beck and
Shane were listening.  Beau looked fearfully at the house but the two boys
actually looked intrigued. “A ghost?” Shane repeated. Then he grabbed his
brother. “Come on; let’s go see if we can see it.”

Beck still wasn’t over the whole
Dad and Elliot situation, but he had to admit, the lure of a ghost was
intriguing and almost enough to distract him. He’d grown up loving Ghostbusters
and scary movies, so he was definitely interested.  While he stood
indecisively, Shane grew frustrated and turned to his uncle.

“Uncle Beau!” he motioned to the
house. “Come on!”

Beau shook his head. “No way,” he
said. “I don’t go in for ghosts. Y’all go get the crap scared out of you. I
ain’t going to do it.”

Over her hysterical laughing,
Elliot could see the four of them standing around looking uncertain and
curious. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll show
you.”

She went towards the house with
Nash and Shane right behind her.  Suddenly, they could hear Wolfgang barking
wildly and they all ran into the house to find the dog in the dining room.  No
one could help but notice he was barking at the secret door, which was open by
about a foot.  Nash called the dog off but the animal was reluctant to back
off. Nash finally pulled the dog back by the collar and made him sit.

“What’s this?” Shane wanted to
know, pointing at the secret door.

Nash put his hands on his hips,
looking at the gaping hole. “That,” he said, “is a hidden passage that leads
down to a room underneath the house.  That’s why we had people from the State
of Louisiana out here today. No one has ever seen anything like this before.”

Shane was deeply curious. He went
to the door, looking closely at it without touching it. In fact, he didn’t want
to touch anything in this dilapidated old house that was in the furious process
of restoration. 

“Wow,” he said after several
moments. “That’s so cool. Can I go down there?”

Nash shook his head. “We’re going
to string some lights down there tomorrow, but right now, it’s pitch black. I’d
prefer you wait until tomorrow.”

Shane stuck his head into the
stairwell just to see what he could see, realizing that his father was right.
It was as black as tar down there. He wrinkled up his nose.

“It stinks down there,” he said.

As Nash, Shane and Beau went back
and forth about the crypt below the house, Elliot stood back and watched Beck.
The young man seemed to want to participate with the rest of his family but he
was still upset.  He wasn’t yet ready to be one of the gang again, still
disoriented over the entire situation. As Elliot debated whether or not to try
and speak to him, the front door opened again and she could hear her children’s
voices.  She went into the central hall, peering towards the entry.

“Hey, guys,” she greeted. “How
was the movie?”

Penelope was all dressed up for
her outing, even if it had been with her brother. She reckoned that all she
ever wore were running shorts or hoodies, so she jumped at the chance to dress
up. She was in tight jeans, a sexy shirt that showed off her slender torso, and
platform sandals.  Her hair was curled and she had taken the time to put on
make-up.

“It was blood, guts and aliens,”
she declared. “But it was fun.”

Elliot grinned as the pair made
their way back towards her. “Glad you had a good time,” she said. “We have
visitors.”

Penelope lifted her eyebrows.
“Who?”

“Nash’s sons.”

Neither Penelope or Alec seemed
particularly overjoyed, but they responded politely. They followed Elliot into
the dining room where everyone was gathered. Immediately, Beck and Shane looked
in the direction of the incoming group and in an instant, an odd and curious
ambiance filled the air. Elliot smiled at Nash’s boys as she introduced her
children.

“Alec and Penny, this is Beck and
Shane Aury,” she went through the pleasantries. “They came down for a visit. We
were just showing them the secret door.”

Penelope and Beck fixed on each
other right away.  Penelope smiled at the handsome oldest Aury boy and extended
her hand. “Hi,” she said, smiling prettily. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Beck was somewhat speechless as
he took her hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” he said, suddenly looking
uncomfortable yet strangely interested. He shook Alec’s hand but his gaze
inevitably moved back to Penelope. “Uh… how y’all like it here?”

Penelope turned on the charm. “I
love it,” she said. “I didn’t think I would, but this place kind of grows on
you.  What do you think of it?”

Beck actually smiled as he
glanced around the dining room. “It’s kind of creepy,” he admitted with a
chuckle.

Penelope giggled. “I wasn’t going
to say it first, but as long as you did, I agree with you.”

They laughed, Beck laughing
mostly because she was and he couldn’t help it.  Looking at her smile made him
want to smile, too. Wolfgang, hearing Penelope’s voice, trotted over to her and
she went to her knees beside the dog and hugged him.

“Here’s my beautiful boy,” she
crooned, kissing the dog’s snout.  She looked up happily at Beck. “So how long
are you and your brother going to stay? Are you going to show us a good time?”

Beck half-shrugged, half-nodded,
completely upswept in Penelope’s charms.  “Uh… yes,” he said. “Dad said y’all
didn’t know anyone so we thought we’d come down and show y’all around. Have you
been to New Orleans yet?”

Penelope’s face lit up. “Not
yet,” she said. “Nash said something about taking us there but, to tell you the
truth, I’d rather go with people my own age and not the old fogies.”

As Beck and Penelope shared a
laugh, Nash heard the comment and he looked at Elliot. “She means us,” he
pointed out.

Elliot grinned. “She means
you
,
Methuselah,” she teased. “I’m not that old yet.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “Let me
see,” he cocked his head. “If my math is correct, you had to at least be in
your early twenties when you had Penelope.”

“I was twenty-one.”

His eyebrows lifted. “She’s
nineteen, which makes you forty.”

“Forty-one, this past April.”

He seemed dramatically sad.
“You’re right,” he sighed. “You’re not an old-fogy yet.
I
am.”

