Just a quick thank you to my recent wonderful reviewers ShakeyB, Riabhach, ladyofrivendell and kittyloverluna. You give me wonderful warm fuzzies!

When last we left our heros, Clara and Matt had just had a fight that ended with Matt storming out...Cody had confronted Clara about the consequenses of keeping her secret...

Chapter 21

The sound of a quarter dropping into a payphone could barely be heard over the sounds of music coming from the front of the bar. As fingers dialed the number a female voice screeched with laughter somewhere out front. The man standing at the payphone hunched farther into the shadows cast by the lack of a light bulb he'd unscrewed earlier on his way to the back by the bathrooms where the phone was located.

As he spoke low into the phone for a moment, requesting it to be a collect call, someone shouted in anger at the football game being shown on the TV above the bar. The man waited as his nose wrinkled with the scents of the back hallway, of bathrooms that hadn't seen a good scrubbing in weeks, from vomit someone had tried to use strong chemical disinfectant to clean off the hallway floor and of stale beer.

Finally the man's call was answered and he straightened just a little. "Yeah, I found what you were looking for. Right where you told me she'd be."

He was silent as the receiver buzzed with the voice of the recipient of the call.

"Yeah, piece of cake. Got there just in time this afternoon to hear her in the middle of a heated argument with her boyfriend...," there was a pause before he continued. "No, I didn't hear what was said. She had all the windows open to the house. They were in the living room. If I'd tried to sneak up to be able to listen in, someone would have spotted me."

Silence reigned again as he waited for the receiver to finish speaking. He sighed and answered a question. "They argued for a few minutes and then he stormed out, jumped on his white horse and took off…." He paused as another question was asked. "Yeah, I recognized him. They have these guys up here they call High Mountain Rangers. They're like federal cops that do search and rescue too up in the mountains. He's their Commanding Officer, Matt Hawkes."

There was another pause before the man growled, "Yes I'm sure! Only one tall blond haired man wearing a Ranger jacket like that. They got some 'Hall of Fame' in the pizza joint here for the police, the Rangers and local athletes. Articles and pictures of them all over the place. Not hard to miss him."

The man shifted, a hand coming up to pull his sweatshirt hood over his head a little tighter as the ear piece buzzed with the other person speaking. "Yeah, after they were done arguing, she walked off into the woods and I took a few minutes to poke around her place. She's living pretty bare bones. Didn't find anything of interest. Looks like she's been cutting her own fire wood and canning vegetables of all things. No vehicle. Just a couple of horses." The man snorted, as if he found this to be some form of crude joke.

He stiffened then as the receiver buzzed with the other voice. "That's going to cost you extra. I've already done what you wanted me to." He paused then growled, "That will cost you double. That kind of work ain't cheap! Too many chances at getting caught or it going wrong."

The voice on the other end of the line raised in what was apparent anger and the man simply stood there, hunched a little and his whole manner spoke of disgust.

"Fine. I'll take care of it but once it's done, we're done. I'll call you when I've taken care of it." With that, he slammed the handset down on the payphone, used a rag from his pocket to wipe the receiver down and then walked out of the back, tossing a couple of dollars on the counter of the bar. As he left, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, his face hidden in the shadows of the growing clouds that obscured the sunset.

By the time Matt got back to the Ranger Station, the rest of the Rangers already knew about Matt's hasty exit earlier that morning. Avila had been the one to see Matt ride up to the barn, his horse looking exhausted and though he had taken the time to walk his horse, cooling him down, he had obviously seen quite a few miles that day.

Avila stood on the back porch, loading up his arms with firewood since he knew they were in for a wet couple of days. As Matt entered the barn, he opened the back door and headed inside with his load. "Matt's back guys and you better be looking busy and have things in top shape. I think he's madder now than he was when he left this morning."

This got Avila a few worried glances as several of the Rangers quickened their steps to get things cleaned up, organized as if preparing for inspection. Matt wasn't one to get angry easily. He always seemed to have a level head and kept his cool. There were times, however, when something set him off and when that happened one usually kept out of his way until he'd had a chance to calm down and cool off.

As Avila came in with his second armload of wood, Matt came through the back door. The frustration and anger seemed to radiate off of him though he still kept a somewhat impassive face. With nothing more than a glance around the station, his long legs took him across the floor and up the stairs two at a time. Several moments went by before the sound of the bathroom door closed and water could be heard coming from the shower.

Izzy gave a soft, low whistle. "Wow. I've never seen Matt like that. I wonder what happened up at Jesse's place."

The rest of the Rangers looked at each other in stunned silence as that same question echoed in their eyes as they looked back to the stairs where Matt had disappeared only moments before.

"I'm buying pizza tonight," came Matt's voice from the kitchen door an hour after he'd gone upstairs. "What's everyone want?"

This statement had startled the Rangers who were trying to decide what to do for supper. Matt had moved quietly up behind them before he'd spoken and it had caused at least two of the five standing around to jump. They hadn't expected to even see Matt for the rest of the evening since he had officially taken the day off and was still 'off duty' until midnight.

Once the shock wore off, it only took ten minutes to put together an order and call it in. "Want me to go with you?" asked Jimmy as Matt headed towards the door.

Matt reached for his black leather jacket and shook his head as he pulled it on, "I'm a big boy. I can handle this. I'll be back in less than an hour. Think you can hold it together till I get back?" he asked, trying to joke though it seemed to fall a little flat to his ears.

