Title: One Upon a Summertime
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters on NCIS, I'm just borrowing them for the story.
A/N: Answer to NCISNumber1Fan's question: You asked if I made up Ms. O'Hara and yes I have. She's never been on the show, she's a character that I have created for this story. And you asked about Ducky's age in the story. Gibbs and Jenny are supposed to be a bit younger in the story than on the show and so is Ducky. I haven't bothered to decide the exact age of anyone of them though. I'm glad you like the story.
CHAPTER 24
Intruder
Tony's POV:
I crossed streets, leaped over hedges and flew past barking dogs on my run from Ducky's house to Gibbs and Jenny's little white house on Pineroad.
In the meantime in Ducky's garden:
"What are you playing?" Gibbs asked as he walked into the back yard and found Tim, Abby and Ziva just standing there looking like they had been caught red handed doing something. When he looked around he couldn't see anything that seemed wrong or dangerous around them though.
Ziva cleared her throat.
"Gibbs, we did not hear you coming. We are playing police and criminal. We are all police officers," she said, indicating herself and the two younger children.
Gibbs glanced around the back yard with the English garden furniture consisting of a couch, three chairs, a table and also a wooden garden swing that had room for two adults.
"Where's Tony?" he asked, not seeing the energetic boy anywhere.
"Oh, he's the hiding criminal we have to find," Ziva explained and hooked a string of her brown hair behind her ear.
1242 Pineroad
Tony's POV:
When I arrived at the house I found the door open a crack. Of course I thought it was weird and I kept very quiet while sneaking in. Carefully treading into the kitchen and from there into the living room I saw something odd. The door to the cupboard where Gibbs and Jenny kept a couple of fancy looking vases, a tea set and some sculptures of almost naked men and women was flung open. Also, all drawers were pulled out. I ran over there and looked inside the cupboard. As far as I could tell nothing seemed to be missing. Also weird, I thought with a frown.
Scanning the room for more weirdness I noticed the floor. All over the floor there were footprints. Not complete footprints, but more like half of a foot. The person who had been in there had had muddy shoes. I walked over to one footprint and studied it for a moment. It looked like a print of a man's shoe.
"But why didn't he take anything?" I asked myself.
Suddenly I felt something nudge my hand and I nearly jumped high into the air with surprise.
I looked down. "Oh, dog," I breathed out again. "You almost gave me a heart attack. If that's even possible at the age nine and a half. Hmm, I need to ask Gibbs about that because I really don't know if it's possible to…" I kicked my left shin with my right foot. "No no, I have to focus. There's been a break in here." That's when it hit me and I went down to a crouch. "You defended this house, didn't you girl? You scared him away before he had a chance to take anything or get farther than this room." Feeling a mite proud I smiled at the dog who sat down in front of me with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
"Well, I came here to take you for a quick walk. But from the looks of things right outside the front door you already took care of that yourself. So I should get back to the dinner party before Gibbs or Jen notice I'm gone. The others can't stall forever."
We headed for the girls' room upstairs to hide her again. "And hey, next time you need to poop, do it on the other side of the fence, ok?"I stared at the open front door and sighed. "Because now I have to pick that up somehow."
Tim's POV
"Come inside now, you four," Jenny called to us with a wave from the kitchen door. "It's time for dessert."
I chewed on my bottom lip, not sure what to say. We couldn't go inside before Tony was back…
"We want to stay here and play some more, Jenny," said Ziva.
"You can go outside again after desert. Come inside now."
"Pleeease, Jenny," Abby pleaded.
Jenny touched the bridge of her nose and looked a little tired. She started walking over to us by the garden swing where we had been pushing each other when she appeared.
"No, no you do not have to come get us," Ziva yelled to her. "We will be right in. Just give us one minute." She hurried to start helping Abby down from the garden swing.
Jenny turned and yelled over her shoulder for us to hurry up.
"What are we going to do now, Ziva?" Abby asked. "Tony isn't here."
"No he is not back yet. I do not know."
She looked at me with worried eyes. "We just have to think of something to tell them because we cannot stay out here all evening."
"Maybe we say Tony doesn't like desert," I suggested and got a look from Ziva saying that wasn't good enough. "Or maybe not."
Next thing we knew Gibbs was calling us from the kitchen door.
"Ziva, Abby, Tim, go get Tony and come right inside. It's time for dessert and Mrs. Mallard wants you to taste her lemon pie."
"Uh…yes Gibbs. We are coming."
We knew we couldn't go find Tony because he wasn't hiding from us so we started walking slowly towards the main entrance. We walked as slowly as we could, to stall, but eventually we got there anyway. I forced myself to put my hand on the door handle and open the door. We entered and right inside the door stood Ms. O'Hara and a dark haired man in a red jacket.
