by Roxie Noir
Ellie just wrinkled her nose slightly, looking nervous, but Jules laughed out loud.
Seth shrugged.
“I was trying to make it exotic,” he said. “And I’m not the one who nearly burned his eyebrows off re-lighting the pilot on the heater that winter.”
“That was pretty exciting,” Garrett admitted.
He’d singed the inside parts of his eyebrows, and it had taken them forever to grow back in.
“Remember when Zach nearly set the house on fire when he tried to make a pizza with the plastic wrap still on?” he asked.
“I swear the kitchen smelled like burnt plastic until last year,” Seth said.
Jules put Violet down, and she ran in a circle around the adults, then grabbed her dad’s legs from behind and peeked at Garrett and Ellie.
She really looks like Seth, Garrett thought, a deep pang of sadness stabbing through him.
I can’t believe I didn’t know he had a kid.
“Holy shit!” Violet exclaimed.
Seth looked at Jules, who made a face.
“Sorry,” she said.
After dinner they sat in the living room. Violet — now wearing pants — played with a small army of dump trucks, backhoes, and stuffed animals as Garrett and Ellie explained everything.
He left out the part where they kissed on the balcony. Or in the car. That didn’t seem relevant.
“If they catch you,” Seth said, slowly. “What are they going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Garrett said. “I think they just want to stop me from finding out what really happened to mom and dad, since I can’t — uh... I don’t have that gene,” he said, and glanced quickly at Ellie.
“He won’t tell me what your deal is,” she said. “Apparently you and Zach have some ability that he doesn’t?”
Seth and Jules looked at each other quickly. Violet hit a dump truck with a teddy bear and laughed.
“You don’t have that ability?” Jules asked.
She looked at Garrett, then quickly at Ellie, then at Garrett again.
Why’s she looking at Ellie? He wondered. Is it because I haven’t told her yet?
Jules has to know I’d sound crazy. She knows that better than anyone.
“No,” Garrett said with a shrug.
“But you know about it?”
“I’ve known since I was a kid,” he said. “Sometimes I couldn’t sleep and I’d see mom do it in the back yard.”
Ellie frowned, looking slightly scandalized.
“It’s not weird,” Garrett assured her.
“It’s pretty weird,” Jules said.
“But not like that,” Garrett said.
“I wish you’d just tell me,” Ellie said.
“It needs to be demonstrated,” Jules said.
“None of you are making this sound less weird,” Ellie said.
Violet stopped hitting trucks together, picked up a small stuffed dolphin, and walked to Garrett.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” Garrett said.
She handed him the stuffed dolphin, her small face very serious.
Garrett held it, then looked at the toddler.
What do I do now? He wondered. He’d never really been around kids before. Did they just go around handing out toys?
“Thank you,” he finally said.
Violet walked back to the trucks.
“That’s her favorite stuffed animal,” Seth said. “Getting to hold it is a pretty high honor.”
Garrett balanced it carefully on his knee.
“I’ll take very good care of it,” he said.
“Zach actually looked into the crash once,” Seth said. “When he was still living here, taking classes over in Blanding. For a long time, he thought it was weird too, but I think he just couldn’t find much, one way or the other.”
“There’s not a lot to go on,” Ellie said.
Seth just nodded.
“This was a math thing he did,” he said. “He thought that where they found the car was all wrong for where they went off the cliff, so he did some tests, or made a model and ran equations, or something, I wasn’t really sure at the time. But he found that they’d have to have been going almost fifty miles an hour to wind up all the way down where they did. With the gouges in the hill where they were.”
Garrett stroked the stuffed dolphin with one finger, frustrated as hell. There were so many strange parts to this mystery, so many odd details that he couldn’t quite reconcile to what had happened — but none of them proved anything.
Taken all together, they might point in one direction or another. But individually, he still had nothing. The cremation could be incompetence. The same with the junkyard that trashed the car before it got examined.
The gouge next to the road and the side view mirror could mean something, or they could be from any point in the last fifteen years. Just because he’d seen another car that night didn’t mean it had anything to do with his parents.
“But he ended up not really proving anything,” Seth said, and shrugged. “Even if they were going that fast, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means that something made them go that fast, in the rain, in the dark,” Garrett said. “You and I both know they weren’t driving like that for the hell of it.”
“I know,” Seth said, quietly.
Violet came back up to Garrett and looked at him, her blue eyes enormous. She had wispy red curls and Seth’s stubborn jaw line.
“Holy shit!” she said again, then gently took the dolphin back off of Garrett’s knee.
Jules closed her eyes and sighed, and Garrett forced himself not to laugh.
“Violet, please ask Uncle Garrett if you can have the dolphin back, don’t just grab it,” Jules said.
“Caahhve dolf?” Violet asked.
“Yes,” Garrett said.
She grabbed it and ran off again. Seth grinned and elbowed Jules in the side.
“I’m hoping the novelty of that particular phrase wears off,” Jules muttered. “Last month she taught everyone in her play group to shout a saltier version of ‘gosh darn it, Seth,’ and telling her not to say it only made her do it twice as much.”
