Chapter 25

Hi, here's my latest installment. Thanks so much for the comments and input!

Bryant drove further down the highway, closer to Denver, with Matt and C.J. sitting in the backseat.

C.J. sat very still, resignation on her face while Matt sized up Bryant. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw the car that had been parked by the side of the road following them.

"Just a little bit further and then this journey will be over for you, Mr. Houston."

"What about her," he asked.

"She's going back to my boss and he'll do with her what he wishes," Bryant said, "She made him very angry when she escaped."

"So how much does he pay you to blow up innocent people and kill anyone who gets in his way?"

Bryant adjusted the rear view mirror.

"Enough to retire comfortably at least two times over in this life," he said.

"How many federal employees did your boss buy to work for him?"

"At least two," Bryant said, "It's just up the road a bit."

Bryant turned off the highway onto a narrower dirt road, leading off into a grove of trees.

"Why don't you let him go and just take me," C.J. said.

Matt looked at her and but she kept her eyes on Bryant.

"He left orders that there would be no witnesses this time," Bryant said, "That includes your boyfriend."

The car came to a stop, parked just a short distance from the other car. Another man armed with a gun stood waiting for them and Bryant got out of the car to meet him.

Both C.J. and Matt sat in the car as Bryant opened the door and the other man pulled Al's limp body out of the car and dumped it on the ground.

"Get out of the car," Bryant said, pointing the gun at both of them.

"We should just kill the guy now and leave him with the dead agent in the ravine over there," the other man said, "Our boss only wants the woman alive."

Matt and C.J. looked at each other.

"All right, I'll do it," Bryant said, "You watch the woman."

"Don't you want her to watch him die," the man asked.

"That will make it better," Bryant said, "The boss will like that."

The two men grabbed them and at gunpoint, pulled them down the dirt road to its end where there was a small ravine. The man holding C.J. stopped while Bryant dragged Matt closer to the ravine.

"Just a shot in the head, a push into the ravine and we'll be out of here," the man said.

C.J. looked at him and then suddenly pulled the handgun out of her pocket and swung it at the man's head. It struck his temple and knocked him off his feet to the ground. She then ran where Bryant was standing with Matt, struggling to hold onto him.

"Anything you want to say before you die," Bryant said, pointing the gun at Matt's head and pressing his finger on the trigger.

Matt looked past him and saw C.J. approaching. His eyes plead with her to run away from him and escape. He tried to pull away from Bryant again.

Suddenly, a shot rang out and brushed past him striking Bryant in the head. Matt looked again and saw C.J. pointing the gun at the both of them, her aim unwavering and her eyes fixed.

"I'm not ready to die," Matt said, quietly as Bryant fell on the ground at his feet, his eyes looking back up at him in frozen shock. He reached down to get Bryant's car keys.

"We have to leave," C.J. said, running to him. Matt looked once more at the dead agent and they ran back to the car. When they were almost there, they heard the other man's footsteps behind them. C.J. ran to the driver's side. Matt opened the passenger door after stepping over Al's body and he gave her the keys.

The engine roared as she started it and she put the car into reverse. The gears squealed as they pulled away while the other man pulled his gun out and started shooting at them. They ducked low in their seats while C.J. then put the car in forward and tore down the dirt road back onto the highway.

"Is he following us," she asked.

Matt shook his head.

"Not yet anyway," he said, "Denver's not too far away."

"I'm not going back to the feds," C.J. said, "There's nothing they can do and I've just killed one of their agents."

"Who tried to kill me," Matt said, "You did what you had to do."

"I don't trust them to know the difference," C.J. said, "I don't know who's working for the government and who's working for him."

"They've had a poor batting average at keeping anyone safe," Matt said, "And there's probably more bad agents where they came from."

"He's got a lot of money," C.J. said, "He can buy anyone, anywhere to get what he wants."

"Turn off at the next exit," Matt said, "We'll go find a place where we can sit and think about what to do next."

C.J. looked at him and nodded.

"We might need to disable the GPS on this car," Matt said, "There's probably trying to track it down right now."