Jimmy smiled a little, "Sure," was all he could manage, not really wanting to push things too far to get Matt to talk to him about what was going on.

Matt headed out the door into the dark that had been brought on early by the storm clouds rolling in. Climbing into his black pickup truck, he headed towards South Tahoe and their favorite hangout, Papa Murphy's. The team usually went out to eat once a week if the time allowed but every once in awhile it was nice to bring it to them with an extra order of cheesy bread sticks and a couple of Calzones for leftovers in case things got a little crazy during bad weather.

By the time he pulled up to the restaurant, the place was already busy with the evening's customers, forcing him to have to park around the block. He was honestly glad he'd decided to just order out. He didn't think he was up to dealing with a crowd tonight. Pushing his way through the door, he headed to the counter. After paying the cashier, he picked up the five boxes of pizzas before heading towards the door.

He narrowly avoided getting bowled over by two roughhousing kids and their harried looking mother. She'd apologized and tried to wrangle in her kids before they could cause any damage, causing him to smile a little, thinking back to a time when he and Cody used to roughhouse like that. But that little thought brought a pang of frustration and hurt to him that seemed to want to open the floodgates to the memories of everything that had happened that day.

The wind had picked up some by the time he left Papa Murphy's and made his way down the block towards his truck. He shifted his jacket a little higher to ward off the chill. As he approached his truck, he absently noticed that it was darker than it had been when he left. Looking up, he realized the streetlight was out. He could have sworn it had been on when he'd parked there but he knew these things went on and off with a whim. Just as he thought that, a light a block down winked out for no apparent reason.

He unlocked his passenger side door and pushed the boxes into the front seat and shut the door. Walking around the back of the truck, he got to the driver's side door and unlocked it. His hand was on the handle when he had a split seconds warning to tell him that he wasn't alone. But with his mind elsewhere, he wasn't prepared for the hand that had grabbed his hair and slammed his forehead into the doorframe of his truck.

He swore as he saw stars for a moment and then he spun as he attempted to backhand the person behind him. As he turned to attack, a fist connected with his jaw, knocking him back into the doorframe of the truck again, causing him to stumble. A second punch to that same spot slammed his head back into the truck one last time, making his world gray out for a moment as he sank to the ground.

Whoever had attacked him knew how to do it and do it quickly, efficiently and with a minimum of movement. As Matt struggled to get himself righted, he felt the person grab the back of his head by his hair where he'd felt his head slammed previously into the truck and gloved hand grabbed his face, squeezing his sore mouth and jaw that had begun to bleed.

A mouth close to his ear harshly whispered, "Now we're even…." With a quick jerk the man, by the sound of the voice, shoved Matt back to the ground, gave him a kick to the ribs and took off at a fast walk into the shadows of a nearby alley while Matt tried to gather himself and his confused thoughts together.

'Now we're even?' What the hell was that supposed to mean? Who the hell had he pissed off now? His head spun as he worked to stand up, feeling blood run down his chin to splash onto the concrete beneath him.

Jimmy began to pace the floor when forty-five minutes went by and no Matt. When an hour went by, he began to worry. It didn't take an hour to go and get pizza. "Something's wrong," he said to the other Rangers who were sitting around the fireplace, either trying to watch the TV or read.

"Jimmy, sit down. He probably just got held up at the restaurant," explained Robin. "It is a Friday night and it's usually packed in there at this time of night."

Walking over to the window, Jimmy stood and stared out it for awhile before he began to pace again. Something wasn't right and he didn't know why he thought so. It wasn't like him to feel this way when Matt went out just to get pizza. Matt wasn't the kind to go out and get drunk because he'd had a bad day. That wasn't it. Was he just being over reactive?

When an hour and a half went by, the rest of the Rangers were beginning to fidget as well and he knew that they felt it too. Finally a pair of headlights pulled in and they heard the slam of a car door and then a second. But the level of the headlights wasn't right and the engine didn't sound right for Matt's truck.

Sheriff McBride was the first person that came through the door, carrying the five boxes of pizza from Papa Murphy's, followed by a rather disgruntled and banged up looking Matthew Hawkes. Matt still had that dark look to his eyes but they seemed a little unfocused as if he were a touch dazed. The ice pack he held to the back of his head gave the biggest indicator that someone had tried to scramble his brains a little that night.

"What happened?" barked Avila before Jimmy could find his voice.

Mike smiled in his kindly way. "Seems someone decided to take a few swings at Matt…caught him off guard is more like it. I'll let him give you the details but I didn't want him driving home. The paramedics don't think he's got a concussion but he got the back of his head slammed against his truck a couple of times so no sense taking chances." With that Mike pulled out Matt's keys and put them on top of the pizza boxes he handed over to Izzy.

"Fran at Papa Murphy's was kind enough to even reheat your order before we left," said Mike with a chuckle. "Whelp, I need to get back to work. I'll check back with you in a day or so Matt but I don't know how lucky we'll get at finding anything out about this guy."

Matt nodded slightly, "Thanks Mike," was all he said and winced at the swollen lip. He had already made his way over to the couch and sat down, reaching up a finger to touch his lip and wince again. Jimmy came out of the kitchen a few moments later and handed Matt a cold wet washcloth for his lip.

As Mike left, Robin came over and looked down at Matt. There was concern in her voice as the others found places to sit as pizza was distributed. "You don't strike me as the type to get into pizza room brawls, so what happened?"

To Be Continued...