Matt called C.J.'s cell phone but just reached her voice mail and left a message to call him back. But he still worried about the call he'd just received so he stretched his memory to see if he could remember that of her friends.

He didn't remember Sonia's number but he did know Randy's so he punched it in and waited for him to answer, his nerves on fire.

But he only got his voice mail instead.

Maybe C.J. had spent the evening at her home if she hadn't gone out with friends so he'd go check there. Hopefully, she'd answer her door and look at him befuddled by the relieved expression on his face and she'd lower her guard enough to invite him inside. So he looked around his office once more and decided to head on out to her house. His mind flirted with calling the police but he didn't know what to say, didn't even know where she had gone or who had just called him.

Maybe she'd know and she'd tell him.

So he grabbed his briefcase and headed to the elevator to go down to get his car and get on out of her. A feeling of urgency nagged at him as he headed down and then walked to his car, feeling a need to go to her house and see her again that threatened to overpower him.

Sonia had been standing with Randy at the bar nursing a margarita when some guy ran up to them, his face distraught.

"Something's going on in the alley," he said, "and someone said they heard a gunshot."

Randy went from easy going into professional mode in the blink of an eye and reached for his gun. Sonia looked at him, her eyes wide with fear.

"C.J.…that's where she went…I think to get some air."

Randy sighed and got his gun out to rush off into the parking lot. Other people looked at him and reacted to seeing him armed, to part away from his pathway like the Red Sea.

"Sonia…stay here…"

She just nodded and he ran out to the exit to the alley. Out there, he saw a cluster of people surrounding someone lying on the ground and he yelled at them to get to the side. A man looked up at him.

"She's been shot I think."

Randy nodded and went over to where he saw a woman lying on the ground and his eyes widened when he saw C.J. in a growing pool of blood. He knelt down beside her checking her vitals and then reached for his cell phone to call for help.

"I need an ambulance out at the Vibe and some uniforms," he said, "to seal this area off from the crowd."

Because the alley had turned into a crime scene through the actions of an unknown assailant…who could have been a stranger or anything but to the woman he'd shot. Randy assessed her injuries and saw that she'd been shot just below the chest. Whether her shooter had gone for critical body mass like a cop would be trained to do or had just fired his gun from close range, it would be up to an investigator to determine and maybe C.J. if she regained consciousness.

Then he heard her make some noise and move a little bit, murmuring mostly, her eyes still closed. Her face growing ashen and the crimson stain on her shirt growing larger, so he started stroking her face, hoping she'd feel his touch.

"Hey C.J.…you're going to be all right…just lie still there until the EMTs arrive and take a look at you."

"Mmm…I…."

Randy watched her struggle to form words wondering if she was trying to tell him about what had happened, about the man who had tried to kill her. Hopefully not succeeding though she needed medical attention quickly…so the cop took over as he stroked her neck…feeling the thread pulse.

"C.J. honey…do you know who did this?"

Her brow knit as if she heard him.

"I…he called me….he…"

Randy nodded, so she had known him but how? He needed more information if they would ever track the shooter down.

"Okay…so did you know him?"

She nodded slightly, trembling. He knew that meant she was going into shock.

"He…wanted but…."

Then the EMTs rushed up with their equipment and Randy moved aside, his quest ions would have to wait. The EMTs started working on her right away raising her shirt up to expose the bullet entry wound.

"BP's dropping past 90 over 60, pulse dropping," one said, "We have to get moving…she needs a surgeon."

The other nodded.

"Bullet must be near some major blood vessel," he said, "She might be bleeding out."

They hooked her up to a heart monitor and prepared to load her onto a stretcher to take to a trauma center. Randy watched, his heart in his throat, wondering what the hell had happened. But his experience taught him that she'd been shot by someone she had known. Who and why were left to be found out but they'd need more information from her to nail the guy. Someone tapped his shoulder and he saw Sonia looking at him, fear etching her features.

"Oh god…what happened?"

"Someone shot C.J.…and then just left."

She shook her head.

"Who would do something like that Randy?"

He gazed at her thoughtfully.

"Anyone you know who would try to kill her?"

Sonia knit her brows in thought and then shook her head.

"No…but she and Matt…the work they did, they probably made some enemies."

Randy nodded.

"True enough, only question is which one would be pissed off at her enough to try to kill her?"

"I don't know."

"I mean he went for her chest…core body mass almost like what a cop would do."

