Finders Keepers (10 page)

He eased the Escalade into the two car garage next to a silver Honda Accord.
 
Ellie’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

           
“Trust me,
darlin
’, they are soaking up the sun in Hawaii.
 
We’re not completely insane.
 
Ready?”

           
Ellie shook her head.
 
She’d never broken the law in her life, not even to share homework answers.
 
But when he said, “Go!” she jumped out of the car without hesitation.
 
She was not a natural born competitor but she was more terrified of being left alone in the car knowing there were more goblins nearby.
 
Taking Gibbs’ lead, she walked casually but quickly into the garage.
 
The door into the house was unlocked, and they walked straight into the kitchen, just as she would at her own house.
 
From now on, she was going to make her mother lock their doors.

He stopped at the closest wall where the alarm system stood armed, turned to grin and wink at her, and then crossed into the kitchen.
 
The alarm shrieked in response.
 
Immediately he pulled a couple reusable shopping bags from his jacket pocket and headed straight to the fridge.
 
Ellie, who was not wearing gloves yanked the too large sleeves down over her hands and pulled her hood up.
 
Like an expert grocery bagger, Gibbs was already loading up on refrigerator items.
 
Ellie hesitated, then shrugged.
 
When in Rome… and as long as I’m not hurting anyone
.
 

It was unsettling how she trusted Gibbs to get her out of this.
 
She opened a few cupboard doors until she found the cereal.
 
Shaking a couple of them, she found one that was nearly completely full and set it on the counter for Gibbs to pack.
 
She ignored the pleased-with-himself look he gave her and continued to open doors until she found the pantry.
 
A box of
Riceroni
, a can of tomato soup, Cheetos.
 
She picked and chose sparingly so it wouldn’t look as if someone had been shopping around in the pantry, all the while doing it at top speed.
 

The alarm squealed unabated and it sawed at her nerves until she felt like a bunch of ragged edges.
 
A box of spaghetti, a few packets of hot chocolate, some green beans, and then Gibbs whistled for her and she left off, closing the door behind her.
 
His arms were loaded up with the bags when the alarm suddenly quit.
 
Gibbs reacted instantly.
 
He dropped the bags and lunged for her.
 
Together they both hit the ground, she a little harder than him.
 
His hand slapped over her mouth before she could cry out.
 
Her first instinct was to bite him and then scream, but just as she decided it was a good idea, a beam of light shone through one of the windows.
 
Gibbs silently mouthed the word
Cops
.
 
He moved his head until his lips were right next to her ear.
 
It sent a tingling sensation down the side of her face.
 
He whispered, “The security company contacts the police and when the police arrive, the security company remotely shuts the alarm off.
 
The cops will check all the windows and doors for signs of a break-in.”

Ellie followed Gibbs on her hands and knees, hiding behind the kitchen island until the flashlight beam disappeared.
 
Then they scurried like little Peter Rabbits for the door to the garage.
 
After placing the groceries near the front tire, they waited on the cold concrete floor, their backs against the car.

“Zak says we officially lost, and that the police cruiser is parked outside the house.”
 
His cell phone was in his hand and he quickly texted back a reply.
 
“Guess we’re going to have to sit tight for a while.”
 
He returned the phone to his pocket.

“Twenty questions?”

She opened her eyes wide.
 
“Are you serious?”

He grinned and shrugged.
 
Ellie rolled her eyes.

Gibbs’ version of twenty questions was different than hers, and much to her shock, she found herself enjoying it.
 
Not that she would ever admit it.

“
All time
favorite movie?”
 
By now, Ellie had figured out to wait for his response before she answered.
 
It was sort of a getting-to-know- you game except that the person asking the question would try and guess the other person’s response first, just by sizing their opponent up.
 
“Let me see…”
 
He tapped his finger to his cheek, exaggerating his appearance of deep deductive reasoning.
 
Every time he turned his green eyes on her, she shivered, and this was no exception.
 
“You are definitely a hopeless romantic…but I think I detect an appreciation for kung
fu
.
 
You think Tom Cruise is a wimp but Colin Firth a
hottie
.
 
I’m thinking of two movies… oldies but goodies.
 
The Saint
and
Willow
because you are a closet Val Kilmer fan.”

She gasped.
 
She did love those movies.
 
Gibbs smiled smugly.
 

But she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, especially when she didn’t have one particular favorite—she had many.
 
