11

Matt drove C.J. back to the office where she could go through any new paperwork put on her desk and then told her he and Roy would be heading out to conduct interviews. He figured Roy should be back after having lunch again with that Dr. Winston, he said something about seeing Rosie again but it made no sense to Matt, just made the two older men laugh.

As soon as the two got in Matt's car he asked, "So Uncle Roy, what did Bloodhound find out about Floyd?"

Roy took a deep breath, "Well, the government's file on Floyd is actually pretty interesting."

Matt asked, "Interesting how?"

Roy then told him, "Well it seems our Mr. Garrison served in Vietnam in the late 50s as an advisor. Turns out he was in a special forces division, green berets. Then after serving his country went to work for the U.S. Marshals in a classified capacity."

Matt furrowed his brow, "U.S. Marshals...that's who was guarding the property. What did he do for them?"

Roy shrugged, "The file wasn't entirely clear, like I said it was classified. Even Bloodhound had a hard time getting through it, but it appears he was hand chosen for the Witness Protection Program and paid by them for about 10 years."

Matt then looked at his uncle and said, "Let me guess...those ten years coincide with the time C.J. was living with them."

Roy nodded his head, "Yes it does. And to answer your next question, no the file doesn't give specifics as to who the person being protected was or what they witnessed exactly other than a blanket charge. The only thing I could find was that he was paid those years and protected someone in that general area who witnessed that crime."

Matt got a sick feeling in his stomach and asked, "What was that crime Uncle Roy?"

Roy answered solemnly, "Murder."

Matt blinked and took deep breath, his emotions threatening to take over, "Murder... I... Uncle Roy do you think... I mean that can't be what..."

Roy told him, "I don't know boy. It could be that Floyd was protecting someone on a nearby ranch and needed to look the part so the government provided C.J., an orphan, to help keep the cover, or..."

Matt swallowed hard and said, "Or it most likely means she was the one to witness the murder and was the one being protected...at 9 years old, if not before."

Roy just said, "We don't know that."

Matt then said as they pulled up to Perkin's house, "For some reason I think I do know that. It would explain why it hurts her so much to think about her life before moving in with Floyd." He sat there for just a second and then said shaking his head, "My god...to be that young and witness something so traumatic and not even have your parents around to talk to, to feel safe with."

Roy then said again, "Matlock, we still don't know everything. Wait until we do before you think too hard about it. Listen, Bill told me a few things before he died."

Matt turned sharply and looked at him and asked, "What all did he tell you?"

Roy then took a deep breath, "He told me C.J. was adopted. It tore Bill up a little seeing Floyd and Missy not really bring C.J. into the family and not explain to her why. That's why he worked so hard to make your home feel like her home. Bill told me it wasn't entirely that they didn't want her, they were afraid of getting too close to her and something happening to her. They didn't tell him everything so he asked me if I had any friends in the company that I could ask."

Roy stopped talking and seemed to get choked up for a second so Matt waited, but then prodded, "What did you find out?"

Roy then composed himself and said, "I'm sorry, it...it was just one of the few times my brother actually came to me and asked for help. He didn't care about pride or anything like that, just C.J. He just wanted to know that she was safe, that's all. I couldn't find anything out. The Marshals were keeping a tight lid on whatever it was and that just scared Bill more. For a while he had bodyguards he hired as hands to help Floyd out on his property, didn't even tell Floyd who they were."

He nodded, "I remember a couple of hands that didn't know the front of a horse from its backside that Daddy kept that I never understood why. Now I guess I do."

Roy then asked, "What do you want to do now?"

Matt then answered with all firmness, "Nothing. I have Bo and Lamar keeping tabs on Floyd's house. Whoever set fire to it probably thinks they destroyed whatever it was they wanted destroyed, either what is in that box or that gun. I can get Greg to watch the beach house if I need to, but so far all I've seen is that one car and I'm not entirely sure they were actually watching the beach house. I'll keep my guard up and you keep yours up, but I don't want C.J. knowing about any of this right now. She's been so stressed out that she had an anxiety attack last night." Roy's eyebrows raised but Matt assured him quickly, "She's fine, Uncle Roy, Carol came right over and checked her out. But her stress level needs to go down and bringing up this ancient history is only going to increase it not decrease it."

