American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (52 page)

A voice that wasn’t Will’s
answered.

“He can take what he wants.
That’s what we’re gonna do.”

Alec and Beck froze at the sound
of the voice as Ed Loreau suddenly appeared in the broken window, a rifle
pointed at Beck’s head. Ed smiled thinly.

“That treasure belongs to us for
all of the wrongs the Aurys ever committed against the Loreaus,” he told Beck.
“Drop that gun, boy.”

Beck wasn’t about to drop the
gun. “If you shoot me, I’ll shoot your brother before I hit the ground. Think
about it.”

“Then I’ll lose a brother, but
you’ll die.  Then I’ll take what I want from this house, including that sweet
little blond-headed girl.”

Infuriated, Alec let the dog go.
Wolfgang rushed Ed, knocking him to the ground and latching on to his neck. In
the chaos, Ed dropped his gun but Will also kicked up, knocking the rifle from
Beck’s hands. Beck wasn’t close enough to get Ed’s rifle as Will picked up the
gun and pointed it at Wolfgang.

Alec saw what was happening and
rushed Will. The rifle went off, the bullet winging the dog and Wolfgang yelped.
As Alec and Will wrestled for the gun, Beck picked up Ed’s gun and whacked Will
on the head with him, knocking him cold.

Wolfgang was still on top of Ed
with his jaws clamped on Ed’s neck. There was a big bloody spot by the dog’s
hind legs and Alec went to the dog, speaking gently to him to see how badly he
was injured. Throughout it all, Wolfgang had never let go of Ed, who was
conscious and frozen with panic. 

Beck, too, was looking at the
dog. He happened to glance down at Ed and make eye contact.

“I don’t know his release
command,” he said frankly. “You’ll have to wait until my dad gets here.”

Ed just made weird crying noises
and closed his eyes as the rain from the broken window blew onto his face. 
Alec bent over him and thumped him on the head.

“Where’s your other brother
Daryl, or whatever his name is?” he asked. “Is he going to jump out of the
walls with a gun now, too?”

Ed didn’t reply, but a soft voice
from behind them in the darkened central hallway did. More disembodied voices
in the darkness made both Alec and Beck jump.

“No, he’s not going to jump from
the walls,” the voice said.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Shane had locked the bathroom
door after Beck and Alec had left, turning to look at Elliot and Penelope
huddled on the floor.  Elliot was still talking to Nash, or at least, the line
was still open and on speaker. Nash didn’t want to hang up so they heard the
sirens and police radio on the other end of the phone as Nash raced the fifteen
miles or so home to Purgatory. Elliot drew comfort from it, at least for a few
minutes, until the bathroom door exploded when someone fired into the lock.

She screamed and dropped the
phone, cutting off the call. Elliot and Penelope dove for the protection of the
shower as a figure came through the door and whacked Shane across the temple
with the butt-end of a rifle. Elliot and Penelope screamed, covering their
heads as the cowered in the shower. 

Elliot was positive she was about
to be killed and she kept trying to cover Penelope’s body with her own, but Penelope
was working against her and trying to protect her pregnant mother with her own
slender body. 

They wept in fear, waiting for
the gunshots, but none were forthcoming. Elliot eventually peaked between her
splayed fingers to see what was going on. A cold wave of shock ran through her
as her eyes registered the sight.

Biffy Loreau was standing in the
bathroom, looking around at all of the new tile.  She had the rifle propped up
on her hip in a bizarrely casual gesture for someone who had just blown her way
into a room.

“It looks like something out of a
magazine,” she said, finally looking at Elliot and Penelope in the shower. “I
seen this bathroom once before, years ago. I used to know this house pretty
well. It all looks so different now.”

Elliot was terrified as she
watched the woman. “You… you know this house?” she repeated dumbly.

Biffy nodded. “Sure do,” she
said. “Only it ‘tweren’t like this when I knew it. It were different. Case’s
mama and daddy had this big bedroom up front and Case had the bedroom back
there.  He liked it ‘cuz he could look across the bayou to see me.”