"You weren't gone long…"Ms. O'Hara stopped herself when they noticed us. They looked angrily our way like we had meant to bother them and then started walking away.
"Who is that man?" Abby whispered.
"I do not know," said Ziva with a shrug of her shoulders. "He sat next to her earlier at the dinner table."
As they were walking away I noticed the sleeve of his nice red jacket was torn at the elbow. I wondered how that happened.
Ms O'Hara cast a look over her shoulder and saw us following them with our eyes. She placed her hand on the man's elbow and shielded the part where his jacket was shredded at the same time.
"Hm,"I said to myself.
Ziva's POV:
We entered the lounge which was filled with people talking in loud voices and the sound of cutlery clinking as forks and knives were switched to spoons. We kept as far away from Jenny and Gibbs as possible to avoid having to answer questions about Tony. I did not like deceiving them but we had no choice. It did not take long though before Gibbs saw us and whispered something in Jen's ear. They headed over to us through the crowd.
"There you are," Jen said with a smile that soon disappeared. "Where is Tony?" she asked with a frown.
"Er…"I started.
"I'm right here!" came a voice from behind us and when we spun around we all saw Tony coming in through the main entrance door, panting. He was all winded and his hair all sticky from the run. "My hiding place was so good that they just couldn't find me. I guess I'm the winner of hide and seek this evening after all, Tim." He had a big grin covering his face as he said that last bit.
"But I thought we said I won…" Tim started but I gave him a little push to quiet him. This was not the time to slip up.
"Must have been a really exhausting game of hide and seek you've been playing, Tony. Since you're all sweaty, I mean." Gibbs said with both eyebrows raised.
Tony looked around at the rest of us as if he wanted us to come to his rescue. "Well, I ran all the way back from where I hid and…"
"I chased him for a while before going inside." I finished for him.
Gibbs eyes narrowed like a cat's eyes. "I thought you said you couldn't find him before you came in."
My mouth suddenly became dry as dust. "I…"
Mrs. Mallard appeared in the door opening, clapping her hands twice.
"Everyone please take your seats. Dessert will be on the table in one minute."
Gibbs stare held mine captive until I finally escaped by looking away. We were saved for the time being.
Tony's POV:
Gibbs let the whole thing with me being missing go for the time being while we had dessert. The lemon pie was great and I had a boat load of it. I didn't dare tell the others about the break in until we were alone so we all just ate our pie, peering at each other now and then.
I left the table when I felt I had to make a visit to the bathroom. There had been no time for that while running from Gibbs and Jenny's house to Ducky's. I went upstairs where I had seen a bathroom earlier while we were playing up there. Just coming up the landing I heard two voices talking. I took a step back down and glanced around the corner. The voices were coming from the small study down the hall. I recognized Mrs. Mallard's spry voice but who did the second voice belong to? I became curious and instead of going left to the bathroom I instead went right towards the study. I stopped outside and peeked around the corner. I gasped when I saw it was Ms. O'Hara that Mrs. Mallard was talking to. They were standing by a big glass cabinet and Mrs. Mallard was taking something out of there and showing it to that wicked Mrs. Claus. It was a necklace. That's when I decided I wanted to see what was going on up close. Ms. O'Hara wasn't going to do anything as long as Mrs. Mallard was there. So, I walked over to them, making sure to make a lot of noise when I entered the small study.
"What are you doing?" I asked, standing just behind them.
Mrs. Mallard looked down and noticed me there. She smiled and lowered her hands some. In them she had a necklace that looked really expensive with its red and black stones placed one red, one black, one red, one black, all the way on a silver chain.
"Wow, that looks like something a queen would wear," I said and reached out to touch it. I pulled my hand back when I got a slap on it from Ms. O'Hara. "Ow!" I yelled angrily, glaring at her.
"Children shouldn't touch expensive jewelry," Ms. O'Hara said and looked very pleased with herself.
Mrs. Mallard chuckled. "Oh, it's alright, Deena, Tony is a careful boy." She let me run my hand over the stones on the necklace before she put it back in the cabinet. "You see, Tony, Deena is very interested in jewelry. " she closed the door and locked it with a key that she put in the pocket of her dress. "She is also a victim."
"How is that?" I asked, pretending to care about Ms. O'Hara's problems.
"Because last week someone broke into Deena and her boyfriend Fabricio's, house and stole two necklaces, one gold ring and a diamante bracelet. Isn't that a horrible tragedy?" Mrs. Mallard looked really broken up about the ring and bracelet being taken from Ms. O'Hara and her boyfriend as she shook her head and then squeezed Ms. O'Haras's hand "Have the police found any leads yet, as to who could have done it?"
