4

Hoyt left and Matt made the phone call. He got Seth as he was coming back from a meeting with his superiors. "This is Marshal Parkdale," he answered.

Matt said, "Seth, its Matt Houston, C.J.'s husband. Do you have a minute free today? I need to come see you. I'm hoping you can help me with a case."

Seth answered, "Help you with a case? Houston I've got cases of my own. We've been trailing a couple of guys associated with a branch of the syndicate that are linked to at least a dozen murders in the last two years. I can't go into any details, but trust me, I'm needed here."

Matt then told him, "The case involves C.J. and your office from about 20 years ago."

Matt was met by silence before Seth said, "What do you mean? How?"

He then told the Marshal, "Seth, did you know C.J. was put under witness protection by the Marshals when she was 9?"

Seth then said, "No, I had no idea. Why?"

Matt then told him, "That's what I need you to help me find out. I can be there in half an hour and take you to lunch?"

Seth then told him after sighing, "Fine...I'm not sure I can have anything for you by then, cases that old are backlogged, I'd have to go to Washington to get them most likely. I'll see if there isn't anything here though. She lived in California before she moved to Texas, right?"

Matt nodded and looked back at the printout on both her parents' deaths saying, "Yeah, they lived in a small town just north of San Francisco. Her father was a lawyer, Daniel Parsons and her mother worked as a writer for a small magazine, Deborah Parsons. They were both murdered, Seth."

Seth took a deep breath, "Alright, I'll use those names, cross list with San Francisco and see what I can find out. Meet you at that Italian place down by your office, I'd rather not have my superiors thinking I'm doing anything but working on my case for now. Give me a couple of hours though, be there at 2."

Matt agreed and thanked him. Roy had told him to meet him at the penthouse to drive over to Stinky's house around 6. In the meantime, he planned to work a little more on Baby to see what all he could uncover on C.J.'s past. After all the times they had used Baby, they had not once used it to research themselves. He plugged her name in and got the usual celebrity gossip type columns along with her law review articles and stories from their pasts together.

All the stories on Robert came up along with the one on her testifying in Arizona after being almost forced into a prostitution ring when she had a car accident and lost her memory. There was an article on their opening the agency and their early cases like the one involving Ramona Landers. Matt only now noticed that they barely referenced her at all, but focused mostly on him, putting her in the background as a girl friday or something.

Finally he typed in San Francisco to narrow the search and that's when he found school records for her. He chuckled as he read over her grades from Kindergarten to 4th grade when she moved in the middle of the year. Of course she had all "A"s, as he would expect no less. Her attendance records were almost perfect except for about a month in the 4th grade.

Matt looked back at the police reports on the deaths of her parents and found that they overlapped. In fact those two weeks when her mother was missing, C.J. was reported absent those two weeks at school. Matt ran his hand through his hair again as the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle again. "Oh, dear God, please, no..." he said softly to himself. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. What if she was kidnaped along with her mother...what if he was right, she had been through the same kind of trauma he had as a little boy, only much, much worse.

At the beach house, C.J. woke up sneezing again. "Ahchoo!" The nightstand clock read noon so she decided to head downstairs to see what she could find to eat. Putting on her robe she started down. Before getting all the way down she heard the doorbell.

Brushing her hair back a little she peeked through the peephole to see a delivery man standing on the porch with a little brown package and a clipboard. She turned off the alarm, opened the door and he asked, "C.J. Parsons-Houston?"

C.J. answered, "Yes, that's me."

The man handed her the box and then said handing her the clipboard, "I need you to sign here and initial here."

She took both and did as he asked saying, "I don't remember ordering anything. I wonder what this is."

The man then said as he took the clipboard back, "Hopefully something nice, have a good day, ma'am."

C.J. looked at the box as she closed the door but decided to wait to open it. She got into the kitchen and made herself some hot tea and then, after finding nothing really in the fridge decided to order a pizza. After calling it in she went upstairs, taking the box with her. She tried pulling the box open but the tape was rather strong. Giving up, she put it down and changed into jeans and a t-shirt for when the pizza delivery guy arrived.

Going back downstairs to wait, she took out her oldest journal from her nightstand. Once her and Matt had married and they began moving things in, she decided to keep her journals there. Since Matt was looking into her past, she had decided to read those early entries to see what memories they might trigger for her to help him out.

Her mind still reeled from the fact that he told her that her father had been murdered. She knew she had been close to him, but just didn't really remember how he died. Matt hadn't told her exactly how he had died and she shuddered at the thought. Perhaps she didn't remember because she didn't want to remember. Her father loved her, she knew that. Remembering his dying at someone's hands might be really painful to remember.

Opening this old journal she found her first entry. It talked about having to see a psychologist and how this person told her to write things down, that doing so would ease her pain. Clearly she was angry and she took a minute to think back to writing all this down. She still barely remembered it. The first month's worth of entries focused on how angry she was with this person who told her to do this and how it wasn't helping her at all.

Then apparently about a month later she started writing about how it really felt to lose her parents. Her eyes began to water now years later as she read her own words in 9 year old handwriting. Over and over again she spoke of how much she missed them. How would she ever be a good lawyer without her Daddy helping her figure things out. As she read though these entries she would close her eyes, trying to concentrate on what her father looked like. She started to remember his face and feel his arms around her, holding her on his lap, calling her his little paralegal, and telling her how they would go into practice together some day, Parsons and Daughter. She recalled her mother laughing and saying "Well, usually you hear of firms that are So and So and Son, but I think our little C.J. here will have no problem setting a new standard for all of us."

She blinked and new tears came just as she heard the doorbell again. C.J. wiped those new tears and went to go get her pizza. After eating about half of it, she started feeling worse as a headache seemed to come on. She took another nap on the sofa holding the journal tightly in her arms.

