DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters, except for Matthew and Moxie. The rest of them belong to James Duff and the Major Crimes franchise.

Chapter 10

Andy was upstairs in Matthew's bedroom checking on him. He reached to open the blinds with his left arm and winced a little in pain. He shook it off and opened the blinds. He looked out the window and saw someone walking their dog. Moxie jumped up and ran over to the window and started barking at the other dog. "Moxie! Shhh! You're gonna wake up Matthew, now stop that," Andy said to the dog and Moxie just looked at him. Andy noticed a car parked on the other side of the street that wasn't there last night. It was marked on the side as Southern California Edison. 'Huh' Andy thought to himself.

Matthew woke up and moved the covers off of him. Andy turned around and saw Matthew getting out of bed. "Hey, you okay?" he asked him. Matthew nodded and padded down the hallway towards the bathroom. Andy followed him out and waited in the hallway for him to be done. Matthew came out a couple of seconds later. "Did you wash your hands?" Andy asked him. Matthew stopped and turned around. He walked back inside the bathroom and washed his hands.

"Are you hungry? I can make you some plain toast if you want, or you can have some dry cereal," Andy said to Matthew as the two of them went downstairs. Moxie followed them into the kitchen. Matthew took a seat at the kitchen table. "Can I have some cereal?" he asked Andy. "Sure buddy, not a problem," Andy said as he went into the pantry and retrieved the Cheerios box. He poured them in a bowl for Matthew and gave it to him, without milk. Matthew slowly started to eat them.

Andy was feeding Moxie when Rusty came through the back door. "Hey, I heard Matthew wasn't feeling well," he said to Andy. "Yeah, he has some sort of stomach bug," Andy replied as he closed the dog food container and placed it back in the mud room. "I was on my way to the DA's office this morning, but I got a text from Mom letting me know what was going on, I wanted to see how things were before I left," Rusty explained to Andy who gave him a skeptical look.

Andy glanced at his watch. "You know, your mother hasn't even been gone for twenty minutes, she's already sending you to check up on us," Andy chuckled at the thought. "She's worried, can you blame her?" Rusty said as he walked into the kitchen. He grabbed a glass of orange juice while he was there. Andy watched him interact with Matthew at the kitchen table.

As Rusty was getting up from the table a couple of minutes later, Andy stopped him. "Oh, Rusty, by the way, did you happen to see a utility car sitting across the street from the house last night when you came home?" Andy asked him as he walked with him to the back door. "Um, no, not that I saw," Rusty said as he opened the door. "Do me a favor kid, when you leave take a picture of the car that's sitting across the street and send it to my phone, okay?" Andy said to him. "Okay, but why?" Rusty asked. "No reason, just want to make sure of something, that's all. Oh, and don't tell your mother about it, okay?" Andy said to him. "Okay, bye," Rusty hesitated as he left and Andy closed the door.

His gut feeling was telling him something was up with that car out in front of their house but he didn't want to alarm anyone just yet. A few minutes later, he received a text message from Rusty with a picture of the car. He sent him five pictures, all taken as Rusty drove past the car. He got the front, back, and side of the car. Andy saw two people sitting inside the vehicle as well. He then turned his attention to Matthew who was still sitting at the kitchen table.

"Can I go watch TV?" Matthew asked Andy as he pushed the now empty bowl in front of him to the middle of the table. "Sure buddy," Andy told him as he grabbed the bowl and placed it in the sink. Moxie followed Matthew and Andy started to put away the food that was left out. After that was done, he decided to go check on Matthew before heading upstairs to change his clothes. "You doing okay in here?" he asked Matthew as Matthew was laying on the couch. "Yes," Matthew said quietly as he watched the cartoon on TV.

Andy then went upstairs. On his way to change his clothes, he stopped in Matthew's room for a minute to see if that car was still there. It was indeed. Andy thought it was strange that he didn't see any orange cones or any activity coming from the vehicle. He then walked into their bedroom and got dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He looked out the window from their bedroom but the tree in front of their house blocked his view from there. Andy then picked up the laundry basket with all the dirty towels in it and brought it downstairs and threw it in the washing machine.

