American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (48 page)

Elliot went downstairs, wanting
to speak with Dr. Whitney to find out who had leaked word of the discovery to
the press. She and Nash hadn’t talked about announcing the find, so she hoped
that Dr. Whitney hadn’t jumped the gun. She wasn’t sure they were ready to
announce everything to the world yet, for a myriad of reasons.

As she approached the dining
room, she spied Dr. Clarke at her kitchen table with a young girl.  Both were
buried in papers and laptop computers. Elliot stuck her head into the kitchen.

“Dr. Clarke?” she said. “I just
saw something on the news about Purgatory. You didn’t tell anyone about what’s
going on here, did you?”

Dr. Clarke looked up from
Sophie’s journal, removing her reading glasses as she did. “Not at all,” she
looked concerned. “You saw it on the news?”

Elliot nodded.  “Right now,” she
said. “There was a reporter outside the gates doing a story.”

Dr. Clarke immediately got up
from the table and went to find Dr. Whitney. Elliot stood at the top of the
secret steps as Dr. Clarke descended into the crypt and she could hear her
exchanging words with Dr. Whitney. Suddenly, Dr. Whitney seemed very agitated
and she could clearly hear him when he demanded to know from the group gathered
in the crypt who had notified the press. 

Elliot descended the narrow
stairs, peering into the crypt about the time Dr. Whitney was having a stern
conversation with one of the grad students, a young girl who looked terrified. 

As Elliot stayed on the steps and
watched, the story seemed to come out; apparently, the girl had mentioned the
find to her roommate, who happened to work for the local news station up in
Baton Rouge. Even though the girl insisted she had told her friend not to tell
anyone, it appeared as if her friend hadn’t kept her part of the bargain. 

Dr. Whitney yelled at the girl,
reducing her to tears, as Elliot went back up the steps and headed for her
bedroom.  She needed to tell Nash.

He picked up on the second ring
this time. “Don’t tell me that you’re cancelling our lunch date,” he said as he
answered. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

She grinned. “I only called you a
half-hour ago.”

“Don’t spoil my fun.”

She giggled. “Actually, I’m
calling you about something that’s going to spoil your fun a whole lot more. 
It seems that one of Dr. Whitney’s grad students leaked our find to the press.
I saw a story on it about five minutes ago and there are news vans in front of
the house. I really don’t feel comfortable leaving right now. If the media
starts banging down the door for a story, one of us should be here.”

“What?” he sounded genuinely
shocked, hinting at anger. “Hold on… let me turn my television on and see if
there’s anything on about it.”

She waited patiently while he
turned on the television.  She could hear chatter in the background as he
flipped channels.

“Hold on, honey,” he told her.
“Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t.”

She could hear him talking to
someone else in his office, telling them to find out what they could about news
on Purgatory. Elliot stayed on the phone with him, going to the great front
window of the bedroom that overlooked the driveway to see if she could see any
more news activity. So far, it was still quiet in her driveway, another mild
September day outside. She stood there for several minutes, listening to Nash
on the other end of the phone as he spoke with people in his office.

Suddenly, he was back.

“I’m coming home,” he told her.
“It seems that the major news stations have picked this up and one of my aides
just saw a story with my name attached.  I’ll be home as quick as I can.”

Elliot’s brow furrowed. “Why?
It’s not like they’re storming the gates, sweetie. I can hold down the fort for
awhile.”

Nash sighed. “It’s not that easy,
honey. The news outlets that my people have seen so far are mentioning millions
of dollars in discovered pirate treasure, which means we’re going to have all
sorts of people trying to overrun the property trying to catch a glimpse of it.
Maybe even thieves. Anyway, I’ll be home shortly but I’m calling the police in
the meanwhile to keep the peace.”

Elliot didn’t like the sound of
that. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to,”
Nash said.  He was already up from his desk and gathering his keys. “Just stay
in the house and keep Wolfgang with you.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding
uneasy. “Don’t break your neck driving home. I’ll be fine until you get here.”

“I’m on my way. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The phone went dead and Elliot
set it back down on the nightstand. She could hear Wolfgang barking outside so
she changed from the flowing top and leggings and into stretchy black Capri
pants and a white top that showed off her growing belly.  With white tennis shoes
on her feet, she went back downstairs and out the kitchen door, heading towards
the dog run where Wolfgang was making a racket.

He was a happy dog when he saw
Elliot, sitting patiently as she opened the run and put his leash on. Oddly,
for as excited as the dog could get, he never pulled on the leash, so Elliot
was able to walk him around without getting her arms pulled from their
sockets. 

Elliot walked him across the
yard, skirting the trenching area that had a few students working on it today.
The students waved to her and to Wolfgang, and she allowed the dog to go over
and receive some love. Then she continued around to the front of the house,
walking the dog around the big fountain and peering down the long driveway to
see if she could see the news vans parked outside. 

The driveway was easily a quarter
of a mile long so she began to walk the dog down the tree-shrouded driveway,
Spanish moss hanging heavy and moist in the branches. Wolfgang walked happily
by her side, his big tongue hanging out as they made their way towards the
gates. 

As they drew close, she could see
a portion of a van parked across the street with its aerial up. She could also
see some people congregating near the gates, who turned suddenly when one of
them pointed at Elliot. Immediately, the media and spectators were clamoring at
the gates and Wolfgang started to go crazy, savagely barking at the people who
seemed to back off at the sight of the vicious dog.

