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When C.J. had arrived that home at night, she had been surprised to feel the knob of the door turn so easily in her hand and she had realized that it hadn't been locked. Maybe Julia had arrived home already, earlier than she had planned and had been reading or doing something quiet. The apartment had looked so dark and no sound could be heard from the outside. But Julia could have fallen asleep somewhere even the couch in the living room.

So C.J. opened the door and stepped inside the darkened room where the only light had been cast by streetlights through the windows. The living room looked empty and there were no signs of Julia there or in the adjoining kitchen but perhaps she was in her bedroom and hadn't heard her come inside.

But then she heard something move, a rustle against the sofa and some soft footsteps.

"Julia…"

Then she looked up and saw the shape, the outline of a tall man who looked slightly familiar. Something about how he stood and watched her now.

Just like had been doing outside their window from the sidewalk.

"Grant…what are you doing here?"

He didn't move at all, he just kept staring at her.

"I came to speak to Julia."

She felt confused, so her friend wasn't in the house, then how…

"Who let you inside?"

She felt him smile in that way of his even though she couldn't really see his face.

"I let myself in," he said, "I still have a key."

She started towards him, acting braver than she felt but anger fueled her movement, keeping her fear at bay.

"You need to leave…now."

He smiled and this time she saw him.

"Not until I've gotten what I came for…"

C.J. sighed from where she sat, looking at Matt who had been watching her very closely. Her breathing came rapidly until she stopped talking to catch up with it to rein in the emotions that threatened to get away from her.

"He wouldn't leave like I told him to until he talked with her…but she wasn't there. She was at the library studying for an exam I think. I tried to tell him…she wasn't…that he had to leave and the court said he couldn't be there."

"But he wouldn't leave would he," Matt said.

She shook her head and gathered her words again before her memories swept them away.

"No he wouldn't."

Matt picked up a photo of her face marred by some stitches up above her brow. The same place where a silvery scar existed now.

"How did this happen?"

She just looked at him directly .

"When he didn't like my answers to his questions."

C.J. couldn't tell the exact moment when he sprung from where he had been standing, moving so quickly he was upon her before she could react. Looking back, she should have seen his eyes darting around while she spoke checking out all possible escapes which could be taken by her and calculating how quickly he would have to move to cut them all off.

And when he grabbed her wrist, she didn't see it coming. She pulled her hand away and he released it, taking another step towards her.

"Where is she?"

She stood her ground and folded her arms.

"I don't know and if I did, I wouldn't tell you. You need to leave now before I call the police."

He had just laughed at her then and she knew he must have been drinking before he arrived her.

"They won't come, not for a piece of paper filled with lies," he said, "that the two of you made up about me."

"They're not lies," she said, "You need help Grant and you need to stay away from us in accordance with the order."

"Screw the damn order," he said, moving closer, "Now tell me where I can find Julia."

"No."

She saw his hand moving towards her before she felt it hit her face, catching her off balance and making her eyes water at the flash of pain. Her hands reflexively went to her face where it had been struck.

"I'm going to ask you again," he continued, cold anger highlighting his face.

Fear began to fill her but she shook her head again. The anger on his face would turn to rage and if he found Julia, he might kill her this time. She couldn't let that happen. He moved to strike her again and this time she blocked him. She did that several times but he finally grabbed her wrist sharply.

He could have broken it easily enough but instead he had quickly twisted it behind her back and pulled her to him. She tried to struggle from his grasp but by then, it was too late.

"I want to know where she is," he said, "and you're going to tell me."

C.J. rubbed her forehead where it had been marked by Grant. Matt watched her, feeling sick at what she had accounted. He fought to keep the questions from spilling out because he didn't want to stop her from talking until she had finished. But man, it proved difficult to sit in his chair while this ugliness of what had happened those years ago revealed itself slowly.

And he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach it would get a lot worse.

"He hit me with his fist while he held me and I tried so hard to block him but he's just too strong," she said, "but I couldn't tell him where she was because I knew he'd kill her, he was so filled with rage."

So she bore it herself to protect her friend, Matt realized.

"He got really angry and dragged me to the coffee table and slammed my head against the corner at one point, that's how my head got cut. I felt the blood down my face, stinging my eye. I couldn't see much after that."

Matt remained silent, thinking of a hundred different ways to track down Grant and make him suffer as he done to these women. She stopped talking and just started working on her breathing again. As someone must have taught her to do.

"I thought he would just keep hitting me until he ran out of rage but…no."

"So what happened," he asked quietly.

She looked up at him, her eyes darkening.

"He found another way to hurt me."

C.J. had fallen on the floor of the living room after he had struck her head several times against the coffee table. Blood had streamed out of some cut that had opened up; she could feel it trickling down her forehead into her eye, where it stung. Her eyes blurred as she lay on the floor and saw him standing over her. She tried to find a way to stand up but felt suddenly weak even though adrenalin rushed through her. But he just laughed.