“It’s pretty funny,” Ellie said. “And also adorable.”
“I know,” said Jules. “Momma’s gotta learn to watch her mouth.”
Violet threw a stuffed frog, then gasped dramatically.
“Oh no,” she said, her face totally serious. She ran after the frog.
“Anyway,” Seth said. “You think you’re close?”
“I think I have to be,” Garrett said.
He glanced at Violet, watching the little girl play with her trucks and stuffed animals.
Can she shift? he wondered.
“Someone in Obsidian knows what really happened,” Ellie said. “I’m almost positive of it. We just have to find the right person.”
‘That’s the problem,” Garrett said. “It’s Obsidian.”
To put it lightly, the Monsons weren’t popular in town.
“It’s actually not as bad anymore,” Seth said. “When the Grand Escalante became a National Park, Obsidian became the eastern portal into it, so now there’s a fair number of tourists who come through on the way in. A new motel opened, a couple new restaurants, a hiking supply store. It’ll never be a big city, but new people have moved here.”
“The Escalante’s a national park now?” Garrett asked.
That was strange. It had always been a national monument, but his family had gone camping there every spring almost since he could remember. The landscape was beautiful and wild and rugged, cascading red cliffs for as far as he could see — and almost no other people.
But now it was a destination. There were probably tour buses that went there.
“It’s a little weird,” Seth admitted. “Having the fresh blood in Obsidian is good, though. And you might find more help out there than you think.”
I sure hope so, Garrett thought.
That night, Garrett an
d Ellie went to bed in separate rooms. He was pretty sure that Jules and Seth knew something was up, but after explaining all the madness that had been the last few days, he didn’t also feel like explaining what was going on with him and Ellie.
Not that Garrett was completely certain he knew. She seemed to like him, but she was cautious around him? Willing to make out, but not more?
Is it just until the case is over, or is there something else wrong? he wondered.
He was in his old childhood bedroom, on the second floor of the farm house, in a twin bed that he was several inches too tall for.
Just like always, he couldn’t sleep. His insomnia had gotten a little better when he left home, and most nights now he did all right.
But now? There was no way he was getting any sleep. Something about being back in the bed where he’d spent the most sleepless nights kept him wide awake.
Finally, he got up and went to the window, looking out over the moonlight-washed backyard, the mesa dark and forbidding in the distance.
This is where I saw Mom shift, he thought.
He’d thought he was dreaming for years, even though he saw it again and again. She’d walk out of the house usually wearing a bathrobe, and halfway across the yard she’d drop the robe and turn into a giant bird all at once.
Every time, Garrett would watch her until she disappeared into the darkness, soaring up toward the sky. He’d never gotten to ask her about it — even after he realized it wasn’t a dream, he was afraid it meant he was going crazy, or seeing things, or that his parents would tell him he just had an overactive imagination.
Through the wall to the guest room, he heard the faint creak of a floorboard, and tilted his head.
There it was again. And again, the same floorboard.
Ellie was awake, and she was pacing.
Just leave her alone, Garrett told himself. She’s been with you nonstop and you barely know each other. Give her some space.
He stood at the window for another minute or two, listening to the floorboard next door.
Then he gave up, walked into the hall, and knocked softly on Ellie’s door.
12. Ellie
Arms folded, stalking back and forth across the floor, Ellie didn’t hear the tap tap tap at first. Then it grew louder, until it suddenly registered and she jumped.
She quickly glanced at herself, wearing nothing but a long t-shirt and a very comfy, very ugly pair of soft cotton shorts.
Oh well, she thought, and opened the door.
“I heard you pacing,” Garrett whispered.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up,” Ellie whispered back.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Ellie stepped back and Garrett entered the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
“We actually don’t need to whisper,” he said. “Seth and Jules are on the third floor, across the house. They’re not gonna hear us.”
“It’s habit,” Ellie said, still keeping her voice low.
“What’s wrong?” Garrett asked. He crossed to the window and looked out, leaning on the wall next to it.
Ellie sighed and sat on the foot of the bed, crossing her legs underneath her.
Where do I start? she wondered. I think we’re in the middle of some strange plot that I don’t understand? I’m certain that something bad happened to Garrett’s parents, but I have no idea what?
There’s a very sexy man wearing pajamas in my bedroom and I’m afraid that if I do anything about it, I’ll make this whole situation even more hopelessly complicated?
“This is all weird and wrong,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear.
“What part?” Garrett asked.
“It seems too easy, almost,” she said. “Why would he take a helicopter to Blanding, chasing us, but not come to your brother’s house when we escape? He has to have at least guessed we might come here.”
“Maybe not?” Garrett said.
He didn’t sound like he believed himself, even for a moment.
“There’s something else going on,” Ellie said. “We’re doing what they want us to do. Somehow. I’m worried we’re just running into a trap, Garrett.”
“What should we do?” he asked softly. “Do you want to keep running?”
“I don’t want to,” she said. “Whatever we need to find is here. I’m sure.”