She laughed softly. “You’re only
forty-something, right?”

“Forty-eight,” he said glumly.
“Forty-nine in November.”

She patted his cheek to comfort
him. “How’s that Geritol working out for you, Grandpa?”

“You’re a mean, mean woman.”

She laughed softly as they
returned their attention to the young people, now increasingly interested in
one another.  Shane and Alec were talking the nitty-gritty details of their
gaming interest while Penelope had Beck laughing at nearly everything she
said.  Elliot sighed faintly as she watched the pair.

“Thank God for Penny,” Elliot
muttered. “She’s saved the day.”

Nash watched his oldest son
warming to Elliot’s lovely daughter. “How could he possibly resist her?” he
gave Elliot a quick squeeze and kissed the top of her head. “She’s just like
her mother.”

The conversation eventually moved
out of the dining room, where no one made mention of the ghost that Elliot had
seen mostly because Elliot would kill any subject that seemed to drift in that
direction. Alec would take the news calmly but she doubted Penelope would.  For
tonight, they had enough on their minds with the addition of Beck and Shane
Aury without the added thought of the supernatural.

Gradually, they all moved into
the double parlors where Penelope talked Beck and Shane into playing a trivia
board game.  Beau, not wanting to make the drive back to Nash’s house, ended up
blowing up the two air mattresses and passing out on one of them in the small
bedroom above the kitchen. 

The young people played games in
the parlor long into the night as Nash and Elliot sat in the parlor with them,
cuddled up on one of Elliot’s couches, until Elliot fell asleep on him and Nash
made her get up and go to bed.

Beck ended up staying at
Purgatory that night.  When he woke up in the morning, his father was lying
right next to him, sound asleep on a makeshift bed of couch cushions.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sorrento Police called Nash early
Tuesday morning and asked if Penelope could come to the station to identify her
attackers in a line up.  After the blissful and surreal past couple of days
Nash and Elliot had experienced with each other, the house and with the kids,
Nash wasn’t any too excited about again bringing up the horrors that had
plagued them.  But the Loreau boys needed to either be charged with a crime or
released, so Nash broke the news to Elliot, who in turn broke the news to her
daughter.

Penelope was shaken but brave. 
As Elliot made a huge breakfast of egg casserole, pancakes and potatoes, Beck
and Shane caught on to Penelope’s distress and she told them what had happened.

Nash stood in the doorway between
the ballroom and the kitchen, coffee in hand as he listened to Penelope’s
story, casting a glance at Elliot now and again as the woman busied herself
over the stove. He could tell she was shaken, too.  He stepped into the
ballroom for some privacy as he called his office to let them know he’d be out
for the morning.

Elsewhere at Purgatory, Beau had
already been up for hours, supervising the installation of the new windows on
the front of the house.  The electrician was finishing with the wiring upstairs
while the plumber was plumbing a new downstairs half-bath that they were
building into a corner of the massive library to make it a sort of entry-cloak
room.  Hallie was supervising the interior work because, as a preservationist,
it was her job to make sure no original walls were removed or overtly disturbed
during the restoration.  She would follow the plumber around like a watchdog as
the man carefully lifted floorboards to lay pipes.

Upstairs, the plumber had more
men pulling out the pipes in the old bathrooms.  The goal was to keep as much
as the old fixtures, like the bathtubs, as they could, while replacing the old
copper shower enclosures with beautiful new tile. 

They had started on Elliot’s and
Alec’s bathrooms this morning the sounds upstairs were loud enough to wake the
dead. And speaking of the dead, Dr. Whitney and Dr. Clarke had returned at dawn
to resume their study of the crypt below. The old house, from a very early
hour, had been rocking with activity.

As the restoration of Purgatory
went on around them, the Aurys and the Jentrys crowded into the kitchen to
finish up breakfast before Penelope went down to the police station. In
watching the interaction between Beck and Penelope, Nash wasn’t surprised when
Beck asked Penelope if she would like for him to go with her to the police
station. In fact, he had expected it.  Penelope smiled sweetly at the offer.

“That’s so nice of you to ask,
but you really don’t need to,” she said. “It’s not going to be… well, very
pleasant, I guess. I really don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this
before.”

Beck wouldn’t be put off. “I
don’t mind,” he insisted. “I can come along and then when you’re finished,
maybe you’d like to take a drive along the River Road. There are some really
nice houses and some of them do tours.”

She perked up.  “Really? That
sounds great.”

Nash, listening to their
conversation, pushed himself off the door jamb and went to put his coffee cup
on the sink.

“Honey, are you going to go with
us to the station?” he asked Elliot.

She was spooning out the rest of
the egg casserole for Shane and Alec. “It’s up to Penny,” she said, looking at
her daughter. “Do you want me to go with you?”

Penelope nodded. “Yes,” she said
her features uncertain. “I’m kind of scared.”

Elliot smiled at her daughter and
went to set the dish down. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be ready.”

Nash watched her disappear up the
back stairs before pouring himself another cup of coffee.  The kids started
bringing their plates to the sink and Nash had Shane rinse everything off in
the big, old iron sink.  The fixtures were still old and more than once, water
sprayed up in Shane’s face.

“Dad,” he said after being hit in
the eye for the third time, causing him to leave the sink entirely. “I’m going
to take Alec up to Denham Springs. There’s a gaming place up there and we’re
going to play Xbox live.”

Before Nash could reply, Alec
spoke up. “Dude, that would be awesome,” he said sincerely. “I hate living like
a pioneer. I need my electronics.”

Nash wiped his hands off on a
paper towel. “Go ahead,” he said. “Drive carefully.”