She exaggerated a sniff of contempt. “Hands down, everything and anything that involves Chuck Norris.”

He titled his head and gave her an odd expression which made her blush.
 
She didn’t usually tell people that.
 
But before she could recant, he said slowly, “When the boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.”

Ellie’s lips parted.
 
Gibbs grinned wickedly.
 
After a moment of total shock, Ellie grinned back.
 
“There used to be a street named after Chuck Norris, but it was changed because nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives,” she said.

“Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because Chuck Norris only recognizes the element of surprise.”

By then they were both laughing so hard Ellie had to wipe the tears from her cheeks with Gibbs’ hoodie.
  

Now it was her turn.
 
Of course she had no idea what his favorite movie was, she’d come nowhere near close to guessing his favorite food (sushi), music artist/band (Journey—seriously, at their age?), or furthest he’d ever been from southern Illinois (New York).
 
That last question had startled her.
 
How many goblins were there in the world and did they all travel as freely as Gibbs?

And then she thought she had it.
 
“The Matrix.”
 
What guy didn’t love that movie?
 

He grinned.
 
“Wrong again, though it wasn’t a bad effort.
 
You want a second guess?”

Ellie narrowed her eyes at him.
 
She wasn’t going to let him dominate her, even in some silly game.
 
Adventure.
 
All boy.
 
With a tendency to reference older movies.
 
Star Wars?
 
War Games?
 
Good thing she was familiar with a wide repertoire, thanks to her movie buff father.
 
And then she had it.

“The Goonies.”

It was his turn to be surprised.
 
He appeared as though she’d slapped him and she laughed out loud.
 
Their eyes met and her laughter died down.
 
The way he looked at her made her heart stumble.

“First kiss?”

He didn’t know or he wouldn’t have asked.
 
Or would he.
 
Her gaze broke away and landed on some garden tools sitting on a shelf, the heat spreading up her neck, ears, and cheeks in spite of her resolve to remain stoic.
 
“What kind of question is that?” she asked.
 
“You don’t know my friends, nor I yours.
 
Besides, I don’t kiss and tell.”
 

When he didn’t respond immediately, she glanced back over.
 
He studied the same trowel as her.
 
“You’re right,” he said abruptly.
 
Then, just when she thought he’d dropped it entirely, he said quietly, “I’m sorry.
 
That shouldn’t have been your first.”

If she were red before, she was crimson now inside and out.
 
Her mind raced, looking for just the right biting remark to make him realize that she hadn’t thought or cared two bits about it, when he leaned into her, capturing her with his grass-green eyes.
 

“Let me make it up to you.”

               
He was so close she could smell the earth on him.
 
He always smelled like the ground, but in a good way, like the grass after a spring rain.
 
She’d noticed it the very first time he’d hauled her over his shoulder and carried her off.
 
Carefully watching her reaction, he reached up and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.
 
Ellie’s heart pounded.
 
Tenderly, he took her chin in his hand, applying a gentle pressure to turn her face up toward his.
 
Her heart leaped inside her chest.
 
His thumb brushed her bottom lip.
 
“Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, and I won’t.”
 
He waited, smiling a little at the apparent turmoil she knew was written all over her face.
 
She knew she should push him away, but all she could think about was what a real first kiss from Gibbs might feel like.
 
Her objections remained silent.
 

He showed just the slightest flicker of surprise and pleasure when she didn’t speak and then he bent his head and touched his lips to hers.
 
His other hand slipped behind her head.

She forgot about the hard cement floor she sat on and the fact they were hiding from the police.
 
She forgot that Gibbs wasn’t just another boy from school.
 

When Ellie still didn’t pull away, Gibbs intensified the kiss.

The last two hours had revealed a Gibbs she didn’t know.
 
Funny, intelligent, entertaining, breathtaking.

Ellie moved her hand up his chest and kissed him back.
 

A siren in the distance jarred Ellie’s thoughts.
 
Her body tensed.
 
What am I doing?
 
He’s not your friend.
 
He’s not even human.
 
At the first indication of Ellie’s hesitation, Gibbs immediately pulled back.
 
For several moments neither said anything.
 
Ellie couldn’t meet his eyes, afraid of the loss of control they would show.

Finally, he said, “It’s probably safe to go.”

Ellie nodded, not ready to trust her voice.
 
He helped her to her feet and then opened the driver side door.
 
He maintained his space away from her while she crawled across the front seat to the passenger side.
 