Garrett walked to the bed and sat down next to her, stroking her hair with one hand.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, his voice low and solemn.
Ellie just shook her head, and then looked up at him.
“I’m not worried about me,” she said. “I’m worried about you. I’m worried about Seth and Jules, and I’m worried about Violet.”
“I promise they’re pretty tough,” Garrett said, his fingers still slipping through Ellie’s hair.
She let her eyes close, his touch warm and comforting.
“Even Violet?” she murmured. “Garrett, I can’t believe you didn’t know you had a niece. And I can’t believe Seth and Jules were so cool about it.”
“Me either,” he said.
“You’re not gonna run off again, are you?” she said.
Ellie leaned against Garrett’s shoulder.
Don’t lead him on, she thought.
“No,” he said. “I already missed a lot, and I don’t think I’ll get forgiven twice.”
“You gonna settle down here?” she asked. “Near Seth and his family?”
She swallowed, something hard and heavy settling in her stomach.
Stop asking leading questions, she thought. Garrett’s got enough to deal with.
“I would rather walk across coals every day than live in Obsidian again,” he said, a teasing note in his voice.
“Every day?” Ellie asked.
“And twice on Sundays,” he said.
Then he turned and kissed the top of her head. A shiver went down Ellie’s spine, and she nestled closer into him, his arm around her shoulders now.
It felt good to be this close to him. It felt more than good, it felt exciting and right in a way she’d never felt before, like her insides were turning into a warm puddle.
He moved his hand down her back until it was nestled in the curve of her waist, and Ellie swallowed.
Tell him to go back to his room, she thought.
She didn’t. Instead she turned her face up to look at his. His golden eyes had gone dark and unreadable. He just looked at Ellie for a long moment.
“Want me to leave?” he offered.
“In a minute,” she said.
He bent down and kissed her, harder than before. Ellie parted her lips against Garrett’s and let him in, and he pressed himself against her with a need and a hunger that was new.
It felt electric, like a jolt from her fingers to her toes.
Dammit, she thought. You weren’t going to do this, remember?
They pulled apart slightly and Ellie caught Garrett’s bottom lip in her teeth for a second before letting go.
Fine, she thought. Second base only.
“I thought—” Garrett said, but Ellie crushed his lips against hers again and felt his body respond. His hand on her waist tightened, the other hand cupping the back of her head.
“It’s fine,” Ellie whispered, getting to her knees on the bed. Now her face was a few inches above his, and he was looking up at her as she moved to straddle him, still sitting at the foot of the double bed.
She took his face in both her hands and kissed him again, harder now, their bodies pressed together for the first time. Garrett’s fingers dug into her hips, and she could feel the thick hardness of his erection beneath her.
Ellie felt like lava was sliding down the inside of her skin, all that heat gathering right in her core. Garrett’s tongue was in her mouth, his hands still gripping her hips so tightly it nearly hurt.
Garrett pulled away and put his lips on her neck, just under her ear.
“This is unprofessional,” he murmured
.
“Only if someone finds out,” she whispered.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” he said. His lips slid down to her collarbone, then to the hollow of her throat and he bit her softly, making her gasp.
“My lips are sealed,” Ellie said, and she tugged on Garrett’s shirt.
He whipped it off over his head, tossing it into a corner, and Ellie bit her lip, looking down at him.
The man was chiseled, and he looked up at her, his muscles bunching and sliding under his skin. He grinned and moved his hands up under her shirt until he reached her breasts, taking one in each hand and rubbing a thumb over the hard, pebbled skin there.
A tiny noise escaped Ellie’s throat, and Garrett grinned. He moved his thumb again and Ellie gasped.
“Make that noise again,” he growled.
“What noise?” Ellie asked, her eyes closed.
Garrett moved his mouth to her nipple and closed his teeth around it gently, through the fabric of her Grand Junction High School t-shirt. He flicked his tongue over her nipple, and when he moved away, the sudden cold made the sensitive spot pucker.
“Do it again,” she whispered, digging her fingers into his shoulders.
He did, a little harder this time, the fabric biting into her nipple a little more sharply.
“Oh,” Ellie whispered.
He bit harder, and then before Ellie knew what was happening, he’d taken her shirt off and pushed her over, onto her back. Her legs were in the air, on either side of his torso, his lips in the hollow of her throat again.
“Ellie, I want you,” he said. “I wanted you the second I saw you.”
He pinched a nipple and she gasped, arching her back on the bed. His lips moved down to her sternum, the sensitive spot between her breasts.
“If you want me to stop, tell me now,” he said.
“Don’t stop,” Ellie said. She wrapped her legs around his torso.
“Good,” he said. “I haven’t thought about anything but this in days.”
He backed off the bed and pulled Ellie’s shorts off. Then he caught her knees in his hands and pulled her until she was at the edge of the bed.
Ellie yelped, then clapped both hands over her mouth.
“Subtle,” Garrett teased.
He kissed the inside of one knee, then the inside of her thigh, his lips moving down quickly.
