CHAPTER 7

Four days later, Matt was back at home sitting in his recliner and catching up with Catey Rose. He had missed her while he was in the hospital and evidently she had missed him as well. She squealed when he came in the kitchen door. As soon as he was settled, he asked Chris to hand her over. Much to his surprise, Uncle Roy walked in the door, followed by his son Will and Matt's best friend Vince Novelli. "What in the world are y'all doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Houston?"

"We got done with the job there and decided to fly back and check up on you. CJ tells me that you discovered that vest of yours isn't very good at keeping out a knife."

"Yeah, you got that right. That sucker went through there like – well, like a knife through hot butter." They all laughed, Matt wincing at the pain in his ribs as he did so. "I don't really think you came back because of me – you missed Catey, didn't you?" His uncle came over and took the baby.

"Well hell, he figured it out, boys." They all laughed again.

Vince came over and sat down on the couch. "Mama wants to know when you're going to figure out how to do your job without getting hurt every time you turn around."

"I am too, bud." They talked on for a few minutes and Will and Roy followed CJ into the kitchen.

Vince scooted over closer to Matt. "I've got a question for you: did you agree to help out the fire marshal's office to try to get away from things like this?" He looked his friend square in the eye.

Matt looked down and nodded. "Truthfully, yes Vince. I thought – hell, I don't know. Maybe I can kind of head in a slightly different direction. Not that it won't still be dangerous if I go after some nut who started a fire, but maybe not AS dangerous, you know?"

The former police officer nodded. "That's what I figured. Nobody would blame you if you completely quit you know. You could be a gentleman farmer or rancher or whatever you want to call it."

Houston nodded again. "I don't know, Vince. Maybe one day. I just don't think I'm there yet, though." Neither man said anything for a minute. "Would you do me a favor?"

"Sure. What do you need?"

"Don't say anything to anybody about this conversation, okay?" He looked up at his best friend.

"What conversation?" Vince grinned at him.

Later on that afternoon, Matt was sitting out by the pool looking through the textbooks that he would be using for his classes when he heard a familiar voice. "Aha! Caught you being all studious, didn't I?" Michael Hoyt came up and sat down next to him. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay, just a little sore. I was going to call you – did you ever find out why Vincent hacked the crosses into the bodies?"

"Nope. I've looked all through his belongings. I can't make any sense out of it. Maybe it's like the guy in Texas you were talking about – maybe he didn't know himself why he did it." Hoyt looked down toward the barn where Cricket was whinnying. "I'm sorry about what happened."

"Why would you be sorry? You didn't stab me." Matt cocked his head and looked at Hoyt out of the corner of his eye.

"No, but…I told CJ I didn't think I should call you in on cases anymore." He looked over at Matt.

"Now why in the hell would you want to bust up a great partnership? Hell, we're like Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in those movies." Matt chuckled, then decided that wasn't a good idea in his current state.

"Danny Glover? I'm a hell of a lot better looking than Danny Glover! I can't believe you said that!" Hoyt looked at Matt and grinned.

"Well I'm better looking than Mel Gibson, but hey, not everybody can be as lucky as I am, ya know." He gave Hoyt a big grin.