She furrowed her brows.

"You think…?"

"I don't know," Randy said, "but it's the easiest, surest target for a lethal blow."

Sonia sighed shaking her head.

"I've got to find out which hospital they're taking her," she said, "and oh god….one of us had better get in touch with Matt."

Randy nodded, knowing how the guy would react and what he might do. Not looking forward to having to tell him but knowing it had to be done.

"I'll call him," he said, "I think she's going to UCLA."

She nodded and he took his phone out to make the dreaded phone call to Matt.

Matt clicked off his phone as soon as he heard the words UCLA Medical Center and turned his car to head in that direction. He had been on his way to C.J.'s house when the call had come in from Randy that she had been shot in the alley at the Vibe. His heart raced as he pushed the accelerator and floored it down PCH, after pulling an illegal U-turn to head towards the turnoff up to Sunset.

He broke out into a cold sweat that chilled him in ways beyond physical. How could this have happened, how could a young vibrant woman like C.J. get gunned down outside a night club? Sure the Vibe had some reputation for rough behavior but as far as he knew that didn't include shootings. He had a lot of questions for Randy when he saw him at the hospital like if there had been any witnesses or any suspects that were known. That part of him that would shift into investigative mode so quickly would hunt the shooter down and make him pay, painfully if possible…but then no, he couldn't violate any procedures for apprehending the shooter lest he risk him getting released on a technicality, with the law unable to touch him.

At a stoplight, he just glared at its redness and running his hand through his hair, he willed it to change so he'd be at there and her side all that much faster. Damn the man who did this, and damn him if she died before he arrived there. No, he couldn't think that because C.J. had an inner strength inside of her that few could match, one that had never ceased to amaze him. She'd get through this, she'd survive and he'd be able to nail her assailant to the wall.

The light changed and he burnt tire rubber going up to Sunset, which mercifully looked light in traffic. He hoped that no cops would pull him for speeding but he couldn't move his foot from the accelerator not while her life hung in the balance. His mind raced with all he had to say to her, so much which remained unsaid. He needed her to hear it all but in order to do that…she had to survive.

He turned off to head towards Westwood and then his phone rang. He picked it up and heard Sonia's voice.

"I'm at UCLA…they just brought her in and she went straight to the ER," she said, "The doctor couldn't say much but she's got a bullet lodged inside her abdominal cavity, below her diaphragm…near an artery."

He blinked his eyes as he was forced to stop at another light. Damn, that didn't sound so good…but no, if she made it to surgery, she still was alive and they'd patch her up. Just like they'd patched up their assorted wounds over the years.

"It's going to be some hours before we get any word," she said, "but they took us to a small waiting room on the second floor."

"I'm almost there."

He clicked off the phone and the light changed and it was like the flag arose at the Indy 500 as he sped down another city street to the hospital where his best friend clung to life.

C.J. opened her eyes and blinked, surprised to find that the intense pain that had stabbed through her had somehow ebbed. She looked around her and saw an expansive meadow….but in her ears she heard the nonsensical words of which she caught what sounded like medical terminology. Not that it mattered here, it sounded so easily lost in the breeze that whirled around her face, soothing her like a mother's touch.

Not that she had really known her mother or her father for that matter, growing up with a guardian who collected money from her parents' estate to care for her but didn't do much else besides provide her with food and a roof over her head. She had tried to run away twice and then one day, she had stopped at a stream which snaked through the valley where she had headed nursing the dogwood trees to full height. It looked so soothing in the midday heat so she removed her shoes and dipped them into the burbling water…ahhh…it felt so much better. She closed her eyes to revel in the sensation and then she heard the voice.

"Hey what are you doing at my fishing hole?"

The voice sounded inquisitive but friendly and she opened her eyes to see who had addressed her. He looked lanky with dark hair and eyes that could sparkle with mischief, and he looked about 11 just like her.

"I'm just resting…I've been doing some walking."

He nodded and she remembered back to when she'd first seen him on the school yard in a crowd of people who circled around her and another boy, a bully really twice her size who had been teasing her. She sassed him back and he pushed her, soon enough they were in the ground tangled in a brawl and kicking up dust. But she more than held up her own end of it, landing some key punches before they both got dragged to their feet and separated by teachers who broke it up.

She got seven days of being benched for that. But she forgot all that now when she saw the young boy looking at her.

"It's okay, you can sit here as long as you like…"

And that's when she met Matt.