Afterwards, he called Mike on the phone. Mike was sitting at his desk when his phone rang. "Hello?" Mike answered. "Hey, Mike, I need you to do me a favor, and don't alert Sharon about it," Andy said to him. "Oh, uh, are you sure about that?" Mike chuckled as he looked towards Sharon's office, which was empty for the moment. "Yes, at least for the moment. I'm going to send you a couple of pictures of a car that's been sitting out front of our house, I want you to run it and see if it comes back to anything. Something isn't sitting right with me here," Andy said.

"Sure, I'll take a look at it," Mike said as he shifted in his chair to look at his computer. "By the way, how's Matthew feeling?" he added as he looked at his email. "He's doing better now," Andy said. "Okay, got your email, I'll look at it and run the plates and get back to you," Mike said. "Thanks Mike, oh and remember, keep it between us for now," Andy said. "Right," Mike answered as he looked back at Sharon's office again and hung up his phone.

Sharon then arrived at work and made her way into the Murder Room. "Good morning, everyone," she said as she walked to her office. Mike briefly looked up from his computer to see her walk into her office. Provenza waited until she placed her things down at her desk before following her in to her office. He knocked on the open door. "Commander, how's the kid doing?" Provenza asked her. Sharon smiled and turned around. He did have a soft spot when it came to Matthew, although he'd deny it if you confronted him with it. "He got sick last night and again this morning. When I left he was sleeping, but I told Andy I would call later this morning to see how things are," Sharon said to him as she sat down at her desk.

"Do we have any open files with the case from yesterday?" Sharon asked him as he stood there in her office. "Ah, no. Everything we had from the case, we turned over to the FBI," Provenza said. "Good, so then today is a catch-up day then," Sharon said as she shuffled some papers on her desk. Provenza nodded in agreement. "Uh, Commander, are you sure Flynn can handle the kid being sick?" he asked her before he walked out of her office. She looked back at him with a worried look. "Oh, I'm sure they will be fine, besides I told him to behave himself, how much trouble could he get into?" Sharon said and then thought about it while Provenza left her office.

Back outside the house, in the car, the two men sat there watching the house. "Why did we choose today to break in? It looks like someone is still home," Marvin said as he hit Henry in the arm with the newspaper he finished reading. "Hey!" Henry said as he rubbed his arm. "Oh come on now, I didn't hit you that hard!" Marvin said. "Boss said we break inside and take something that belongs to them, as a revenge type deal," Henry said. "Yeah, but they're cops, I mean should we really be messing with them?" Marvin said in a worried tone. "Are you scared?" Henry said as he made fun of him. "No, I'm not scared," Marvin mumbled. "We scoped this house out for a couple of days now and figured out the best way to get in was through the yard, right?" Henry said to Marvin. "Plus, wearing these uniforms it will look like we are doing actual work," he added.

Henry got out of the car and leaned back inside. "Come on Marvin!" he said to the other man as he made his way to the back of the car. Marvin got out of the car and Henry handed him an orange cone. "Place this in front of the car. I've seen it out before," Henry said and Marvin nodded. They both started making their way to the house, carrying a bag of tools. "What if someone is still home?" Marvin said as they crossed the street. "Look, we'll look around again, if it's safe, then we'll go inside, if not, then we'll come back, although the Boss isn't going to like that," Henry said.

Andy was sitting in the kitchen going over some bills when his phone rang. He picked it up from the table and saw Sharon's name and picture on the screen. He smiled as he answered the phone. "Hello, my love, is everything okay?" he said to her. Sharon chuckled at the way he answered his phone. "Everything is fine here at the office. How are things there?" Sharon asked him. "Well, Matthew ate some dry cereal this morning and is now watching some cartoon on TV," Andy said to her as he leaned back on the chair.

"Well that's good," Sharon said sounding relieved. "You know, I can take care of a sick child, Sharon," Andy told her as he chuckled into the phone. "I know, it's just," Sharon started to say to him but he finished her sentence. "You're a mother and worry, I know," Andy said and smiled. Sharon smiled as well. "How's your shoulder doing?" she asked him, changing the topic. "It's fine," he muttered. "Hmm, maybe you should go back to the orthopedic and have them look at it again?" she said as she shuffled through the papers on her desk. "Sharon, it's fine. A little twinge, that's all," he said, almost annoyed but tried to ease her worry anyway.