Matt stopped by the beach house on his way to see Seth. This meant he was basically driving home and then back into downtown, but he didn't care. She didn't answer the phone when he called and just wanted to make sure she was alright. He found her on that sofa. Initially he could smell the pizza and was glad she ordered herself something to eat, although he had planned to make her something. He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead, silently praying his suspicions were wrong. Deciding not to wake her, he left her a little note telling her he had stopped by and to call him when she woke up if she felt up to it. Lastly, he told her he'd be home around 7. Then he left to go meet Seth, not noticing her journal at all.

He got back into the city quickly enough, his mind still trying to process what he had uncovered so far. What had she seen as a child? How much had adults around her shielded her back then? He ran his hand through his hair as he navigated through downtown. At least she was safely at home taking a nap.

Matt saw Seth right away as he entered Tuscan Sunset. Seth sat at a table alone reading over something in a folder. Matt walked up and said, "Hey," as he sat down.

Seth looked up, closing the folder and said back, "Hey. Look, thanks for meeting me down here. I've had brass all over me this week on this case and the last thing I want them to see is me doing something off the books if you know what I mean."

Matt nodded and said, "I don't mind at all and thanks for your help on this." He shook his head again, "I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this."

Seth then asked him confused, "What do you mean? You mean you didn't know until recently that C.J. had some kind of case with the Marshals?"

Matt then told him, "No, no I didn't and neither did she. She never had really talked much about her life before moving to Texas. When we met she was 9 and I was 10. Floyd Garrison had just taken her in and they told us him and Missy, his wife, were cousins on C.J.'s father Daniel Parsons. Now it seems clear that wasn't the case, not at all."

Seth looked surprised, "Wow, well...what does C.J. remember?"

Matt then told him after ordering a salad and an iced tea, "C.J. doesn't remember much. That never really struck me as odd before, but now...well...now I have this really bad feeling that she doesn't remember much because she experienced something so traumatic her mind doesn't want to remember."

Matt looked down and had to swallow and Seth caught on. He told him, "You're worried sick about her."

Matt nodded and said, "Yes, I am. Very few people understand what it does to a child to go through a trauma like that, but I do. I'd give up my entire fortune if it would keep C.J. from having to relive something like that. It doesn't look like I'm going to have that option though. Someone's started coming after her for whatever it is she knows or they think she knows."

Seth then looked down for a second and said, "Well, I found the file, sort of." Matt looked at him but Seth continued, "It's been in D.C. most of the last 20 years. The computer log shows it's been taken out a couple of times, once when that Mr. Floyd Garrison passed away, but more recently about 3 and a half months ago. There also seemed to be a notation on a small fire recently, down in Texas..."

Matt finished his sentence, "Yeah, the house C.J. lived in while she lived with Floyd, someone tried to get my hands down there to sell it and when they didn't really take it seriously, they tried to burn it down starting..."

Seth then finished his sentence, "In C.J.'s room." Matt looked surprised so Seth continued, "There are a few details in the computer summary of it. Her file is in the old witness protection files, in a very special section."

Matt asked, "What section is that?" He knew with the way Seth said that, it wasn't going to be a very good section.

Seth then told him after looking around for a second, "A high risk section, one with special operatives, usually ex special forces. Sometimes that means something, sometimes it doesn't. It could simply be in there due to her age. Younger ones are harder to keep safe sometimes. They forget they aren't supposed to talk about themselves and word gets out."

Matt nodded and then speculated, "It could also mean that she's a witness to something committed by someone really dangerous though couldn't it." Seth nodded and neither said anything for a minute.

Their food got delivered, but Matt pushed his away a little bit, "I don't really think I'm that hungry." He looked down again.

Seth then told him, "Look, all I know is the hard copy file was checked out almost four months ago. I have a request in to get it as soon as it comes back. Problem is, if the Marshal who has it has a stack that looks anything like mine, that could be a while. I've been going over the murder, robbery, extortion and drug related charges on one segment of the mob for the last three and a half months. I'm about halfway through it now. Houston, when I get the file, I'll call you. I put in for a rush, so hopefully I can get it soon."

As they ate Seth tried to change the subject a little to take Matt's mind off things. He could see how rattled Matt was by all this. He told him, "Did I ever tell you or C.J. about how I met my wife?"

Matt who had eaten a little looked up and said, "I don't think so."

Seth smiled and then said, "She was a Marshal too." He looked down, "She and I had worked a couple of cases together, nothing too heavy when she got assigned to protect a witness in Chicago. It was a kid, a kid who was just walking home one day when he saw two men arguing in an alley. One of the men shot the other. Then the one saw him and took off after him. It was a mob hit and after the 'bad man' as Ronny called him found out where he lived, he killed everyone in the house. Rachel met him about five days later, he was dazed and confused and she assured him he'd be fine."

Matt saw Seth seem to tear up so he said softly, "He wasn't fine, was he."

Seth told him, "No, no he wasn't. Rachel was a good Marshal, but they got ambushed and there really wasn't anything she could do. Hell, they almost killed her too. She took three bullets and almost didn't come out of it. When she did...well...let's just say there was more damage than the bullets caused."

Matt said, "She blamed herself and quit the service?"

Seth looked back up, "Not exactly, she definitely blamed herself, but she didn't quit right away. She didn't really do anything right away in fact. I had to go into her apartment, physically drag her out of bed and force her into the shower, just to try to bring her out of it." Matt nodded to him in a gesture of comfort. "I'm just saying, I know what its like to see the woman you love go through something traumatic like that. If you need anything, really, don't hesitate to call. C.J. and I would never have married, but I really do care about her. Just let me know."

After paying his check and ordering C.J. her favorite and getting that, they left and went their separate ways. Matt had no idea what was in store for him when he got home.