Another prompt exercise that takes place not long after "Here's Another Fine Mess" and several years before "Glimmer of Twilight". hope you enjoy it, thanks for reading and for the feedback!

For the fourth hour in a row, she stared at the blank screen. But what she had been looking for had already vanished before she and Matt had even left for Mama's restaurant. Earlier, they had returned from a night out celebrating the completion of their latest case which had involved the mysterious deaths of several of her sorority sisters. Mama had closed down her restaurant for the night in order for Matt and C.J. to dine with the surviving sisters along with the ex cop from San Francisco whose brusque manner and twinkling eyes had caught Mama's attention.

Not that the dinner had been a joyous affair given the tragic deaths of three women at the hands of their former housemother Liz and her accomplice, the evil Jonathan Rensfield. The scheming pair had hired a pair of failed comedians from his club to carry out the assassinations of the members of Sigma Phi who were unfortunate enough to have lived in L.A. at the same time that Jonathan and Liz had planned their nuptials. They hadn't wanted any of them to catch wind through the society columns that Liz had hooked up in matrimony with the ex-husband of another sorority sister who had died in a mysterious car accident some years earlier.

Mama had prepared her signature pasta and pizza and even Vince had relaxed enough to join in on the festive occasion. Matt had been somewhat enraptured with the good doctor, Carol Master who had been knockout gorgeous and C.J. had left the two of them to get acquainted while she caught up with Maureen, her other sister. They both had gone to law school after graduating with honors from the university they attended and spent their time catching up on their profession. Maureen had eschewed a planned criminal law career to focus on becoming a partner of one of the top posh firms in the Westside while C.J. had done like to work with Matt first building his empire and then with him to build his investigative agency. But after kicking back a couple of beers and some of Mama's pizza, they flirted with the idea of opening up their own firm together some day.

It had been a great evening despite the circumstances and C.J. had said goodbye to Carol and Maureen and they all promised to keep in touch. Carol had already kissed Matt goodbye and slipped him her phone number. By the look on his face, C.J. felt that it would figure prominently in the entries in his little black book. The same one that the writers with the local gossip magazines combed the dumpsters outside the office building for every morning because in the right hands, might lie a fortune to be made.

C.J. just rolled her eyes at them as she walked on past them out the entrance to the building. Silly journalists clearly not knowing that Matt kept his roster of women on an Excel spreadsheet at the office so that he could keep track of them all. Live and learn was all she had to say.

After the heartfelt goodbyes, she and Matt had headed back to the office to formerly close out the case as being solved. Liz and Jonathan were cooling their heels in separate cells at the county jail facility facing multiple murder and conspiracy charges and Hardy, the surviving half of the hired hit team was facing extradition to another state to face murder charges there. All in all, the case that had started out with an attempt on C.J.'s own life had ended happily for all those who had survived it.

C.J. had gone to her office to check her email and she thought she had seen a new one pop up on her screen. She had opened it up, not recognizing the sender and it had been a short note congratulating her on solving the Sigma Phi case and on not getting killed by the Laurel and Hardy lookalikes. Not much more than that except it hadn't been signed.

She shrugged and prepared to leave her office when she saw Matt standing in the doorway. He looked as exhausted as she felt.

"Ready to head out," he asked.

She nodded and clicked off her computer, not noticing that another email had arrived. They walked together to the elevator to go down to the parking garage where he had a fleet of customized vehicles parked. Matt had decided to head out to his beach house that he had been renting in Malibu with an eye at purchasing and C.J. had decided to spend the night in his guest room. Both were too tired to fly back to his ranch miles outside of town.

The garage loomed and the darkness surrounded them until Matt flicked on some auxiliary lights. Matt always looked around to make sure no one lurked in the shadows waiting for them. But silence greeted both of them tonight. C.J. remembered the picture of the young girl in the paper who had been fished out of Santa Monica Bay by the pier. No one knew who she was or how long she had been missing; just that she had long dark hair and wore a gold locket around her neck. Matt had idly asked Vince for information on the perplexing discovery and the veteran lieutenant just shrugged and said that the city of L.A. wasn't always the safest place for young women.

C.J. found her mind returning to the woman, imagining her face with luminous eyes and an oval shape, with lips that would curl up when she smiled. Just like the other women who had disappeared in different cities around the country. Not that they had anything to do with one another but still, this latest case grabbed her attention, bringing it away from the now solved case where she had come so close to losing her own life.

They reached his car and after getting inside, he drove down the quiet street towards Malibu. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, the day finally catching up with her.