Andy looked up out the kitchen window to see two men, wearing utility uniforms walking down their driveway. "Hang on a second, Sharon," Andy said as he paused to look at them. "Something's not right here," he added. "What's happening?" she asked him but she got silence. "Andy?" she said in a worried voice. "I think I know how the gate has been left open," he came back on the phone as he peered through the sliding glass door to get a better look.

"Let me call you back, there's two ComEd guys here, who look out of place," Andy said to her. "What? Andy what's going on?" she asked again. "I'll call you back," he said and then hung up his phone. She sat there for a second, alarms going off in her head that something wasn't right. She grabbed her phone and walked out of her office into the Murder Room.

"Commander, everything okay?" Provenza asked her as he watched her walk out of her office. "Uh, I'm not sure. I called Andy and in the middle of our conversation he said there were two ComEd guys walking up our driveway, he said they didn't look right and told me he would call me back," Sharon said to Provenza and the rest of the team.

"I'm sure it's nothing, just Flynn trying to worry you that's all," Provenza said quickly to her. Sharon gave him a look. "Uh, I'm not quite sure about that, Lieutenant," Mike said as he pushed his chair back. All eyes turned to Mike and Sharon moved closer to his desk. "Flynn called me before you walked in and asked me to run a couple of things on a suspicious car that was parked across the street from your house. I guess he noticed it this morning," Mike said and Sharon now gave him a look that was mostly directed towards Andy. Mike held up his hands. "He told me not to alert you as he doesn't want you to worry," Mike grimaced. Sharon placed her hands on her hips. "Uh oh, I think the Lieutenant's in trouble," Julio mumbled and Sharon turned around to look at him. Julio saw her turn around and he immediately looked down at the papers on his desk.

"What did you find, Tao?" Provenza asked. "This car was reported stolen from the Southern California ComEd department a couple of weeks ago, but there's no other reports about patrol looking for the car or anything like that," Mike said as he showed everyone the pictures that Andy sent him. Sharon glanced at the pictures that Mike was putting up on the board and then back at her phone.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Andy was still looking out the sliding glass door to see what those two guys were doing. "Daddy?" Matthew said and startled Andy. He looked over at him. "Hey, you need something?" Andy asked him and still looked outside. "What are you doing?" he asked Andy as he looked at him and tried to move closer to see what he was looking at. "No, uh, Matthew, I need you to do me a favor, okay?" Andy said and Matthew nodded. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked him. "Yeah," Matthew replied. "Good. I need you to go upstairs to your room. Take the phone with you, and stay up there until I tell you it's safe, alright?" Andy said to him.

Matthew looked at his father. "What's going on?" he asked. "There's two guys outside," he started to explain to Matthew but Matthew interrupted him. "Are they from the electric company?" he asked him. "How do you know?" Andy asked as he kept an eye on the two guys who were now trying to get the fence open. "I saw the car earlier," Matthew said. "What do you mean, earlier?" Andy asked him. "Last week, before we went to Disneyland," Matthew said as he followed Andy towards the back door.

Andy turned around and looked at Matthew. "Why didn't you say anything to your mom or me about it?" he asked him as he went back to the hallway closet and pulled out his back-up piece. Matthew's eyes went wide when he saw his father pull out a small gun and holster, and placed it on his belt with his shirt covering it. Andy saw this and tried assuring Matthew. "Just as a precaution, don't tell mom," Andy said and gave him a wink. Matthew nodded and then ran up the stairs.

Andy then made his way back to the back door of the house and tried to see where those two guys went. Matthew came back downstairs holding a baseball bat and joined Andy at the back door. Andy heard the patter of little feet behind him and turned around. There was Matthew, still in his pajamas, holding the baseball bat that Andy kept in their bedroom. He lowered his head and shook it. Moxie was right next to him now. "I want you to stay in the house, please," Andy said to him and he nodded. Andy gave him a smile and then opened the back door. "Moxie, stay with Matthew," he told the dog and stepped outside.

TBC