"Okay," she said, "It's starting to snow again,"

Matt looked at the snowflakes intermixed with rain falling on the wind shield.

"I know a couple places in town," he said.

"We should at least tell Jonathon that we're okay," C.J. said.

Matt nodded.

Jonathon sat in the office with Chad waiting for the agents to arrive with Matt and C.J. but no one came, not even a phone call that they had been delayed.

"Heard anything," Jonathon said, after Chad got off the phone.

"Nothing, they left the prison hours ago," Chad said, "We're going to activate the GPS device and look for the car."

"Okay," Jonathon said, "And bring Denver PD in the loop on this so they can get an APB out."

Chad looked at Jonathon, his face grave.

"I hope they find them safe some place."

Jonathon sighed.

"I hope they find them at all," he said, "How well did you know your agents again?"

C.J. followed the directions that Matt gave her and drove off the highway into a main street and then after a mile or so, onto a side street. Rain and snow falling on the windshield, blocked her view so she flipped on the wipers. He pointed out a narrow road and she turned the car down it and saw a main building surrounded by small cabins with a play area for children in the middle of it. A small grove of trees surrounded the site.

"Didn't we just stay in a cabin," she said.

"I know the guy who owns this place," Matt said, "He used to go fishing with my father."

C.J. parked the car in a roofed shelter and they both got out of the car. She opened the trunk so they could get their suitcases while Matt went into the office to talk to his friend. A moment later, he came out with a key and they headed to the right cabin.

Matt opened the door and flipped the light switch. The rooms were small, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a small living room and a kitchen that looked as if would better fit a boat than a dwelling.

"Are you hungry," Matt asked her.

She nodded.

"Yeah, I guess I am," she said.

"The owner said there's a little store down at the end of the road," Matt said, "Why don't you stay here and I'll be back with some food?"

"I'll start a fire," she said, "And heat this place up a little."

"Will you be okay until I return," he said.

"I'll be fine."

He left for the market and she went to find some wood to put in the fireplace.

C.J. sat in her apartment, trying to study for finals. She knew that she had to work extra hard just to pass this session since she had missed a week of classes with the flu. Now Julia had caught it and was sleeping in her bedroom. C.J. worried about her friend, who appeared frailer each day since the night of the fire.

She tried to concentrate on her flash cards with legal terms on it to memorize from her class in torts but her mind wandered.

Her doorbell rang. She went to it and looked through the peep hole and saw it was Jonathon. She let him in.

"Hi, I tried to call but your phone was busy," he said.

"I took off the hook," she said, "I have to some serious studying done this weekend."

"You haven't been at work," Jonathon said, "Studying?"

She sat back down on the couch with her flashcards and he sat in a chair.

"I had the flu," she said, "Now Julia has it but she seems much sicker than I was."

"How you feeling now," Jonathon asked.

"Better," she said, "How've you been doing?"

"Busy working," Jonathon said, "I might be quitting the bartending gig when summer comes. I've decided to go back home."

"To Colorado," she said, "What about all your plans here?"

"I'm not sure what I want to do now," Jonathon said, "My mom is short some ranch hands and she just hired a new one who didn't have much experience so I thought I'd spend the summer helping her out."

"That's good," she said, "I was thinking of leaving Boston myself and going back to Texas."

"I thought you were going to clerk over the summer."

She shrugged.

"I don't know what I'm going to do either," she said, "I'm behind in my classes and somehow it doesn't seem the right path for me anymore."

"C.J., you can't let what happened run your whole life and take you away from what you want."

"But isn't that what you're doing?"

Jonathon stayed in his office, making phone calls to try to determine why Matt, C.J. and two of Chad's best agents were missing. Sometimes he thought he spent his entire life on the phone, taking care of business or addressing one crisis or another. He missed his time out in the field.

He nearly took a sip of lukewarm coffee when the phone rang again.

"Hello," he said.

"Jonathon, it's Matt."

Jonathon nearly dropped his coffee.

"Matt, where the hell are you," he said, "I've got law enforcement looking all over the state for you and C.J."