“Ms. Jentry!” they were calling
to her. “Comments on the pirate’s treasure, Ms Jentry?”

Elliot had never seen such a
circus. It was a little shocking, to tell the truth. There were at least twenty
people congregated around her front gates and she shook her head.

“No comment,” she told them. “I’m
sure Commissioner Aury will make a statement when he returns. He’ll be here
shortly.”

“Ms. Jentry!” they were still
calling to her.  “Can you tell us about the bodies beneath the house?”

Elliot listened to the shouted
questions, wondering just how much the media already knew. She began to
silently curse the girl with the loose lips. A little fearful of the clamor and
the fact that Wolfgang was going crazy, she turned to go back to the house and
pulled the dog with her.  Just as she made her move, someone threw a bottle at
the front gate, sending liquid and glass spraying all over her.

Elliot screamed as it hit her in
the shoulder and the side of her face. Her eyes stung with whatever was in the
liquid and she panicked until she realized it was some kind of alcohol. She
could hear shouting.

“Y’all are thievin’ wretches!”
someone was screaming. “It don’t belong to y’all! That’s
our
treasure!”

Still cowering, Elliot took
several steps away from the gate, wiping at the liquid all over her face and
neck and realizing there were glass shards. She stopped wiping for fear she
would grind them into her skin, all the while looking to see who tossed the
bottle.  She could hear more cackling and yelling, and the squeal of rubber as
a car drove away at high speed.

 Frightened, covered in alcohol,
she quickly turned and made her way back up the driveway as the media people
yelled behind her.

By the time she hit the house,
she was weeping. Dr. Clarke and her young assistant happened to be in the
dining room at the time, taking a break to admire the hand-painted wall paper
and heard her come in. Concerned, Dr. Clarke stuck her head out of the dining
room in time to see Elliot flying up the stairs, crying, with the dog on her
heels.  Dr. Clarke ran after her.

“Ms. Aury!” she called, climbing
the stairs behind her. “Ms. Aury, what happened?”

She could hear Elliot crying in
her bedroom and she followed the sound. Peeking her head inside the open
bedroom door, she could see that the big dog was sitting outside of the master
bathroom, looking curiously at Dr. Clarke as she timidly entered the room.  Dr.
Clarke proceeded to the bathroom to find Elliot trying to strip off wet and
glass-covered clothes.

“Oh, my God,” Dr. Clarke rushed
into the bathroom, preventing Elliot from cutting herself as she tried to remove
her clothing. “Honey, let me do this for you. You just stand still and I’ll
pull it off. What happened?”

Elliot was a mess. “Someone threw
a bottle of alcohol and it shattered on the front gate,” she sobbed. “It got
all over me.”

Dr. Clarke gingerly peeled off
the white top. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “Come on, now; get your
shoes off and get into the shower so we can get all of this off of you.”

Dr. Clarke’s soothing demeanor
helped Elliot tremendously.  The woman helped Elliot peel all of her clothing
off and turned the shower on for her.  Elliot washed everything away and then
some, making sure all of the glass and the booze were gone. By the time she got
out of the shower, she was calmer but still upset. Her stomach was roiling to
boot and her nausea was making a return.   She wrapped up in a towel and, at
Dr. Clarke’s direction, went to sit on the bed so the woman could check her for
any more glass or injury.

Broken glass had cut her
collarbone but that was about it. No shards got embedded anywhere else,
thankfully, and Elliot let Dr. Clarke put some ointment and a bandage on her
collarbone.  Exhausted and ill, Elliot changed into a flowing white nightgown
and lay down on the bed. She reached her hand out to Dr. Clarke.

“Thank you,” she murmured
sincerely, clutching the woman’s fingers. “That was very sweet of you.”

Dr. Clarke smiled and squeezed
her hand before letting it go. “Would you like something to drink? How about
some tea, honey?”

Elliot shook her head. “No,
thanks,” she said. “I just want to lay here for awhile. My husband will be home
soon.”

Dr. Clarke left her alone with
the big dog lying at the foot of the bed. She and her wide-eyed assistant went
back to work in the kitchen, continuing their study of Sophie’s pristine
journal. As the clock neared noon, they heard a car pull up outside and a car
door slam. 

Suddenly, the front door was
flying back on its hinges and Commissioner Aury was storming into the house,
flying up the self-supporting staircase in his determination to get to his
wife.  She could hear the man’s voice upstairs, full of concern.

Someone must have told him what
had happened
,
she thought. Dr. Clarke returned her focus to the journal before her. She
couldn’t help but wonder what more was going to happen to this family, and this
house, now that the treasure of Purgatory had become national news.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Thursday, the cavalry arrived.

Penelope, Beck and Shane had come
during a cloudy mid-afternoon, fully expecting to house-sit for the weekend but
being told by a distressed Nash that the situation had changed. Elliot hadn’t
wanted the kids to know about the bottle being thrown the day before because
she didn’t want to worry them, especially Penelope.  Nash quietly told them
what had happened when they arrived on Thursday. As he knew, Penelope ran to
find her mother to make sure she was alright.

Elliot was in the kitchen, a
surprising place for her to be considering how volatile her stomach was.  She
was slow-cooking some beef brisket, Alec’s favorite, and the thick smell of
barbeque filled the house. She seemed to be able to handle the smell of
barbeque but still not chicken. Nash went into the kitchen with Penelope while
Shane and Beck went into the ballroom to hang out with Alec.