Both were silent.
       

7

 
         
Their mutual silence remained intact for the entirety of the car trip.
 
Ellie didn’t even comment when Gibbs turned off the road onto a dark, unmarked country highway.
 
She remained silent when he parked the Escalade in a ditch, several miles outside of town.
 
But when he tried to blindfold her, she broke and at an ear-piercing level.

           
Gibbs threw his hands up like a busted criminal, and then thinking better of it, covered his ears.
 
Ellie clawed at the passenger side door, found the lock, and then fell out four feet onto the ground.
 
Before she’d run ten yards back down the dirt road, Gibbs caught her around the waist and swung her up and around.
 
Her feet kicked air.
 
He wrapped strong arms around her, keeping her hands out of commission, and hissed in her ear.
 
“I am not going to hurt you.”

           
She didn’t let up in her struggles.

           
“I should have blindfolded you the first time when we went through the park.
 
It’s protocol.”
 
Slowly he started to release the pressure on her arms.
 
Then he lowered her to the ground but didn’t let her go.
 
“Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to be alone on this road after dark.”
 

           
Ellie’s mind was in conflict.
 
She couldn’t trust him, and yet she kind of did.
 
Since when had she become such a bad judge of character?
 
As if his thoughts mimicked her own, he let her go completely, demonstrating his own trust in her.
 
Ellie shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
 
She could make a run for it.
 
Gibbs stared hard at her and then walked into the frozen field until he was only half the size he once was then with noticeable effort heaved a large circular piece of metal, a well cover by the looks of it, aside.
 
When he saw she still stood by the truck, he came back for her.
 
In his hand he carried a red bandana.
 
He stopped a few feet from her and flipped his palm up to show her the piece of folded cloth.
  

Hang it all, this should be Taylor’s adventure not hers.
 
She could probably sell the rights and get a made-for-
tv
movie from it.
 
Taylor’s mother would be ecstatic.

Ellie made a face and then closed her eyes.

***
   

           
Chocolate chip cookies.
 
It was her first sensation upon crossing the threshold.
 
Gibbs pulled the blindfold off and Ellie found herself standing on the small front porch of one of the goblin houses.
 
He pushed the door open and walked in without knocking.
 
She stood on the step marveling at how much easier the descent into the cave had been the second time, not having to see the holes and tunnels and heights she’d been forced to walk and crawl and climb through.
 
Shaking his head, half exasperated, half amused, Gibbs reached back intertwined his fingers with hers and pulled her through the doorway.
 

A small hunched lady with brown wavy hair poked her head through another doorway.
 
Her eyes were large and a familiar bright apple green.
 
Her eyes lit on Ellie and her face battled between surprise, happiness, and fear.
 
“Who do we have here, my son,” she said.
 
She came around the corner holding a plate full of cookies.
 
Ellie looked at the plate in disbelief.
 
Those were chocolate chip cookies, and the woman appeared to be wearing a Martha Stewart apron.
 
The hands which held the plate were wrinkled and knotted above and beyond her age.
 

           
“Mom, this is Eliza Brown.”

           
“Ellie,” she spoke up.
 
It must have been the cookies.
 
Her good manners were kicking in, in spite of the fact she was recently abducted.
 

           
Gibbs smiled at her, one of his rare genuine smiles, and Ellie’s insides lit up.
 
And then so did her guard.
 
The kiss meant nothing
.
 
She loosened her fingers from his, and he allowed her to drop his hand.

           
“She’ll be staying with you for a few days.
 
She is to stay with you in the house.”
 
Gibbs enunciated
in the house
so as there could be no misunderstanding.

           
“Gabriel, you don’t plan to keep her locked inside this little house for her entire visit, do you?”
 
Her big green eyes turned on Ellie and examined her.
 
Ellie noticed that her own discolored face did not go unnoticed by his mother.
 
Gibbs noticed her gaze too and frowned.
 
Ellie self-consciously touched her eye.
 
She’d almost forgotten it.
   

“She’s not one of us, I can see.”
 

           
Gibbs kissed his mother’s cheek, no intention whatsoever of answering her question, and started for the door.
 
“I’ll be by
everyday
to escort her around.
 
Now take good care of her mother.
 
She’s Sky’s friend.
 
Dodge will be by with your groceries.”
 
He looked back at Ellie and their eyes locked for a second.
 
His eyes were green like his mother’s, but it usually wasn’t the first thing she noticed when she looked at him.
 