Ms. O'Hara cleared her throat and cast an annoyed glance at me like she wanted me to go away. "No, not yet. Agent Gibbs assures me that the local police are doing everything they can though. He even agreed to check with them for me. I'm just desperate to see my babies again."
I couldn't help but snort. "Babies?"
Ms. O'Hara seemed to grit her teeth but ignored me.
"Good, I sincerely hope they find them," said Mrs. Mallard. " We should go back and finish dessert with the other guests."
"Yes, we should," I nodded with a grin. I completely forgot about visiting the bathroom. I just had to get back and tell the others about Ms O'Hara calling her jewelry "babies", because that was pretty funny to me.
Tim's POV
We were all huddled together underneath the stairwell in the hall with view of the opening to the lounge. People passed us now and then but no one noticed us so it felt kind of exciting. Tony said we needed a place to have a secret meeting because he had things to tell us and we all agreed that under the stairs would be a good place.
"So what happened at the little house, Tony?" Ziva asked and leaned her back against the wall under the stairs. Abby sat next to Ziva and they both faced me and Tony who had our backs to the opening. "Was the dog alright?"
"She was fine. But there was something else that wasn't fine. In fact, it was a small disaster." He paused and I held my breath. "There had been a break-in at the house."
"What?" Ziva and Abby yelled at the same time.
"Shhhh!" Tony hushed them. "Yes, someone had been inside the house and broken into the cupboard in the living room, looking for something. Nothing seemed to be missing though."
Ziva gave Tony a skeptic look. "How can you know that nothing was missing?"
Tony cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. "Because I have an excellent memory. I can take a look at something once and then remember what was in for example a cupboard."
Ziva gave a little laugh but didn't say anymore about it.
"I think the dog scared away the burglar. She saved the house," Tony continued.
"Wow," Abby whispered, sitting with her knees drawn to her chest.
Tony nodded. "Yeah, she had a piece of cloth in her mouth when I found her. She must have bitten the burglar somewhere and tore the piece form his clothes."
"Wow," Abby whispered again and let her mouth stay open.
I chewed a little on one of my knuckles while my thoughts went around in my head. "What color was the cloth?" I asked in a quiet voice.
Tony looked at me. "What difference does that make?"
"Because the man who was with Ms. O'Hara had a red jacket and it looked like it had been torn earlier."I pointed at my elbow. "Right here."
We all exchanged glances and then peeked outside. We took a good look at Ms. O'Hara and the man who sat next to her at the table.
"His name is Fabricio," said Tony. "Mrs. Mallard told me before that Ms. O'Hara and Fabricio, who is her boyfriend, were robbed the other night. All they took was her jewelry." Tony leaned forward and lowered his voice even more. "And she loves jewelry. I caught her looking at Mrs. Mallard's necklaces before. She has them locked inside a cabinet in the small study upstairs."
"And Ms. O'Hara was alone?" asked Ziva.
"No, Mrs. Mallard was there with her, showing her the necklaces. But Ms. O'Hara's eyes practically shined when she looked at one necklace that looked like something Cinderella would wear."
Ziva straightened her back and threw her long braid over her shoulder. "I know about the break in as well."
"How?" Tony looked surprised.
"I heard Gibbs and Jenny talking about it the other night on the porch. It was right before the incident on the bridge with the dog."
We all looked knowingly at each other. We suspected the same thing now.
"Fabricio was the one inside Gibbs and Jenny's house tonight. He was the burglar," said Ziva with a grim look.
We all agreed this was something we had to think on hard before we told anyone. We didn't have any proof besides the red jacket. Abby said she wanted to tell Gibbs and Jenny about the break in and the rest of us wanted that too, but there was the problem with the dog. If we told them now then they would find out Tony had gone back to the house during the dinner party and they would ask why and we would have to tell them about the dog. Ziva wouldn't even hear of that and Tony, me and Abby didn't like the idea of it either so we decided we would keep quiet. We didn't have a choice. But I really didn't like it. My grandfather had always made a big point that lying was wrong and so was not telling something you knew you should tell.
1242 Pineroad
Midnight
As Gibbs reached out to put the key in the hole the door squeaked open. He realized it had already been opened by someone else. Behind him the kids chatted but when he didn't move from the door opening Jenny shushed them.
"What is it?" She asked.