"We're both fine, but two of your agents are dead. One of them forgot to tell you about a moonlighting stint during his background check."

Jonathon's stomach fell.

"One of them was bad?"

"After we let the prison, he changed the itinerary and decided he wanted to shorten the passenger list."

"How'd you get away?"

"Shot and killed the agent, but the other hit man got away," Matt said.

"You killed a federal agent," Jonathon said.

"I just told you he was working for someone else who probably paid him a hell of a lot more money than Uncle Sam did," Matt said, "A guy named Andrico Duval, does that ring a bell?"

"Who told you that?"

"His half-brother at SuperMax," Matt said, "It turns out they had a falling out over Andrico's career choice."

Jonathon was silent on the other end.

"It makes sense that another relative would be involved, since the explosives did trace back to the Duval family," he said.

"Duval, Jr. said this guy's the black sheep of his terrorist family and I think he's right about him being the worst of the bunch."

"We'll notify all the agencies so they can run a check on this guy," Jonathon said, "I hope you're wrong."

"I don't think so," Matt said, "I have a feeling C.J. would agree with me about that."

"So when are you coming in," Jonathon asked.

"We're not," Matt said, "And I'll be ending this call before you can trace it. C.J.'s nearly been kidnapped twice in the last 48 hours because your agency employs people working for this Duval guy. I think it's time you ferret them out because they've already compromised your entire division."

"You can't say that about two bad apples," Jonathon said, "We can keep C.J. safe until she has to testify."

"Do you really believe that," Matt said, "Not that it matters because I'm not taking that chance."

Jonathon paused.

"Where will you be going, or won't you tell me?"

"Maybe we'll send you a postcard."

Matt clicked his phone off and entered the market.

C.J. sat on the couch, drying her hair with a towel after her shower. The warmth of the room felt almost as good as the shower had felt on her skin after she washed off two days worth of grime. She dressed in some jeans and a blouse, wearing socks on her feet and came back to a more comfortable living room.

The flames danced in the fireplace and lit up the simple cabin with a warm glow. She sat back and watched them.

She replayed the vision of what had just happened in her head. How she had pulled out Jed's gun and shot Bryant without even thinking of it. She had seen the look of surprise in Matt's eyes when he turned around and saw her holding the gun. He had never met that side of her, not surprising because he had never seen it. She looked at the jagged map of lines on her hands, knowing that he had not seen that part of her either.

She used those hands to brush her hair out before her curls could snarl into a pony tail. When she had been held captive, she had brushed her hair every morning after she woke up, one of her daily rituals the only part of each day she could control. Running the hair brush over her scalp and through to the ends of her hair soothed her in a world where nothing else did. It brought back memories of how her mother had brushed her hair every morning and every night before she had died when C.J. was a young girl.

Her hair had grown since that night she had cut it shorter, to approaching its previous length. She had cut it for two reasons, to disguise who she'd been and to forget where she had come from. But shooting that man today who had turned from protector to assassin in a blink of an eye reminded her of who she was just as quickly.

The brush had been a gift from Elena, the girl who brought her meals to her but it had taken a while to ask her for her name. She had arrived in her cell one morning and gave it to her. C.J. had been lying on the bed with tears dried on her face and her clothes drenched in sweat.

"Miss, here's something for you," Elena said, placing the brush on a small table with her morning meal.

C.J. gingerly sat up and saw the hair brush, then looked at Elena.

"It's beautiful, but I don't want anything from him," she said.

Elena shook her head.

"Oh no, it's from me, not the senor." she said, "You look sad and you don't eat anything and I know when I was back home, my mama used to brush my hair and it made me feel better."

Despite herself, C.J. smiled at the young girl.

"My mother used to do the same thing when I was little," she said, "Thank you for the gift."

"De nada," Elena said, "I get homesick here too sometimes."

C.J. looked at the fire place again. Elena had been kind to her, in a world of cruelty. She closed her eyes and sat back, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

Suddenly, she heard someone unlocking the door and got on her feet. The door opened and in walked Matt with grocery bags.