"Well C.J. there's other ways to get what I want than from Julia since she's not around."

Her vision sharpened suddenly.

"After all, you're quite the beauty in your own less refined way."

She read his eyes and saw something different there, more frightening than his earlier rage.

"Get out of here," she said, trying to inject strength in her voice.

Suddenly he straddled her pinning her wrists over her head against the floor. His hot breath accentuated with Vodka against her face as his hand suddenly reached beneath her blouse.

"Not until we're finished here."

Matt watched her swallow noisily as she had returned back to that night. As if the events were in front of her and not him.

"Do you need something to drink," he asked.

She shook her head and rested it in her hand for a moment, collecting herself. But the memories that had been stored so deeply inside had rushed to the surface where they had been lingering just below for days…ever since she heard about Grant. Matt gazed at her a long time, wanting to ask one question but he waited patiently.

"I never thought he'd do that to me…I don't know why or what happened…"

Matt sighed.

"C.J., he's a bad guy, a really bad guy and the police are going to get him and it better be before I do."

"Houston…"

Matt ran his hand through his hair, emotions that he didn't recognize threatening to come to the forefront and rush him into action. But he had to keep them under control because this wasn't about him and what he wanted; it was about her and what had happened. So he had to do something very difficult at this point, which was to listen.

"He tore at my clothes…I felt his hand everywhere…I couldn't do anything…I never felt so scared and so I don't know…helpless maybe…I always thought I'd know what to do but I couldn't…"

"Did he…"

The words were painful for him to say and more than that to wait for her answer. She just looked down at her hands, fidgeting with the edges of her shirt.

"I thought when he tried to force my legs apart, he would…but then the door opened and I heard yelling. Julia had come home."

Matt guessed what had happened next, how Julia would react when she saw her ex-boyfriend the one who had beaten her attempting to rape her closest friend. She would do just like he would have done, tried to stop Grant even if it meant killing him.

"She grabbed something and she struck him with it, didn't she," Matt guessed.

C.J. looked up at him and nodded.

"She hit him several times and when I pushed him off of me, she kept hitting him with I'm not sure what but she got him in the head. After a while, he stopped moving."

"Then someone called the police…"

"I don't know, I think Mallory had been parking outside to join her and she came in just afterward and saw us. The police came about 20 minutes later and they seemed more intent on interrogating us on assault with a deadly weapon than on what happened."

"You both were arrested and booked but never charged."

She shook her head again.

"He was in the apartment," she said, "and the order said he couldn't be there. They put some heat on us but they had to back off and the case died."

"They never went after Grant even after you told them what happened?"

"No…and you don't know what it's like to be a woman and go through that…I didn't want to talk about it afterward. I just wanted to forget it. I tried to for a while but I realized it would still always be with me."

Matt wished she had told him about it but he understood what she meant, that it had been difficult back then and years later, still hadn't been easy. If Grant hadn't been a suspect in Mallory's murder, would she have ever told him?

"C.J. that's an awfully big secret to keep to yourself for so long," he said, "I'm glad you told me. I'm not going to lie and say I don't want to beat the crap out of Grant right now but you should never have had to keep that to yourself."

She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"I told the lieutenant who's been staying nearby what happened," she said, "and he's passing it back to the investigators on Mallory's case."

Matt nodded.

"They out looking for Grant?"

"They're trying to find him but it's like you said, he vanished."

Matt didn't like the sound of that at all. After what C.J. told him, Mallory's death began to make some sense if she had been at the house that night.

"What about Julia," he said, "Does she know?"

"She's been talking to the investigators I think," C.J. said, "That was her plan and they'll take steps to help keep her safe if necessary."

"That leaves you."

She shot him a look.

"I can take care of myself Houston."

He sighed.

"I know you're carrying a gun and you brought it here."

Her eyes widened.

"Houston…"

"It fell out of your purse," he said, "I didn't know you had one."

"It's permitted and I'm not ever going to let anyone get the upper hand on me again," she said.

"I'm not going to let anyone do that either," he said, "so I'm not leaving you alone either."

She didn't really want him to do that as much as she didn't like to admit it. So she just nodded quietly. He looked at her, saddened by what she had experienced during the time their lives had gone on divergent paths. A deeper instinct inside him almost drove him to wrap his arms around her and draw her close to him but something else told him she needed some distance right now. So he tried something else…

"Are you feeling up to some dinner," he asked.

She nodded again.

"I'll tell you what, we'll do a little barbecue out on the deck and I'll let you handle the vegetables because I'm hopeless there and then we'll look out at the sunset."

"Houston…I think it might rain later."

"Well then maybe we need to take out some umbrellas."

He saw a hint of a smile on her face as she got off the couch to help him in the kitchen. And when he reached out for her hand, she gave it to him and he squeezed it.