Chapter 7 - The Nurse's Tale
Mill Street was a narrow, unlit road lined with small, wooden miner's cottages built during the coal boom of the 1920s.
I found the house with the blue porch at the end of the cul-de-sac. Snow had drifted onto the wooden steps, but a single warm light burned behind the sheer curtains of the front window.
I parked my truck around the corner, walked up to the blue porch, and knocked firmly three times on the wooden door.
A moment later, a curtain twitched. An eye peered out at me. Then, the sound of three heavy deadbolts sliding back echoed through the door.
The door opened four inches, held by a thick brass safety chain.
A woman in her mid-fifties with tired grey eyes and a blue fleece sweater looked out at me.
"Nancy?" I asked, pulling off my knit cap so she could see my face in the porch light. "I’m Shawn Miller. Arthur and Eleanor’s son."
Nancy’s eyes went wide. She let out a sharp gasp, quickly unhooked the brass chain, and pulled the door wide open.
"Shawn!" she whispered frantically, grabbing my jacket sleeve and hauling me inside into the small, warm living room before slamming the door shut and sliding all three deadbolts back into place. "Oh, dear God, Shawn! Where have you been?!"
"I just got into town tonight," I said, my voice heavy with exhaustion and dread. "Nancy, I was just at the house. I heard knocking coming from beneath the kitchen floorboards. George told me you worked for my parents until August. You have to tell me what happened."
Nancy covered her mouth with both hands, her shoulders shuddering as heavy tears welled up in her eyes. She motioned for me to sit down at a small laminate kitchen table in the corner of the room.
She sat down across from me, her hands shaking as she clasped them together on the plastic tablecloth.
"It started six months ago, Shawn," Nancy began, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "Your sister Brenda moved into the house in June. At first, she said she was just visiting to help your mother with her garden. But within two weeks, she took over everything."
"George said she got power of attorney," I noted.
"She didn't just get it—she stole it!" Nancy said bitterly, leaning forward. "Your father had mild short-term memory loss, nothing severe, just normal eighty-year-old forgetfulness. Brenda brought a lawyer up from Philadelphia—a man named Marcus Kane—and they tricked your father into signing documents saying he was incompetent!"
My blood ran cold. "And my mother?"
"Your mother fought her tooth and nail!" Nancy cried, tears streaming down her face. "Eleanor threatened to call you, Shawn! She told Brenda that you were sending two thousand dollars a month and that you would come back and throw Brenda off the property!"
Nancy paused, wiping her eyes with a tissue she pulled from her cardigan sleeve.
"What happened in August, Nancy?" I demanded.
"Brenda stopped letting me into the house," Nancy whispered. "She told me she was cutting my hours. But on August 22nd, I came by early because your mother had left a message on my home phone saying she was hungry. When I let myself in through the side door... I heard screaming coming from the basement."
I sat perfectly still, every muscle in my body locking up.
"I went to the basement door," Nancy continued, her voice trembling violently. "I looked through the crack in the frame. Brenda was down there with that lawyer, Marcus Kane. They had your father locked in the root cellar behind the concrete wall!"
"What?!" I roared, half-rising from my chair.
"Shh! Shawn, please!" Nancy pleaded, grabbing my wrist. "Listen to me! They were forcing your mother to sign transfer papers for their life insurance policies and the deed to the entire three-hundred-acre timber parcel behind the house! Your mother refused! She struck Marcus Kane with an iron skillet, and... and Kane shoved her down the stone steps!"
Nancy broke down into heavy, agonizing sobs.
"When I tried to rush down to help her," Nancy wept, "Brenda caught me. She grabbed me by the hair, dragged me out into the driveway, and told me that if I ever breathed a word to anyone, her friend Sheriff Vance would arrest my son for drug possession. Sheriff Vance was sitting right there in his cruiser in the driveway, Shawn! He watched the whole thing happen!"
I stood up slowly from the table, my shadow stretching long and dark across the small living room.
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My parents hadn't gone on a trip.
They were being held hostage—or worse—in the cold stone root cellar beneath my grandfather's house, while my sister and a corrupt lawyer drained every cent of their life's work, protected by the very man sworn to uphold the law.