Gibbs was all hardened edges, sharp lines, and arrogant smirks.
 
But this time, like in the garage, there was something else.
 
It flickered and then was gone as if it’d never been there at all.
 

After about half a dozen chocolate chip cookies and some polite small talk, Gibbs’ mother, who insisted Ellie call her Flora, showed her a small room with a little bed and dresser.
 
There was no closet, but there was a little window with a few pictures pinned to the wall.
 
Ellie recognized one of them as her own kindergarten class school picture.

           
“This was Sky’s room,” Flora said.
 
“I imagine Gibbs will borrow some things from one of his friends for you.
 
Then you’ll have something to put in the dresser.”
 
She smiled at Ellie, showing off those peculiar silvery teeth.
  
“How is Sky?
 
What’s it like for him?”

           
“What do you mean?”

           
“Does he blend in?
 
Do people stare?
 
Is he just like every other child?
 
He’s so close to fulfilling his father’s dreams.”

           
Ellie didn’t know what to make of that statement.
 
She noticed some photographs in frames hung in the hallway right outside her bedroom, and she walked over to take a closer look.
 
“He seemed fine.
 
He met my parents.
 
They liked him.
 
At the hospital he was quite successfully flirting with two nurses at once.”

           
Gibbs’ mother laughed.
 
She came up behind Ellie and pointed to the first picture where a family of four smiled back at the camera.
 
The picture was taken at the state park.
 
Ellie recognized the rock walls behind them.
 

           
“Some of us believed the race of goblins was nearing extinction and that we needed to take drastic steps to survive.
 
We decided to pass.”

           
“Pass?”

           
“Assimilate into the human world.
 
Raise our children above ground and let them marry human girls and boys and raise normal families.”

She knew her eyebrows were probably jumping right off of her face, but that’s how unexpected those words were to her.
 
First of all, someone had actually said it, and not just in jest.
 
Goblins.
 
Goblins!
 
Actual goblins.
 
The information swam in front of her eyes, drowning her with a million thoughts, situations, scenarios, implications.
 
She snapped back to the physical present when Flora spoke up again.

“Not all of us could do it, though.
 
You can’t pass if you are only three feet tall with six fingers on each hand, or your skin is blue and speckled like lapis.
 
Our family was chosen.
 
There were a few others too.
 
The men took jobs in the mines, which did more than enough to hide our dissimilarities, and we lived quite happily.”
 
Her eyes were glassy and wet with tears.
 
“But our children didn’t fare through the childhood illnesses as we’d hoped.
 
Our immune systems weren’t prepared for even simple things like
roseola
or the chickenpox.
 
Gibbs was the first.
 
He became so ill that we had to do something or watch him die.
 
I took him to the pediatrician, just as any mother would have done.”
 
Her eyes were far away and her voice defensive as if she were once again reliving the moment where she had to rationalize her actions.

“It was strep throat and they treated him with antibiotics, just like any other child.”
 
She stopped speaking and touched the photograph with the tip of her finger.
 
“But he wasn’t every other child.
 
The doctor called us in a few days later and said his blood work showed something-- antibodies that he shouldn’t have, unusual clotting characteristics, gene differences and extra chromosomes that had never been documented or discovered.
 
Sky got sick next and they tested his blood as well, to see if it was genetic.”
 
She dropped her hand.
 
“I told the doctor the blood work was wrong, lab error, but agreed we would take him to a specialist for further testing.”
 
She looked into Ellie’s hazel eyes with her own bright green ones.
 
“Our time was up.
 
I had to bring him back under or risk being discovered.”

           
The next photo was taken in the front room she and Gibbs walked into when she first arrived.
 
She recognized the wooden bench they were all sitting on under the “Home is Where the Heart Is” plaque above them.
 
Now it was just Gibbs’ mother and two preteen boys.
 
A black haired, blue-eyed face looked out at her cheerfully, the other green-eyed child scowled at the camera.
 

           
“That was after the accident.
 
With my husband killed, Sky was forced to return as well.”
 
Her fist closed and she waved it in the air.
 
“We were so close! Sky was our hope!
 
His blood passed through all the tests completely normal.
 
He could be raised above ground, go to college, on to medical school, and then he would come back and help the rest of us.”
 
Her head drooped.
 
“And then the mine accident happened, and it was over for all of us.
 
There were a few wives left and some children, but without husbands, everyone returned.”