"Sorry it took so long," he said, walking into the room and looking around, "It's much warmer in here."

"There was plenty of wood to start a fire," she said, picking up one of the bags as they walked into the tiny kitchen.

He pulled out some cans.

"I think it's canned chili," Matt said, with a shrug, "At least it was on sale."

C.J. pulled out some more cans. Fruit salad, green beans and some …

"I think those are things called water chestnuts," Matt said.

"Oh Houston, those are actually quite good," she said, "I'll take them."

"I won't argue with that," he said, "I'll make the chili. You handle the stuff that's good for you."

She smiled, and reached for the can opener.

"I called Jonathon and told him what happened," Matt said, pouring the chili into a saucepan.

"What did he say?"

"You were right. He had problems accepting that the man you killed was a bad federal agent."

"That's not surprising," C.J. said, "He doesn't believe that anyone who worked in his profession could be as bad as the criminals they chase."

"Most of the time he's right," Matt said, "But this isn't most of the time."

Chad walked into the office.

"So what do you want to do," he said, "The GPS search came up empty."

"Did you run the APB," Jonathon asked.

"Yes, with DPD and we put it out on the wire."

"Did we find the missing agents?"

"Not yet," Chad said, "We've got the FBI and the state patrol combing the highway for anything suspicious."

"I'm not sure we'll find them," Jonathon said, "At least one of them was crooked and he's dead. The other one's dead as well. And apparently, there's another hit man who's unaccounted for running around the state."

"We did put out the search on an Andrico Duval and we're waiting to see what comes back," Chad said, "It would be helpful if we had prints."

"I'm not sure this guy's ever been arrested anywhere," Jonathon said, "He wasn't actually involved with the other Duvals when they were most active."

"Something might turn up," Chad said, "And the Office of Professional Integrity is launching an administrative investigation into why we had at least two bad apples in the Marshal's office."

Jonathon laughed mirthlessly.

"I guess that was coming," he said, "They know how to get in touch with me if they need to talk."

C.J. and Matt ate his canned chili and her canned vegetables, topped off with a mixed fruit salad. He showered and she went back to the living room to sit on the couch in front of the fire. Suddenly, she felt cold despite the warmth in the room and very tired.

Matt walked out with damp hair and a pair of sweats and a university sweat shirt. He carried some blankets.

"I found these in the closet," he said, handing her one which she wrapped around herself.

"I guess I'm really tired," she said, "It's been a long day."

"I think it's been longer than that," Matt said, sitting nearby.

She curled up on the couch, pulling the blanket over her.

"I have something for you," he said, reaching for something he had brought from his suitcase. He handed it to C.J.

"Rhonda found it hidden away in my dad's cabin," Matt said, "I wanted to give it back to you."

She handled the box, looking at it.

"I remember this," she said, "I made it when I was in college."

"I read some of the letters," Matt said, "I thought it might help me find out where you were and what happened to you."

She opened the box, pulling some of its contents out.

"It doesn't matter," she said, "It's all in the past anyway."

"C.J., why did you nearly drop out of law school after your first year?"

She looked up at him, startled.

"You read about that," she said, "That was ages ago. As you can see, I changed my mind."

"Yeah you did," he said, "But you were so determined to be a lawyer the entire time I've known you. It was the first time I heard you express doubt, let alone think about quitting."

"It was a very difficult first year," she said, "Julia got sick at the end of it."

Matt nodded.

"Did something else happen," he said, "Julie also mentioned a man named Andre in her letter. Did he have anything to do with it?"

"Why do you think that," she said, wrapping her blanket closer around her, "That was a long time ago."

Matt paused.

"Because I care about you," he said, "And I want to help you."

She looked at him then shook her head.

"You can't help me," she said, "All you can do is get hurt or worse."

"Why don't you let that be my decision?"

"Because I don't want anything to happen to you," C.J. said, "Today was bad enough and you shouldn't have to lose your life over something that begun years ago."

"I think I already know some of it," Matt said.

"What do you mean you know," C.J. said, sitting up on the couch, "Who told you?"

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.