Every time he opened his mouth to talk, he lowered his voice and spoke in calm even strokes. His tone kept her calm, despite his shaking hands.

“I’m giving you morphine and something for nausea. You’ll feel better in a few seconds.” The nurse used the IV to administer the drug, and Eliza quickly felt the effect. Her limbs felt heavy and the pain started to float away.

“Better?” the nurse asked.

The burning pain muted. “Much.”

“X-ray should be here soon.”

The nurse left them alone in the room.

She needed to get her mind off what was happening. “Tell me again why you came home early?”

“Now’s not the time.”

“C’mon, Carter. No secrets.”

He tilted his head to the side and gave her his Hollywood smile. “The medication is working?”

“It is. And you’re changing the subject.”

Carter ran a hand over her face and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. She attempted to sit up farther in the bed and shake some of the fog the medication produced in her brain.

“Not now.”

“Carter…someone shot me tonight. You keeping secrets is gonna piss me off.”

The expression on his face told her he didn’t like being put in a corner. “My dad called me. He heard from someone about a hit. I panicked when I couldn’t get a hold of you.”

The medication numbed the effect of his words. Still, something didn’t feel right. “The woman who shot me was at point blank range. If she was a professional, she sucked.”

Carter released a nervous laugh. “You’re joking. You were shot tonight and you’re joking.”

Eliza lifted her bloody arm, surprised it didn’t hurt. “Flesh wound.” A warm trickle ran down her arm.

“Stop moving it. You’re making it bleed again.” Carter moved to the other side of the gurney and placed fresh gauze to her arm.

“My hero.” He certainly was more gorgeous then any of the doctors who came in to help.

“A hero wouldn’t have let anyone get close enough to hurt you.”

Eliza opened her eyes, not aware that they had closed. “You couldn’t have known. Don’t blame yourself.”

The door to the exam room opened and Dean walked in. Eliza remembered seeing him briefly before Carter arrived at the house. “Hey.”

Dean winked. “How’s the patient?”

“They have good drugs here. I don’t know why people go to the street looking for them.”

“She’s feeling better,” Carter said for her.

“I am.”

“Your man, Russell is outside. I told my uniform he could go.”

“Tell me the shooter is dead.” Carter said.

Eliza heard the venom in her husband’s voice.

“Have a seat, counselor.”

Carter took Deans advice and started asking rapid-fire questions. “Do we know who she is? Was she working for Sanchez?”

“We know who she is, and no, she doesn’t know anything about Sanchez.”

The drugs must be really working, because Eliza was having a hard time following the conversation.

“What?”

“Here is what I know. The shooter is Michelle Sedgwick. Name mean anything to you, Eliza?”

She shook her head. “Wait, Sedgwick?”

“Yeah. Sedgwick is a rich old guy dating one of your clients.” Dean added air quotes around the word clients. “Miss Sedgwick is a misguided rich girl, but she isn’t a hit man. She told us she was looking for her cell phone in your yard.”

“Why is her phone in our yard?” Carter asked.

“She dropped it there last week. Apparently, she and her siblings decided to spy on you after her grandfather started seeing a younger woman. They thought if they could find some way to blackmail you, you’d stop their grandfather from marrying the woman you set him up with.”

“Blackmail me? With what?”

“They didn’t think that far. And obviously their time at the university was spent drinking instead of going to class for an education. Michelle doesn’t know anything about you outside of Alliance.”

“Bullshit. I don’t believe it. Why did she have a gun?”

“Zod. Apparently she lost the phone when Zod found her in the bushes. She tossed her shoe at him and ran.”

Eliza remembered the week prior when Russell showed them the tapes of Zod barking in the yard. Eliza didn’t question the chewed up shoe Carter told her he tossed in the trash. She assumed he tossed both of them.

“She told us she had a gun to scare the dog and get her phone and run. I’ve questioned her, and I think she’s telling the truth.”

“Why would she risk coming back at all if she knew an attack dog was there? That doesn’t make sense.”

“She said something about her grandfather announcing his engagement, and how if anyone did anything remotely scandalous, he’d remove them from his will. If her phone was found in your yard…”

Carter growled. “She still shot my wife. Could have killed her.”

“That isn’t being disputed. She admitted squeezing the trigger. She said she pointed it at the dog. Not that it matters.”

“Sedgwick said his kids were clueless, spoiled rotten. I assumed his grandchildren were younger.”

“Just out of college, apparently.”

How sad. “How bad is she hurt?”

“Zod took a couple bites out of her legs. He doesn’t alter his attack for sneakers, apparently.”

Eliza felt a smile tug at her lips. “Is Zod okay? He wasn’t shot was he?”

“No. Zod’s fine.”

“If she’s not the hit man, then someone is still out there,” Carter pointed out.

Eliza didn’t want to think about that.

“Why do you say that?” Dean asked Carter.

Carter told him about the call from his dad…about the hit.

“That’s odd.”

“Why?”

“Earlier tonight Mrs. Sanchez talked with me from a station in San Francisco. Apparently, her husband directed her to give orders for a hit. Instead, she went to the cops, asked for their protection, and turned her husband in.”

“What? Why?”

“Your statement to the press humbled her, the way you protected her children at your expense. Between Mrs. Sanchez’s testimony and the brawl in the prison tonight, Sanchez is going to be in a very dark hole for a very long time. He won’t fart without me knowing about it. He’s virtually cut off from the world.”