CHAPTER 9
Later on that night Matt was laying in the recliner in the den, barefoot and wearing a pair of jeans, with Catey Rose on his bare chest, both of them asleep while Hoyt and Vince were watching a baseball game on TV. Hoyt looked over and saw Matt and his daughter and poked Vince in the ribs, motioning to the pair. Both men smiled. CJ had gone upstairs to take a shower and Mama and Roy had gone for a walk around the grounds. "You know, he told me the whole story about the kidnapping Wednesday while we were in San Diego on that case." Michael looked over at Vince.
"He's been through a lot in his life. Everybody thinks that being rich is so easy, but he's living proof that it isn't always. But you know if he didn't care so much about people it would probably be a lot easier on him." Vince looked at Matt and then Michael. "You know when he told me about it?" Hoyt shook his head no. "The night before I got shot. We spent the whole night sitting in this apartment waiting for two bad guys to show up. God, we talked about everything. How I met Isabella, my dad, his dad, and right before dawn, he told me about the kidnapping." He shook his head. "I couldn't believe it. And then, you know what? He started talking about CJ." Vince laughed. "I told him then that he needed to wake up and smell the coffee. That was the first time I ever said that to him. Definitely not the last though. But knowing all that about what they did to him and what CJ did for him, it all makes sense – why he was so dependent on her."
"Did he tell you about what happened when they were fifteen?" Hoyt leaned back and took a sip of his beer. Vince shook his head no.
"Well he didn't actually tell me either, Roy did. That's when I was up on the bribery allegations and we were at the ranch watching surveillance video from those damn critters of his." He laughed. "Guess I shouldn't say that, but he has tormented me about them. I swear I think the nut put one in my office." Both men chuckled. "Anyway, Roy told me that from the time CJ moved to the ranch next door with her uncle, he was really mean to her – made her do most of the work around there. Matt started going over there every day to help her. Roy said he got up at 4:00 every single morning, did his chores at home, and then went to help CJ to keep her uncle off of her back. Well, when they were fifteen, Matt got there one Saturday morning like he usually did and CJ's uncle and two of his friends were in the barn with her. He was encouraging them to rape her." Vince was sitting there with his mouth hanging open. "Of course when Matt walked in and saw what was going on there was a fight. Big fight – he tackled one guy and then broke his nose, while the other guy swung a shovel at him. He missed the first time but he connected the second time with Matt's knee. CJ jumped on the man's back with her hands around his throat, giving Matt enough time to get to his feet again and grab the shovel away. He swung at the midsection of the man that CJ was trying to hold back and hit him in the belly. The other man jumped up and pulled a knife on Matt, who kicked it out of his hand and then hit him in the head with the shovel. Knocked him out, too. Then he threatened to kill CJ's uncle with the shovel. He picked up the knife and drove it all the way in to the beam next to the uncle's head and snapped the handle off. Matt told the uncle if he or his friends ever tried to hurt her again he would kill all of them. Evidently the man believed him. According to Roy he never so much as spoke a cross word to her after that."
"Yeah, I'd say that might do it." Vince looked at Matt and shook his head. "I'm just glad that they finally figured it out. Both of 'em are a lot happier."
"So what do you think Isabella's going to say?" Michael sipped his beer.
"She'll probably freak out like I did at first. But really, you know he's going to do it one way or another. Like what he did with the restaurant." Vince chuckled.
"What did he do?"
"Well when we first moved to Hawaii and were going to open the restaurant, I went to a bank to get a loan. Actually several banks and they each turned me down. Houston talked to Mama and found out what had happened. Suddenly I get a phone call the next day – an open line of credit. Well I'm not stupid. After I found out she had told him what happened and he asked which banks I had been to – it wasn't too hard to figure out." He laughed. "Man I was pissed. I was about to get on a plane and fly back to LA to kick his butt. Then Mama sat me down and reminded me how the two of us were practically brothers and that all he was trying to do was to help me and my family - like he hadn't already done enough." Vince looked over at his best friend. "There's no way in hell I could ever pay him back."
"That's like when Kathy was kidnapped. He put up a reward and paid one guy $10,000 to give us access to the records at the Hall of Justice. Of course that was after we chased him out of a deli, across a busy street, and then Matt threw him in a garbage dumpster for about half an hour. Odd technique, but it worked." He laughed. "And after we got her back, she was a mess, you know? Houston came by the day he got out of the hospital from where the whacko stabbed him in the chest with the butcher knife. Said he needed to talk to Kathy. She was really skittish of any men – even me a little bit at first, but she went right to him and gave him a hug. They went out and sat on the swing in the backyard and talked for almost an hour. I didn't know until Wednesday that he had told her about his kidnapping. She came on out of it afterwards. It didn't happen overnight, but she was a lot better after that."
They both heard CJ coming down stairs just as Roy and Mama walked back into the house. All three came to the den at the same time. CJ looked across the room at her husband and grinned. "Two peas in a pod. I guess he is tired – he's been awake since we landed yesterday morning." She picked up an afghan off the back of the couch and covered both of them up.
"So Vince, are you going to be ready to get to work Monday morning?" Roy sat down across the room on the loveseat.
"Sure am." He was all smiles.
"You could quit the police department and play alarm installer, Michael." Roy had a serious look on his face.
"Nooooo, I can't do that – like he told me before," he motioned to Matt, "it would be too hard to break in a new connection in the department." They all laughed.