"You and Carol really seemed to hit it off," she noted.

He turned onto another main street, before hitting the freeway.

"She's a very attractive woman and she provides a great service with the clinic," he said, "I was just telling her that maybe we could issue her a grant from our charitable foundation."

C.J. considered that.

"I could get Murray to check out the logistics, but I'm sure it could be done," she said, "I wish it were something that we could do more often."

He caught a wistful note in her voice.

"You mean with the charitable foundation, right?"

She nodded.

"I wish we could help more women who needed it with business training or legal help," she said, "Like Carol does with her medical training."

"There's no reason why we can't take it up with the shareholders," he said, "You and Maureen spent a long time catching up."

C.J. smiled.

"We talked about maybe getting together sometime for lunch," she said, "or even to work together some day."

"That sounds serious…"

She sighed.

"I love what we do Houston, don't get me wrong," she said, "but just something to do on the side, to give something back."

The freeway was fairly empty and Matt's car whizzed towards where it would turn off onto PCH, which paralleled the coast into Malibu. The traffic slowed down markedly after they came out of the tunnel where to their left had been the Santa Monica pier. It still showed signs of life which appeared to be winding down but C.J. noted some kind of checkpoint ahead lined with police officers and perhaps even FBI agents.

"Looks like some kind of questioning's going on here," Matt noted as they idled in line.

C.J. frowned.

"This is close where they found the woman's body who was murdered."

"It's probably them questioning people who might have seen something," he said, "but the article didn't even give her name."

"She has one," C.J. said, "They just haven't found it yet."

They all had names, she knew. All the women who had turned up dead, often on the shores of rivers and lakes and an ocean or two after crossing paths with the wrong person, looking into the wrong pair of eyes the last they would ever see. She wondered if she had seen them herself, had looked into someone's soul and had seen evil there.

She flinched as she pulled herself away from that line of thought, one that she had followed before in her life.

"C.J. you okay?"

Matt had noticed. Being a sharp investigator, he didn't miss much around him. She just shrugged.

"I'm just tired," she said, "It's been an active day."

"Yes it has," he agreed, "but at least this case is over."

She nodded as they approached the checkpoint. The cops appeared to be peering in vehicles with flashlights.

"Excuse me sir," a police officer said, "We need to ask you both a couple questions…"

C.J. realized quickly enough that they had been right, that the police had set up a dragnet of sorts to find out information on the murder of the young woman washed up on shore. They had been canvassing the beach and the pier, nearby Venice Beach and all the way up to PCH to find someone, anyone, who could possibly have seen what had happened to the young woman and who had done such a horrible thing. C.J. had asked the officer if they had discovered her name and he had shaken his head. Mentioned something about finding out who had given her the necklace. But there had been precious little else to go on and no missing person's reports that matched the woman's description.

"How'd she die," she asked softly.

"The detectives haven't released that information," the officer said, "It's part of the investigation."

Matt knew that was standard operating procedure. At least that had been what Vince and other officers had told him often enough including when he felt that his investigations had led him to a brick wall. He looked over at C.J. and saw how the officer's words had affected her, not knowing why. It had been that way in Boston years ago when he had visited her while she had been at law school after one of his rare military leaves. A couple of women had turned up dead there, on the banks of a river that wove its way through the city. None of them had names either. He couldn't remember if there had been suspicion that a serial killer had been responsible, very little information had been released at all.

They left the officer and the dragnet after having a cursory glance inside the car and a couple more questions but no, Matt and C.J. hadn't seen anything because they had been so wrapped up in the case involving her sorority sisters. C.J. spent the rest of the drive saying very little, just looking out the window towards the darkness which hid the ocean on the moonless night.

Matt and C.J. entered the beach house and he flipped on the light. It was elegantly decorated by its current owner who recently had offered to sell it to him but Mat hadn't yet decided. He liked being so close to the beach for morning swims when he felt up to it and for runs when he didn't feel like swimming but he still spent most of his time on his ranch. Still, with his investigative agency picking up business at a rapid pace, he found the daily commute to the office to not mesh well with a burgeoning career that had unpredictable schedules including all night stakeouts and frequent traveling. C.J. had been thinking of heading to the city to live more closely to work as well but the two of them had been too busy lately to really discuss it.

Matt went for the kitchen right away.

"Would you like a beer," he asked C.J.

"I'll take some juice if you have any," she said, "I think I did enough drinking at Mama's."

He poured them their drinks and they returned to the cozy living room, collapsing on the couch. She sipped her drink thoughtfully.

