American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory by Kathryn Le Veque Read Free Book Online Page B

hear that. How old are your boys?”
    “Twenty two and eighteen,” he
replied.  “My oldest is in grad school and my youngest will enter his first
year of college in the fall.”
    “Are either of them going in to
law enforcement like the three generations of Aury men before them?”
    His grin returned. “Maybe Shane,”
he replied. “He’s my youngest. He wants to go through the academy when he
graduates, but my oldest, Beck, is in law school and wants to be a prosecutor.”
    Elliot grinned because he was; he
seemed to warm up when speaking of his sons. “They sound like ambitious young
men,” she said. “Congratulations.”
    His grin broadened and they
entered into yet another of those warm and awkward moments until a shout from
the rear of the house brought them both to their feet. 
    Elliot bolted before Nash could
stop her and they raced to the rear of the house, into the kitchen, where Alec
was wielding a lamp base like a weapon and unlocking the back door. He yanked
the door open, peering into the blackness beyond, and held the lamp up like a
club as Nash reached him.
    “Hold on,” Nash grabbed the lamp.
“What happened?”
    Alec was tense with adrenalin. “I
saw a face in the window looking at me from the outside,” he said. “There’s
somebody out here.”
    Nash was much cooler than Alec
was.  He pulled the lamp out of the young man’s hands and set it aside.
    “Stay with your mother,” he told
him. “I’ll go outside and have a look around.”
    Alec opened his mouth to protest
but Elliot pulled him back, away from the door.  Nash pulled his standard
police-issue Maglight out of the holster on the left side of his Sam Browne
belt and turned on the brilliant beam, shining it out into the overgrown
bramble beyond. He stepped outside, taking a good long look.
    “Close the door behind me and
lock it,” he told the pair. “I’ll be back.”
    Alec closed the door and threw
the old bolt. Then he went the windows and began to follow Nash as the man
wandered around the exterior of the house.
    “What did the face look like?”
Elliot wanted to know.
    Alec was peering from one of the
kitchen windows, peeling back the old newspaper to watch Nash. 
    “I don’t really know,” he
shrugged. “Just a pair of eyes and a face, like an old man’s face. It was
really fast and then it was gone.”
    Elliot thought on that a moment
before heading into the central entry hall where three big pillar candles
burned on the staircase. They gave off a surprising amount of light and she
collected one, carrying it with her into the ballroom. Alec was already there,
peeling back layers of newspaper from other windows so he could watch Nash
prowl about.  
    Together, Elliot and Alec watched
Nash as he made his way through the vast back gardens, his flashlight the only
source of light in an otherwise very dark night. They also noticed a peppering
of fireflies, something Alec had never seen before. He watched the glowing
speckles float through the darkness, lighting up the bayou with their eerie
glow.
    “Look at the fireflies,” he
commented. “Those are pretty cool.”
    Elliot watched Nash’s silhouette
against the darkness. “Yes, they are,” she said, though she didn’t sound like
she meant it.  She was more concerned with Nash and the prowler. “We’re going
to have to get some dogs to patrol this house. It’s such a large piece of land.
I really didn’t think about security, but after what Nash told us today and
after what you saw tonight, it looks like we’re going to have to protect our
land.”
    Alec wasn’t distressed about the
dogs. “Cool,” he said. “We can go to the local pound and get a pack of them.”
    Elliot wriggled her eyebrows,
watching as Nash’s flashlight drew nearer to the house. They could also hear
his sheriff’s radio crackling as he spoke to dispatch.
    “I don’t know about a pack, but
at least two or three,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll go and take a