"I don't know." Gibbs turned to the kids. Abby looked half asleep hugging Philip and holding Ziva's hand, Tim swallowed nervously and Tony kept staring past Gibbs and into the house like he was expecting something to show itself. "Stay here," Gibbs said and gently pushed the door open all the way. He and Jenny entered quietly and stealthily, keeping close to the walls and moving almost without making a sound. They went through the bottom floor and found the cabinet that had been broken into and the footprints on the floor. Gibbs could hear whispers coming from the front door and suddenly Ziva practically flew through the hall and over to the stairs with a "I will check our room!"
"Ziva, no!" Jenny yelled after the girl. "Stop!"
But Ziva was so quick and just a few seconds after she had disappeared she was back at the landing again.
"Our room is safe" she said in a small voice. "No one in there."
Gibbs frowned and wiped his forehead tiredly. He took the stairs in three big strides and was soon by Ziva's side. He kneeled down and fixed his eyes on her.
"Ziva," he began."That was very dangerous." he paused for a moment and placed a finger under her chin to raise it. "Whoever broke into our house could still have been up there."
"But he was not…"Ziva started but Gibbs held up a hand in front of her face to quiet her.
"It doesn't matter. We needed to look through the house before you could enter. You knew that, didn't you?"
She swallowed once before answering. "Yes, Gibbs."
"Then don't do that again."
"I will not."
"Good. You can go to your room." He stood up and looked down the stairs at the other three kids who had now also come inside and was peering up at them. "You can all go with Ziva and stay up there while me and Jen look over the house."
They all trudged up the stairs together and walked past Gibbs, sending him questioning little glances. Gibbs descended the stairs again and walked over to Jen who stood looking into the open cupboard.
"They didn't take anything." She showed him one of the statues. "This was knocked over. Nothing is missing though. Very strange. Usually they take something once having broken in even though they might not have found what they would have preferred to steal."
Gibbs nodded.
"The kids in their rooms now?" Jenny asked while looking over the items in the cupboard.
"Yes, I sent them to Ziva and Abby's room. And I talked to Ziva."
"Yes, I heard. That girl nearly gave cause for some defibrillators to be used on me. Why would she rush upstairs like that, Jethro?"
Gibbs just shook his head. He had a feeling Ziva had understood the danger but ignored it. "My gut tells me something is going on with her, Jen. Maybe with all of them. "
Crickets playing were heard through the open front door as Jenny went to close it behind them. "What would that be?" she asked from the hall.
Gibbs scratched his head. "I don't know, Jen. We should watch them the next few days to see what's going on."
Jenny's high heel shoes made her steps echo in the kitchen as she entered and put her bag on the kitchen table with a thud. "It's so frustrating that someone's been inside here," she said with a tired sigh. "Looking through our things. I need to check so my grandmother's necklace is still in the box behind the drawer in our bedroom."
"It is. No footprints up there. Only down here. It's like they never got as far as the second floor."
"You make sure the kids get into bed, Jethro, and I'll report this to the local police. I'll tell them they can come in the morning though and that we'll conduct a quick investigation of our own home for now."
Ziva's POV
Upstairs in the girls' room
We were all gathered seated on the floor between the two beds with the dog put safely under my bed in case Gibbs or Jenny walked in. Only her head stuck out from under there. She had been so thrilled to see us that it seemed she had thought we had abandoned her. She was standing right by the door on the inside as we entered and when we came inside she managed to tackle me to the floor and shower my face with licks with her big wet tongue. Lucky for us she did not bark. It was like she knew she had to be careful.
We sat closely together so we could whisper to each other.
"Phew, that was close," I said. "I had to run upstairs and say I checked our room to make sure Gibbs did not enter our room and notice our friend here, " I said and patted the dog's head. She happily licked my hand.
"That was fast thinking, Ziva," said Tony. "Now we need to…"
"Shhhh,"
Tony looked at Tim with a curious frown. "Don't shush me, Timmy you…"
"Someone's coming!" Tim said with big eyes and we hurried to get the dog completely under the bed.
There was a very brief knock and Gibbs appeared at the door. He had a blank face and didn't say anything at first as he studied us all, one by one.
"Alright kids, it's time for bed," He spoke determinedly. "Boys go brush your teeth and then head over to your own room, girls you change into pajamas."
Arguing seemed like a bad idea so we all did as we were told without arguing tonight and besides, we were tired. Who would think dinner parties were this exhausting.
That night I lay awake a long time, thinking. I thought about the dog and that we needed to find a place to hide her where nobody could find her. And I thought about the break in and that mean Ms. O'Hara and her boyfriend Fabricio. Somehow we had to investigate if they really were the burglars and if they were- find evidence so we could prove it.
To be continued
A/N: Please let me know what you think of this chapter by sending me a quick review.