American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (15 page)

“Are you married?” she asked.

Beau nodded. “Twenty-seven years
and counting.”

“Kids?”

“Two boys, all grown up.”

She wriggled her eyebrows. “Two
boys just like your brother,” she commented. “Where do you live?”

“Just over the state line in
Mississippi, in a town called Bay St. Louis,” he told her. “My company is based
there.”

“Nash told me that you run your
own company,” she commented. “So you dropped everything to come to Sorrento to
help some woman you don’t even know because your brother says so?”

“He’s bigger than I am. Plus, he
carries a gun.” He grinned as Elliot laughed. “Besides, once he moves to Baton
Rouge and goes to work for the state police commission, I might never see him
again. He’ll be swallowed up by the state capitol when they find out how great
he is.”

Elliot’s smile faded as his words
sank in. “State Police Commission?” she repeated, confused.

Beau nodded, obviously proud.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” he said. “Didn’t he tell you? He’s going to Baton
Rouge.”

Elliot’s smile was gone
completely. “No, he didn’t,” she said, wondering why she suddenly felt sick in
the pit of her stomach. “So he’s leaving?”

“Just to Baton Rouge,” he
replied. “It’s not far from here, only about thirty miles or so.”

Elliot let the subject drop,
mostly because she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Nash had made it seem
like he wanted something with her long term, but perhaps she had been
misreading his signals. He had a government job waiting for him in September,
so perhaps all he really wanted was a summer fling before he took off for the
state capitol. Perhaps she had been reading too much into everything.

Embarrassed, confused and
slightly hurt, she returned her attention to her children, who were now peering
into their closed hands, looking at the fireflies at close range.

“Are you staying in town
tonight?” she asked Beau.

He shook his head. “I’ll be here
through the week,” he said. “I’ll stay with my brother and go home for the
weekend.”

She looked at him. “Are you sure
you have nothing else going on that you can just drop everything to work on
this house?”

His grin returned. “Actually,
we’re working on a five million dollar lobby renovation for one of the casinos
in Biloxi,” he told her. “I have project managers to handle that.  Being here
at Purgatory is something I really want to do.”

Elliot simply smiled in response,
not having much else to say to that.  She ended up wandering outside with Beau
in tow, avoiding the area that had been covered with crime scene tape earlier
in the day, and finding Alec and Penelope as they lingered near the bayou’s
edge and more fireflies. Both young people were several feet away from Elliot
and Beau, trying to catch handfuls of fireflies without falling into the bayou.

“He doesn’t seem to have suffered
any ill effects from yesterday,” Beau commented quietly.

Elliot shook her head. “Not
really, except he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said. “Who can
blame him?”

Beau nodded his head in
understanding. “Do you know what’s going to happen now?”

Elliot shrugged. “Nash said that
the Sorrento Police have concluded it was all in self-defense and are closing
the case. But I’d sure like to know who attacked my son.”

Beau didn’t reply. If she didn’t
know, he certainly wasn’t going to tell her. He wondered if Nash was going to.
Given the history between the Aurys and the Loreaus, he was going to have to
tell her something if only to prepare her. Oblivious to Beau’s thoughts, Elliot
wandered closer to her frolicking children.  

“We need to figure out what to do
for dinner, guys,” Elliot called to them. “Obviously, I can’t cook, so where do
you want to eat?”

Alec was leaping into the air to
catch fireflies, his lanky body flailing around. “How about more alligator
ribs?”

Penelope immediately vetoed the
idea. “Gross!” she exclaimed. “What other restaurants are around here?”

“I saw a restaurant called Mama’s
on the corner over by the highway,” Elliot said. “There’s also a McDonald’s and
a….”

She was cut off by a big splash
of water followed by a shout from her son.  Alec grabbed his sister and bolted
away from the water’s edge, howling as if he’d been scared out of his wits. 
Because he was howling, Penelope was screaming.  Elliot watched the pair of
them crash into each other and nearly fall to the ground as they tried to move
away from the water’s edge.

“What in the world are you two
doing?” she demanded.

“There was an alligator on the
shore!” Alec exclaimed. “It was right by my feet!”

Penelope was laughing hysterically
by now, slapping at her panicked brother.  Both kids were giggling
uncontrollably as Beau cautiously made his way to the water’s edge and looked
around.

“Ya’ll need to be more careful,”
he said, turning to the kids with a grin. “There are alligators in this bayou
and they like to come ashore. There used to be a fence to keep them from
getting into the yard, but that has long since collapsed. You might want to
think about putting up another one.”

Elliot looked somewhat
horrified.  “Really?” she didn’t like the sound of alligators in her yard.
“Well, that’s one more thing I’m going to have to worry about now - alligators
skulking around my house.”

Beau laughed softly, shoving his
hands in his pockets as he took one last look at the water and wandered back in
her direction.  Just as he turned to say something to her, something caught his
attention over her right shoulder, back near the house. The smile vanished from
his face.

Elliot saw his expression and
naturally turned around to see what had him so serious.  She immediately spied
three men over by the side yard where all of the police caution tape had been
up.  They were kicking around the bramble as if looking for something.

“Hey!” Beau called, moving in
their direction. “What are y’all doing here?”

Elliot had no idea who the men
were other than that they were trespassing.  She motioned for her kids to stay
where they were as she followed Beau over to the wandering men. Having received
no answer to his initial question, Beau snapped again.

“Hey!” he barked. “What are y’all
doing?”

The men were still kicking around
in the former crime scene but one of them looked up as Beau and Elliot
approached. He was a skinny man, in his thirties, with long stringy hair, a
John Deere baseball cap, and dirty clothing.  When he spoke, it was with
yellowed teeth.