Elliot had no idea what the woman
was talking about but she figured as long as she kept her talking, the less
likely the woman was to shoot her and her daughter in cold blood.

“Case Aury?” Elliot clarified.
“You knew Case?”

Biffy nodded, eyeing Elliot and
Penelope in the shower. She held out her hand. “Y’all come out of there,” she
said. “I hear y’all is pregnant, Ms. Aury. It ain’t good for you in there. Come
on out.”

Penelope moved first, slowly and
unsteadily, pulling her mother out behind her. Elliot’s pajamas didn’t conceal
her rounded belly and Biffy alternately eyed the belly, the bathroom, and
Elliot.

“Back when I was a young girl,
Case Aury and I had eyes for each other,” she said after a moment. “Case was
older than I was. I was just a girl of thirteen or so. Case was supposed to
marry Jewel le Blanc but he loved me instead. His mama and daddy made him leave
me alone, but not before I got pregnant with Femmie.”

Elliot’s eyes widened. “Case Aury
was Femmie’s father?”

Biffy nodded as if it was no
great revelation. She was very matter of fact about it. “Did Nash never tell y’all
that?”

Elliot was shocked. “No, he
didn’t.”

Biffy shrugged. “He probably
didn’t know,” she said, disgust and sadness in her tone now. “The Aurys were an
uppity bunch. They didn’t want anyone to know that Case got a Loreau girl
pregnant.  It would have shamed their high and mighty family. They gave me some
money so I wouldn’t tell anyone, and Case went on to marry Jewel and had Nash’s
daddy shortly thereafter.”

Elliot’s mouth was hanging open.
She suddenly wasn’t so afraid anymore, for reasons she couldn’t explain. “So
Nash and Femmie….?”

“Femmie was Nash’s uncle,” Biffy
was back to being matter of fact. “Will ‘n Ed ‘n Nicky are Nash’s cousins.”

Elliot had to make a conscious
effort to close her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she looked at Biffy seriously. “Do
your grandsons know that?”

Biffy shook her head. “Naw, they
don’t know,” she said. “When the Aurys gave us the money, we hushed up. My mama
wouldn’t even let me tell Femmie. She was afraid the Aurys would take the money
back, so I raised Femmie without the Aury name. I never had a choice ‘bout it.”

Elliot was starting to feel very
sorry for the woman
. No wonder she’s such an angry bitch all the time
.
“I’m so sorry to hear that they treated you that way,” she said seriously.
“That wasn’t right.”

Biffy eyed Elliot to see if she
was sincere, torn between anger and gratitude.  “No, it ain’t,” she finally
said. “That’s why we come here tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because we heard about the
treasure. We’re family, too. It should belong to us, too.”

Elliot couldn’t really disagree
with her. She thought hard on her next course of action, hoping it could get
her and the kids out of this situation and perhaps right an old wrong in the
process.  The terrifying night was taking an odd turn.

“Ms. Biffy,” she began. “If what
you say is true, and I don’t have any reason to not believe you, then I think
you should be entitled to a share of the Purgatory horde.  Nash and I are going
to donate most of it, but I don’t have a problem with sharing some of it with
you. Maybe you could sell it and fix up The Bottoms, and have money for your
grandsons to go to school or build their own homes.  I seriously don’t have any
problem sharing it. But you didn’t have to break in here tonight and scare us
all to death.”

Biffy looked at her with
surprise. “Y’all… y’all is willing to give us our due?”

Elliot nodded. “I’m sure Nash
will agree once he’s heard your story,” she said. “But for now, can you please
call your grandsons off if they are the ones who shot out my windows? I don’t
want them to hurt my boys.”

Biffy still looked dubious, but
she seemed shocked more than anything. The evening wasn’t turning out exactly
as she envisioned it, but that wasn’t an entirely bad thing. Elliot took the
lead, trying to give the stand-off some direction.

“Let’s go downstairs and talk
about this, okay?” she said. “I’ll even show you what we’ve found so far.”

Biffy thought on the offer,
slowly nodding her head. Elliot took her still-terrified daughter by the hand
and together, they went to Shane, who was starting to come around. 