Roy then said, "I've never seen you run away from anything before. You really want to just drop this?"

Matt told him, "Yes I do. Look...I don't know exactly what it was that she witnessed, but whatever it was, just trying to think about leaves her physically ill. Every time we have gone to her parent's grave site, she gets so ill that I almost have to take her to the hospital to get checked out. She gets sick at her stomach so bad that she can't eat for days or even get out of bed really. That memory has attached itself to everything she remembers before Texas and I'll be damned if I'm going to push her to relive it."

He got out of the car and slammed the door shut. Matt wasn't mad at his uncle just at everything he had just learned. He knew when he met her by the creek that first time that she had experienced something similar to what he had when he was kidnapped, only it could possibly be worse. How could he make her face that? How could he take her from feeling safe and secure with him back to a time when she witnessed someone killed in front of her with no one to feel safe with. No, if there were any possible way, he never wanted her to remember that again. They would move forward, not backward. Somewhere though, deep in his gut, he knew she would have to face it again. He was just trying so hard to deny it now.

They got to the door and Roy came up beside him. Matt started to apologize and Roy told him, not to worry. He knew where the response came from, his heart.

Perkins answered the door himself, "So...what are the results?" He seemed nervous.

Matt answered, "Well, the results won't be back for a couple of days. We were just hoping to talk to you for a minute to help clear all this up."

Perkins let them in and said, "Clear all this up, well aren't you one for understating the obvious. What can I do to help you? I wasn't the one who killed her."

Matt then asked, "Well we just wanted to get a few of the facts right. Seems you told police you were alone, lining up all of Macy's tour dates that day she died."

Perkins said as he led them into a living type room in this huge house and they sat down, "Yes I was. It isn't easy planning concerts in 8 countries in 30 days."

Matt said as Roy looked around at the room, "I'll bet, now did you happen to make any phone calls while you were doing all this planning?"

Perkins replied, "No, I hadn't gotten that far yet."

Matt then asked, "Well, it just seems like you would need to call all those places and make sure they would let Macy use their stage..."

Perkins then laughed, "Are you kidding? Clearly you didn't follow her, she could have any stage any time. There were dates we didn't even book until the night before when she got it in her head to go somewhere to visit. She had the world eating out of the palm of her hand. She'd call me, last minute to book her for the next night in Zurich and I'd have to stay up til midnight to call and get it, just because she wanted to go visit."

Matt then said, "That must have been irritating and demeaning. I mean she had already dumped you for someone else and then had you as a lackey, running around doing whatever she wanted you to do? Tell me somethin, don't agents usually get a lot more being a celebrity's lackey? That must have been awfully frustrating."

Perkins stood up and said, "Not that frustrating. You're right, she did dump me and she tried to fire me. She thought if she treated me bad enough I would just leave. But you see gentlemen, I have a child with her, so no, I wasn't going anywhere. Besides that I may only get 5% of her earnings but when you make as much as she does, 5% goes a long way. The one I would talk to is Blake. He's the one that actually caught her in bed with another man and don't let him fool you. That divorce was not as cordial as it appeared. Now, if you'll excuse me. I have dates to cancel."

Matt then asked him as he was leaving, "You know this is an awful big house..." Perkins froze as he continued, "I'm betting it costs more than the $2 mil you are only now getting. I just wondering Uncle Roy, what I'll find out if I go run a financial check on Mr. Perkins here."

Perkins spun back around and told him, "Yeah, I've got a few financial...uh... challenges to face. But I did not kill Macy. It would be stupid of me to do that, she was like a cash cow if you will. I kill her and I lose it all. Please see yourselves out, now."

With that he left the room. Roy walked over to Matt who had gotten up and said, "Matt, did you say the person you thought might be watching the beach house left a weird European cigarette butt on the pavement?"

