Read American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory for Free Online Page B

the hall to the winding staircase. She
put candles intermittently down the stairs and one near the foot of the stairs
to light up the dark central hall, then moved to the ballroom that was big and
dark with its forbidding shadows.
    The floor to ceiling windows were
still covered with old newspaper, blocking out the moonlight. She stood there a
moment, envisioning the room as it must have been two hundred years ago when
pirates and beautiful women graced the floors. So little of the house had been
touched by modern hands that it was very easy to envision it as it once had
been. 
    The kitchen already had a lamp so
she moved to the library in the front of the house, placing two candles in the
hearth to give the room some light. Just as she was moving into the dining
room, she heard a soft knock on the front door.
    Curious, and with candle in hand,
she went to the front door and threw the bolt. Jerking open the sticky panel,
the first thing that hit her was the smell of barbeque. The rich flavor of
molasses and spice hit her like a smack to the nose. In the darkness, she could
see two big paper bags and the hands holding them. Lifting the candle, she was
met by a friendly, familiar face.
    “Hi,” Nash said.
    Elliot realized that she was
extremely pleased to see the man. “Hi yourself,” she grinned, nodding her head
towards the bags in his hands. “I have to tell you something.”
    “What?”
    “I’m going to rob you of the food
you’re carrying.”
    He laughed softly. “I figured as
much,” he said. “It occurred to me that you have no stove, and probably no way
to cook anything, and even if you did, you probably don’t know where any of the
supermarkets are around here. So I thought I’d save you the trouble and bring
you and your son some dinner.”
    Her smile broadened and she
opened up the door wide so he could come in.  “Is the state budget so bad that
the local sheriff has to moonlight as a delivery boy?”
    He laughed again. “It’s not that
bad, at least not yet,” he looked around. “Do you have someplace where you want
to sit and eat this?”
    “Absolutely,” she moved in to the
double parlors, lit by the screaming-white bright light, and began to pull
boxes off the buried coffee table. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this.
It’s really sweet of you.”
    He set the bags down as she
cleared the table. “No problem at all,” he said. “I’m glad to do it.”
    “Will you stay and eat with us?”
she began peering into the bags. “It looks like you have enough food here for
an army.”
    “Sure,” he said. “If you’re sure
there’s enough.”
    Elliot went to her knees beside
the coffee table and began pulling out Styrofoam containers.
    “There’s plenty,” she assured
him, inhaling deeply. “It smells fantastic.”
    Nash started to reply but the
sound of thunder suddenly stopped him. Something was thumping across the
ceiling over their heads, moving for the stairs and making a lot of noise on
the creaky old planks. They could hear Alec making his way towards the smell of
the food.
    “Oh, my God,” the young man ended
up in the doorway from the entry hall, taking a deep sniff of the air. “I
smelled that all the way upstairs. That’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled in
my life.”
    Nash grinned as Elliot held out a
container to her son that was loaded with barbecued ribs. “Thank the Sheriff,”
she told him. “He brought the feast.”
    Alec grabbed the container and
snatched a rib, taking a big, juicy bite.  He looked like a man who had just
fallen in love.
    “Thanks, dude,” he said to Nash,
mouth full. “You’re the best. This is awesome.”
    “That’s Sheriff Dude to you,”
Elliot lifted her eyebrows at her son.  “At least pretend you have some
manners.”
    Alec grinned at Nash. “Sorry,” he
said, taking another bite. “I call everyone ‘dude’. Even my mother.”
    Nash chuckled. “No problem,” he
said. “I only make people I don’t like call