Penelope put cold water on a
cloth and wiped it over his face, trying to bring him to some level of
consciousness. Elliot watched her daughter tend the young man and thought it
might be a very good idea to leave those two behind, safe from the Loreaus who
seemed to be infiltrating the house. She wanted to keep them out of the line of
fire.

“Penny, you stay with Shane,” she
instructed. “I’m going to take Ms. Biffy downstairs.”

Penelope shook her head
frantically but Elliot countered calmly. “Yes, please. Shane needs you right
now. I’ll be fine.”

She could hear Penelope’s soft
weeping as she left the room and led Biffy into the upper hall. She was about
to say something to the women when she heard a gun go off downstairs. Startled,
she started to run, with tubby Biffy trying to keep pace with her, taking the
stairs quickly and running towards the sound of a scuffle.  

As they approached the library,
she heard Alec ask about the other Loreau brother.  Biffy was behind her,
seeing the situation that her grandsons had gotten themselves into, and she
responded to Alec’s question.

“No, he’s not going to jump out
of the walls,” she said, watching a pair of startled faces turn to her. “Nicky
didn’t make it tonight.  But I did, and I just had an interesting chat with
your mama.”

“Mam!” Will cried. “Tell ‘em to
pull the dog off!”

Biffy took a few steps forward to
see more clearly in the darkness that Wolfgang had Ed pinned and she looked at
Elliot, enraged.

“I’m gonna shoot that dog!” she
hollered.

“No!” Elliot rushed forward,
calling to the dog. “Wolfgang, no! Alec, get him off of that man!”

Alec went to Wolfgang and pulled
and yanked the dog back, finally able to force the pooch to release his hold.
Wolfgang allowed Alec to pull him away as Ed sat up, rubbing his neck.  There
was blood on his hands.

“That dog bit me!” he declared.
“I’m gonna kill it!”

Elliot threw out her hands to all
parties concerned. “No one is killing that dog,” she said firmly. “He was just
protecting the house. If you hadn’t come around shooting out my windows and
breaking in, he would have never attacked you.  So nobody is shooting that dog.
Got it?”

Biffy still stood in the library
entry, rifle in hand, eyeing the dog next to Alec who was now licking the wound
on his hindquarters. Realizing she probably wouldn’t get what she wanted if she
shot the dog, she turned away from the animal and moved into the library. 

As the rain pounded and
occasional lightning lit up the room, Biffy could see what a beautiful room it
was. As Elliot moved for Alec and Beck to make sure they were all right, Biffy
moved for Ed and Will, sitting up on the floor with blood on them.

“Ms. Biffy,” Elliot finally said
to the woman, her arms around Alec and Beck. “It makes a lot of sense now why
the Loreaus are the way they are. Your family history and the history of the
Aurys is so deeply intertwined that it’s nearly the same. I realize that saying
sorry doesn’t make it better but I think in this case, actions speak louder
than words, although I sincerely wish you all hadn’t broken in here tonight.
I’m not sure how Nash is going to take it.”

Biffy looked down at her grandsons,
bloodied and beaten. She sighed faintly.

“Them boys was only doin’ what I
told ‘em to do,” she moved in front of the big window that faced out over the
driveway, inspecting Nash’s antique desk. “Whatever hate they have has come
from me. My hate has come from generations of Loreaus who thought they’d been
wronged.”

“What do you think now?” Elliot
asked softly.  “Ms. Biffy, I’d be happy to welcome you into the family. It
sounds like you belong here as much as the rest of us.”

Biffy wasn’t quite sure what to
say to that. She looked down at Will and Ed, who were gazing up at their
grandma with an expression between resentment and curiosity. Biffy just shook
her head after a moment.

“I don’t know what I think,” she
said quietly. “But I do know that I’ve missed this house and I’ve missed Case.
I’ve missed him all these years. Can I get a look at that back bedroom just one
more time? It’s where I conceived Femmie, ya know.”

Elliot smiled faintly. “If you
put that gun down, I’ll show you the whole house.”