Matt nodded and said, "Yeah they did, it looked Italian."

Roy then pointed to the desk with a pack of cigarettes on it, imported from Italy. Both he and his uncle looked at each other and when they got to the car, Matt called Greg.

Matt had one little stop to make before getting back to the penthouse. Roy looked over at him as they pulled into the parking lot of a large bookstore. "What are we doing here?"

Matt told him, "Uncle Roy, you can probably stay in the car. I just need to run inside for a minute."

Roy asked, "You doing some reading? I'm not saying you shouldn't, it just doesn't seem like you."

Matt looked at him puzzled, "What do you mean it doesn't seem like me. I read."

Roy raised his brow and said, "You read what? Give me a list of authors you read."

Matt wasn't expecting that question, "Well, there's Zane Gray and...well... it doesn't matter. I'm going in, you coming or waiting out here."

Roy smiled and told him, "I'm going in. Lucy wants to start Zumba lessons together. I'm thinking I may just do some advance reading to make sure I'm up for it."

Matt got in and found the section on pregnancy and fertility. He felt a little self conscious as most of the other patrons around him were female. Matt would smile politely as he found 7 books that looked good to him. He carried them over to the section with the massage books. A few looked like they were legitimate massage books while others looked like they were published for other reasons. There was actually one one pregnancy and massage with a whole chapter that dealt with stress and fertility, so he decided that one would do it and came with a small sample of a lavender essential oil mix.

He got to the checkout at the same time as Roy but was able to basically keep the book hidden from Roy's view. He had also decided to buy C.J. another journal. This had a baby and hearts on the front that he planned to give her the day their first child came home with them.

After getting their purchases, they walked back to the car. Roy had opted not get a bag but was reading his as he walked out with Matt. His only comment as he got in the car was, "Maybe I should convince her take up the waltz. I'm not sure I'm ready for all this."

They got back to the office where Matt found C.J. reading through a stack of papers all with sticky notes where she was supposed to sign on them. He walked in and asked her, "How are you feeling?"

She looked up and answered with a smile on her face, "Just fine. How did you meeting with Perkins go?"

He nodded as he sat down in the chair in front of her desk, "Fine. He's sticking to his story that he was booking travel dates for Macy. I asked if he was making calls to see if we could get a copy of his phone records to compare his statement to, but he says he wasn't. Told me to look more closely at Joshua Blake and that their divorce wasn't as rosy as the papers claimed it was. He's also in need of money. I wonder if he was willing to wait it out and gain more and more with Macy or just cash in now. I think I'll take his advice and talk to ex husband number two."

C.J. looked back at the stack of papers, "Well, why don't you do that. Go see him and see what he says. I just wish the crime scene would have given us more to go on."

He agreed and said, "Ok, well, I'll go talk to him and meet you at the beach house, alright? Hopefully this Joshua Blake can give us something we can use."

At that point Chris squealed a little again which kind of startled Matt. She told him in a rather excited voice, "Can I go with you, please? I won't ask any questions or anything, but...I mean...to go to his house! Please!"

Matt smiled for a second and said, "Sure thing, go grab your stuff and I'll meet you at the elevator." She left and he looked back at C.J. who was trying hard not to laugh.

She told him, "Oh come on, surely you were aware that the Bay Boys are the hottest thing since George Strait."

Matt raised a brow and said as he walked over to her, "Why Ms. Parsons, don't tell me you are comparing a boy band with a legend the likes of George Strait."

She smiled, trying not to laugh as she stood up and went into his arms, "It's Parsons-Houston remember?"

He told her after kissing her, "When you compare George Strait to the Bay Boys, it's Parsons."

They both laughed then as he kissed her and she said, "I didn't say I was comparing them and I did fully recognize George Strait as the standard you know."

He smiled, kissed her one more time and said, "That's better. We'll be back as soon as we can." She told him once more to be careful to which he nodded walking away and saying, "I know I know."