"So what's next," she asked, her eyes flashing.

He caught the mischief in her voice this time and smiled back.

"I think our next case is more local," he said, "No more jet setting to the Bay Area or anywhere else."

She sighed.

"I can't believe that Liz was involved," she said, "She was such a steadfast presence in our lives when we were in college. I never would have suspected."

"Obviously she's changed…"

"I know people do Houston," she said, "but having people you cared about getting killed so they can't remember that your groom murdered his previous wives."

"She had enough on him to blackmail Jonathan into marriage," Matt reminded her, "and then some."

C.J. shook her head.

"I still don't get it," she said, "I mean when we first met Jonathan years ago, he seemed to be a real prince charming. Guess first impressions hardly are ever right."

"Sometimes maybe," Matt said, "but sometimes they can be very accurate…like when we met."

C.J. chuckled.

"You were cute," she said, "I thought you seemed like a nice boy when I started school."

She had started in the middle of the school year which in elementary school had made it difficult to make new friends. It hadn't helped that during her first week, she had earned a suspension from the principal for getting in a fist fight with a bully who had teased her. But it was while spending that week off from school working on her uncle's ranch that she had gotten to know Matt better, and by week's end, their friendship had begun. One that had lasted many years since then and had carried them through both good and bad times in both of their lives.

"You had a fast pair of feet," he recalled, "and a hell of a right hook."

She shrugged.

"A girl's got to protect herself especially if she's the new kid in school."

She had done pretty well for herself until Matt had helped teach her better self defense skills when she had asked him to after she graduated from law school and he had finished his military commitment. He hadn't asked her about her sudden interest and she hadn't offered much in the way of information.

She sighed, putting her glass of juice down and looked over at him, sleepily.

"I guess I'd better be turning in," she said, "Thanks for the drink."

She got up off the couch and started heading to the guest bedroom.

"C.J…"

Turning around, she looked at him puzzled.

"Sleep well…"

She nodded and headed to bed. He watched her go, a thought flickering through his mind at how beautiful she looked especially sheathed in that dress…then told himself better not go there and he sat back on the couch and turned on the television to watch the rest of the baseball game.

Suddenly his cell phone rang and he picked it up.

"Hi Vince, what's up?"

"Just calling to see if you made it back okay," he said, "Where are you anyway?"

"The beach house with C.J…"

Silence followed and Matt sighed.

"Neither of us felt like flying back to the ranch," he said, "so we crashed here for the night."

"I don't know why you don't just move there," Vince said, "You spend so much time in the city…"

"Because I grew up on a ranch, I owned one in Texas and life didn't seem the same out here until I lived on one."

The words sounded less and less convincing to Matt because Vince had been right. He hardly had anytime to tend to his ranch any longer and Bo and Lamar still pretty much ran the place. And it was nice to live on the beach…

"What's going on with you Vince?"

The lieutenant sighed deeply.

"I've been assigned to oversee the investigation of the homicide near the pier."

"C.J. and I passed through the checkpoint," Matt said, "How's the canvassing going?"

"Lousy," Vince said, "We've been getting lots of tips but nothing solid."

Matt paused.

"Who was she Vince?"

His friend sighed again.

"I don't know, the detectives don't know," he said, "She's not been reported missing at least not in L.A. and frankly I'm getting tired of days like this one."

Matt knew that his friend had been thinking of just hanging up his badge and moving out of L.A. to settle down to some other life that didn't give him such heartburn and where he didn't have to worry about getting shot at every day.

"Vince, were there any clues at all?"

"No…oh wait the coroners did find something strange," he said, "They found a tattoo."

"What's so strange about that," Matt asked, "Women do get them."

"This wasn't a normal tattoo though," Vince said, "It was more like a…brand and that had to be very painful, much more than a tattoo."

Matt couldn't argue with that.

"What was it?"

"I'm not sure what it's called," Vince said, "It's like a bunch of different animals meshed together into one creature."

C.J. tried to get some sleep in the guest bedroom but images from the past few days overwhelmed her. Laurel and Hardy aiming a gun at Lamar's crushed station wagon while she lay injured in the brush. Laurel with a hook for one hand and a deadly syringe in the other trying to kill her. Looking into the smile of betrayal of Liz, her former house mother. The photos of her dead sorority sisters killed in violence made to look accidental.

And the composite of a young woman in the newspaper, face frozen in a tentative smile given to her by the artist.

