Chapter 26-this update is up. Hope you enjoy it and thanks for reading and the feedback!
Stacy showed up at the motel room quickly enough, eager for more information to add to what she said would be an extensive investigative piece on the prostitution ring that had been operating amidst Bannon County for some period of time.
Before its exposure, C.J. thought listening to her. But how many woman had died and how many bodies would be found by investigators who were currently combing the desert outside the town limits? She didn't even want to think about it. Only one woman, Roxie, had been discovered so far but she would be far from the only one laid to rest in the remote region. So easily it could have been her lying out there rotting if she and the other women hadn't taken matters into their own hands. They were now on the run as fugitives wanted for the murder of one of the men who had tried to victimize them but at least they were alive.
C.J. had really felt that she had been given a lease on life and maybe that's part of the reason she had made the moves on her best friend. That and a ton of physical attraction and no shortage of chemistry between them that had to be real at least on some level to keep bubbling to the surface of her emotions.
If not her memories.
She watched Stacy behave in a flirtatious way with Matt which belied her professionalism. Clearly this reporter wanted a gripping story but the woman also wanted the man at least for a little while. C.J. already knew that Matt had told her thanks but no thanks, but Stacy was nothing if not persistent. Did she actually just rub her shoulder against him when she was studying what had been on the disk that they had found?
Rhonda stood by her.
"She's great at her job," she said, "but really, does she have to make it so obvious how much she wants Matt."
C.J. shrugged.
"What they do is none of my business," she said, "They're both adults."
Rhonda snorted.
"She's not his type…"
C.J. turned and looked at her.
"How would you know," she said, "You don't know him. I should know I guess but I don't remember very much. I just know it's not me."
Rhonda shook her head.
"Oh but it is you," she said, "He's just being chivalrous because you don't remember very much. He doesn't want to take advantage of you for sexual gratification and being a man that makes him a rarity in this world."
If Rhonda said so, C.J. thought. After all, how would she know given that her active memory stretched back maybe a week? All the men except for Matt that she had encountered in this very short time span had tried to abuse or exploit her and he had been the lone exception. Was the world really the way that Rhonda had painted it? She really hoped not but how could she know for sure?
"He can't be the only good guy in the world," C.J. reasoned, "It's too big for that."
Rhonda shrugged.
"I've been around a lot of places and I've met more losers than I can hope to count," she said, "The good men, yeah they're out there but they're not that many of them."
C.J. figured that Rhonda had some knowledge in this area because after all if she did, it's not like she could really remember. She remembered Christian Dean more than she had the man that he had murdered because he had been with her when Dean had come looking for her. Then there was Robert Tyler, another loser who killed simply to advance his own career ambitions. So, even in her old life, she had encountered some truly bad characters. If there were more of them in her background, she supposed she would remember soon enough if her memory ever returned.
But she didn't know now if it ever would because it had been some time already and she still felt the fog shroud every effort she made to remember more about her past. She didn't felt the frustration that she had felt earlier, more like resignation that if her only memory would be of a half-life then she would simply have to rebuild her new life from scratch. Matt had said he would help her do that as would the friends she didn't really remember but she didn't really want to put him through that. After all, he had his own life to live with his own family and his own relationships. She knew by now that he had attracted quite a few of the women he encountered and hadn't been shy about it either. A part of her really envied those faceless women because she really did want more from him and she wondered if she had those feelings before her accident.
Somehow she didn't feel like it had been as cut and dry as Matt had explained it and she knew that he had feelings of his own he had been struggling with. But in the meantime, she noticed that Stacy had moved in on him once again, standing awfully close to him. Not that he seemed to notice.
"Oh Matt, you're so wonderful to be helping these women," she said, "I heard about you from the Arizona State Police I interviewed for my article. They had good things to say about you."
"Well I served in the military with a couple of them some time back."
She looked at the computer but Matt felt her shoulder brush him and he just looked at her. He thought that he had made it clear to her that he harbored no interest in her and that his focus had been on helping C.J. and the other women exonerate themselves of the murder allegations against them and to bring down the prostitution ring.
"You know they might have found some more women," she said.
Matt looked up at her.
"Any more bodies uncovered in their search?"
She nodded.
"They discovered some…remains," she said, "They haven't identified the bones as human or animal yet. They're bringing in an expert from Phoenix."
Matt sighed, knowing that given the area searched, there were plenty of animals that had lived and died there but the women who lay buried there had been brought there after being killed. When he thought that one of them could have been C.J. it just about sucked the breath right out of him. If anything had happened to her, he didn't think he would have ever gotten through it. But here she was still alive and with him, even if she didn't know who she was and the life that they had shared together. He felt optimistic that her memory would return eventually, even if piecemeal as had been the case already. If some memories had fought their way to the surface, then others would surely follow.
C.J. had heard what Stacy had said and tears formed in her eyes that she fought back. There were no place for them right now and they had to focus on stopping these men who had killed these women after exploiting them and worse. There were times she wished she had killed Piser herself for what he had done to other women besides herself. She sensed that he had been responsible for Roxie's death as she knew him perfectly capable of it. After all, she had seen the violence in his eyes and felt it from his hands before she had knocked him out in an act of self-preservation. She hadn't killed him but oh, she wished she had done it. Surely no court could convict her of killing him in self defense when giving her body to him unwillingly hadn't been enough; he had wanted to hurt her in other ways too.
She knew that he had been more than responsible for some of the deaths which helped her sleep at night.
Matt looked at Stacy who had been writing in her notepad. He wondered how far she had gotten in the story and whether it would even see print. Reporters could investigate and write articles but editors and publishers had to give them the green light to be included in the newspaper editions.
"I need to borrow your phone," she said.
He nodded and she went to make a call. C.J. looked up at him and he read the concern in her eyes.
"I heard what she said about finding more of the women," she said.
"They don't know if the remains they found are human or not," Matt said, "but I suspect that they are."
She looked down at her hands.
"At least some of their families can reach closure with their missing loved ones," she said, "the ones who were missed."
He heard the wistful tone in her voice and knew she would be forever haunted by the reality that she hadn't even known most of the time whether or not she would be missed when this nightmare began. At least she knew that she had him and that he would have done whatever was necessary to find her. But he also knew that she felt for the other women who didn't have people like him who cared. People like Rhonda and Fran who were both so estranged from their old lives, even more separated than amnesia had separated her from her own. '
Stacy returned to them, a grim expression on her face.
"My editor wants me to go out to the desert," she said, "Where the search is being conducted."
Matt looked at C.J.
"I sure wish we could find out what's going on," he said.
"I don't think the nun disguise will work again," she said, "but so would I."
Stacy brightened.
"I'll get the news van and you can stay inside there, two of you," she said, "and get a closer look without being discovered."
Rhonda spoke up.
"Matt, you and C.J. go and the two of us will hold down the fort here."
Fran nodded.
"But keep us posted," she said, "You have our number and if you need anything…"
Matt looked at both women.
"Thanks," he said, "We'll be back as soon as we can."
C.J. and Matt left the motel with Stacy and they rode back to the newspaper office where Stacy and a photographer, Lance, talked amongst themselves and then they all went to the van. It was spacey inside as there wasn't much equipment and C.J. flashed back to when she and Matt had ridden in a similar van only she had been in too much pain from every bump in the road to want to linger on that memory very long. But he had held her gently to prevent the worst of the jostling and had argued with the driver who had wanted her to shut up.
She looked up at him now and still felt that he looked out for her. That reassured her even though everything else between them remained so complicated…and for her, unresolved. Perhaps for him as well.
The four of them headed towards the desert in silence, only guessing at what awaited them there.