“Looking for anything my pappy
left behind,” he snapped back. “What are y’all doin’ here? You don’t own this
place no more.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Elliot could
sense the hostilities and she was instantly on edge. “I do. What do you want?”

The man’s dark gaze lingered on
her and Elliot immediately felt dirty just by the way he looked at her.  When
he smiled, it was gross and lascivious.

“Well,” his voice was
considerably softer. “You’re the new neighbor?”

Elliot nodded. “What do you
want?”

The man stopped kicking around
the bramble and took a couple of steps towards her. By this time, the other two
men, both of them younger with varied degrees of mullets and dirty clothing,
also noticed Elliot.

“My pappy was killed here this
afternoon,” he pointed to the spot where the body had once laid. “Someone
killed him but the po-
lice
won’t tell us who.  He was murdered next to y’all’s
house.”

Elliot immediately went on her
guard. She didn’t like the look, smell or ambiance of these men and, frankly,
she was frightened.  She didn’t want to provoke a confrontation but she wanted
these men off her property.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man smiled, a nauseating
gesture. “I’m Will Loreau,” he said, pointing to the other men with him. “These
are my brothers, Ed and Nicky. What’s y’all’s name, sweet thang?”

Elliot avoided the question that
made her skin crawl. “Look, I’m not trying to be rude, but I don’t like people
wandering around on my property. I’d be very happy if you’d leave.”

Will’s smile faded somewhat. “My
grandma said y’all was unfriendly,” he said. “She said y’all wouldn’t come ‘n
visit.”

Elliot kept her cool. “She asked
me to come over the day I moved in. I was very busy. I’m sorry she didn’t
understand that.”

Will simply nodded faintly,
dragging his eyes all over her bosom.  Elliot resisted the urge to put her
hands over her chest to cover herself up. When the man was finished molesting
her with his eyes, he pointed to the ground again.

“What happened to my pappy?” he
asked.

Elliot glanced at Beau, who was
as taut and serious as she had ever seen the man. He met her gaze and she
didn’t like the apprehension she saw. She endeavored to once again persuade the
men to leave before things got ugly.

“You’ll have to ask the police,” she
said. “Will you please leave now? I would appreciate it.”

Will turned on her and so did the
others.  They all seemed to be moving closer and Elliot resisted the urge to
back away.  She instinctively new they were trying to intimidate her and she
wasn’t going to let them. She had to stand up for herself.

“I think I’d like to get to know
ya’ll better,” Will said. “What’s your name?”

They were coming and coming,
closer and closer, and Elliot finally had to back up because Will was almost up
against her.  She could smell his body odor and foul breath from where she
stood.  Fear surged in her chest.

“I’m your neighbor and that’s all
you need to know,” she said. “If you and your brothers don’t get off my
property right now, I’m going to call the police. It’s your choice.”

Will was still smiling at her,
only this time, he reached out a hand to touch her.  Elliot jumped back and
smacked the hand away as hard as she could.

“Alec!” she yelled. “Go call the
cops!”

Will and his brothers just
laughed, but now, they were moving to box both her and Beau in. Will reached up
another hand.

“Don’t be afraid, sweet thang,”
he crooned. “I won’t hurt ya.”

Elliot swung hard at the hand
coming at her, knocking it away.  Another one was coming up and she slapped at
that one, too.  She shoved Beau away, hoping it would give the man a head start
in running for the house, when a shot gun blast suddenly ripped through the
air.

It was loud, startling and
frightening. The Loreau brothers came to a shocked halt, everyone turning in
the direction of the house. Nash stood on the porch with Alec and Penelope standing
fearfully behind him, a 12-gauge shotgun in his hand. He looked as deadly
serious as Elliot had ever seen him, cocking the gun with one hand and pumping
out the spent shells in a very cowboy-like maneuver. It was absolutely surreal.

“If you boys take another step in
her direction, this shotgun is aimed at your head,” he rumbled. “She asked you
to leave. If you want to keep your heads and your health, y’all will do as she
says. Get off the property and don’t come back.”

Ed and Nicky immediately backed
away but Will was slower to move. Furious, he pointed to the spot several feet
away where his father had been killed.

“My pappy was murdered here,” he
shouted at Nash. “She knows who done it!”

Nash stepped off the porch,
slinging the shotgun in his right hand in such a way that it was aimed at Ed
and Nicky. With the pellet radius of the blast, he could take out both of them
in one shot if they made a move he didn’t like.

“She didn’t kill him if that’s
what you mean,” he said.  “Your pappy made an unprovoked attack against someone
who accidentally killed him in self-defense. What did you think was going to
happen when he came over here armed with a hatchet? Are y’all as stupid as he
was?”

Will was so angry that he was
shaking. He began pointing at the house, at Elliot, and anything else around
him as if he couldn’t control his movements.

“He was walkin’ the woods looking
for critters,” he fired back. “There’s no law against huntin’!”

“There are laws against
trespassing, which was exactly what he was doing,” Nash had managed to put
himself between Elliot and Will. The gun barrel remained trained on the Loreau
brothers. “Your father attacked an unarmed man with the intent to kill.  What happened
to him is just what he deserved. Now, get off this property before they have to
take you off in a body bag.  If I ever see you here again, I’m going to assume
you’re hostile and shoot to kill. And if I ever see you near this woman and her
children again, in any way, shape or form, you’ll wish you were dead because I
will make your life a living hell. Do you understand me?”

Will foamed and grumbled, backing
away when his brother’s began to pull at him. It was a battle they couldn’t win
and they knew it.  Nash Aury was as tough as they came and not even the foolish
Loreau brothers were stupid enough to tangle with him.  Still, Will couldn’t
let it go. Even as he was walking away, he was shouting.