Perhaps she had smiled in her life, C.J. thought or at least she hoped so. She lay back in her bed, as a soft breeze blew the curtains on the window, the hint of the sea intermingled with sweet nectar in it. Shadows danced on the wall from a light on Matt's deck, one of them in the shape of a man. She closed her eyes then when she thought of him, the man who remained hidden except at night while she slept. The one who had pressed her against that cold wall that night, his breath on her cheek and his hands on her waist, promising her that he would return. She had closed her eyes tightly then and when she had opened him, he had vanished and she had breathed in relief until the acrid smell of smoke hit her. Years had passed since then and her memory of him had faded and even when she slept, he appeared less vivid, more of an outline than anything else.

She had never told him about what had happened, the one secret she had kept from her best friend. The only people who did know about that night had gone on with their lives. Julia had been battling cancer since then in between coordinating a woman's crisis center and Jonathan, well last she heard he had been working for the federal government. The career which had been one of many things to come between them had become the focus of his life. As for the other guy, Scott he had been traveling around the world focusing most of his time recently in South America, judging from the infrequent postcards he had sent Matt.

Closing her eyes, she tried to put all that aside so that she could sleep. Hoping that her ghosts would stay away tonight.

But that didn't last long and soon enough, C.J. had been running through the very familiar hallways of the building which collapsed around her with each burning step. The walls melted in flames and she dodged embers blowing in her face while she searched frantically for her friends. Where were they, she pounded on the doors, as the knobs which opened them proved to be too hot to the touch. Time was running out not to mention oxygen as the air became hot and stifling, each breath painfully drawn and then released. Behind him, he lurked just his shadow and she kept one step ahead of it, until she felt something grab her arm…

"No," she said, "Go away…"

She woke up suddenly and found herself sitting up drenched in sweat inside the quiet beach house where the air had become completely still. Then she heard footsteps and looked up to see Matt standing in the doorway with his chest bare, wearing only a pair of worn sweats. She just stared at him mutely and he walked over to her.

"What's going on here," he said, sitting beside her.

She just shook her head.

"I'm fine," she said, "Really, it's just a dream."

Her heart still thudded in her chest and she tried to slow down her breathing.

"Must be some dream," he noted, "or a nightmare."

"Everyone has them Houston," she said, "Tonight was just my turn."

He moved closer to her, she felt that in ways she didn't expect.

"Why don't you tell me about it," he asked.

She shook her head.

"I don't remember much," she said, "and it's slipping away even as we speak."

He didn't look like he believed her and she felt a bit uncomfortable lying to him because when she had woken up, she had seen the picture of the latest dead woman inside her head.

"Come here," he said, and pulled her into his arms.

She didn't fight him but snuggled closer against him as they sat together on her bed. He wrapped his arms around her and she rested her head against her shoulder. Her heart beat slowed until it matched his own beating alongside it. She felt her breath becoming more quietly, the tingling sensations leaving her extremities.

It felt comfortable being wrapped up in his embrace, too damn comfortable. She tried to extricate from his embrace.

"Houston, I'm okay now," she said, "I think I need to try to get some sleep."

He didn't leave her bed but just looked at her, his eyes reading hers.

"What's bothering you," he asked, "Is it the case, is it something else at work, is it…"

He didn't need to finish because she knew what had been next and her expression answered his unspoken question.

"It's that woman isn't it," he said gently.

She nodded.

"It's just such a scary world sometimes," she admitted, "Sometimes the level of violence is overwhelming…I mean what did this woman do to warrant being killed and dumped like that?"

He didn't have an answer for her.

"C.J. we don't know who she was," he said, "We don't know who killed her and why. The police may never know."

C.J. mulled over his words and a part of her realized that he was probably right, from a rational perspective of someone with a background in investigation. But another part of her felt chilled by the belief that a part of her knew why the woman had been killed. She couldn't put it into any words that made sense but the feeling was not only palpable as if it were alive but it permeated every corner inside her at that moment.

Somewhere, somehow the nameless woman had come face to face with her nightmare. Unlike C.J. she hadn't lived to tell about it. C.J. had survived her own encounter but had chosen her own silence. And parts of her felt guilt shake her that she had been able to make that choice where others had not. Had she made the right one years ago and how could she know? A part of her ached to share it but the words still eluded her.

So she remained there resting her head against Matt as he positioned himself on the bed so that they were both lying down together, his arms still around her while she closed her eyes. He listened to her breathing become more even and the murmurs she made become silent. He wondered what she had seen in her sleep that had made her think of a strange woman with apparently no past and no future left who had washed up with the tide several miles away from the beach house.

A woman wearing only a golden locket and the tattoo of what Matt knew to be a chimera.