Chapter Nine

Shatter

My inspiration for this chapter was Kelly Clarkson's video for "Never Again". I do think you're going to like it, though!


Yellow walls did not go with a murderer. Paintings of flowers did not go with a murderer.

A man who took rejection a bit too harshly did not deserve to be a certified couples counselor.

Looking at Beckett set off a different level of emotions I had never felt before. It had been worse than when my parents betrayed me last year. This was sheer anger that I felt when I saw the man who killed me for the first time. It was an anger that I was sure no human could feel.

I was still getting used to the fact that I had died. I could go wherever I wanted in the blink of an eye. I never needed sleep, I never needed to stop to do anything. I had lost all sense of time. No one noticed me. It was quite different than being alive.

Not better, though, by any means.

Furious was an understatement at what I felt towards the man that robbed me of my life. He had no right to kill me – he could never justify what he did to me. I would never get to raise my only child and live the life I had planned to.

I had never gotten to tell Jack that I still loved him. It would be pointless, the more I thought about it. Even if I was alive, things would never have worked out between us.

Alive.

I wanted to be that horribly. I wanted to experience everything I had never gotten to. I wanted to hear Amy say "mama" to me for the first time, to go to Paris and kiss on top of the Eiffel Tower, and get married.

If it meant I could be alive again, I would even have my twenty-first birthday with Jack, like he wanted it to be, even though I hated alcohol since the night of Dani's party.

Beckett's office had a couple in their late twenties on the same couch that my best friend and her husband once sat down on. How much had time passed since then? Was it only a year, or had it been two years...or more?

I kept my eyes on the tense couple as I walked behind Beckett, my hands resting on the cool leather of his chair.

"Go ahead, Mrs. Moore," Beckett said. "Do tell your husband about your problems."

"Thought it was all fun and games, huh?" I said softly into Beckett's ear.

I was going to do whatever I could do to drive Beckett to insanity. He killed me, I should be able to get some revenge.

"Or is what you do for revenge?" I asked, touching his arm. He looked at his arm, then casually crossed them. I was frustrated that I wasn't getting more of a reaction out of him. What more did I have to do?

"Or, could it be...?" I sat on the coffee table and crossed my legs, looking straight at him. "That you killed me because I didn't make you happy? Is it that hard to believe that for once, Cutler didn't get what he wanted?"

His stony expression while looking right through me angered me. Had he been this stoic after my death? For all I knew, though, it could have been a year or two, maybe even more, since I died.

"You know what makes me angry, Beckett?" I asked, standing up and walking to one of the paintings of a lily. "That you can just take a person's life. I'll be damned if you running me over was an 'accident.'"

Irate (again, being a gross understatement) at what he did to be, I swung at the painting of my favorite flower. It made a sound not unlike nails on a chalkboard.

I didn't care. He deserved it.

Beckett and the patients looked in my direction at the swinging painting. The room became silent, save for the noise of the painting swinging against the wall.

"I see I have your attention," I said, satisfied.

Beckett chuckled and turned back to his clients. "Air conditioning," he excused.

"My, aren't we good at making excuses at the drop of a hat?" I said. "Perhaps you could make one of why you killed me."

Time didn't heal all wounds. I could never forgive him.

"Tell me!" I said

I knew he couldn't hear me. I wanted an answer from someone as to why I had to go so young.

I saw there were three glasses of water on the coffee table.

"Tell me!" I said, louder.

If I was alive, I would be worried to see my blood pressure.

I could see the glasses beginning to shake, the water building up like rocky waves before a storm at sea. I saw that all three shattered into pieces, almost as if someone had squeezed it. I knew that had to do with my anger.

Now I could break things without picking them up?

This would be interesting.

I wondered how Beckett would explain this one. He had looked only confused, though. I wondered if he thought that perhaps his past that he thought he had gotten rid of wasn't so gone, after all.

"Oh, a haunted office," Mrs. Moore said icily. "How charming when my husband and I are having marital issues."

Beckett looked – dare I say it – flustered at the very mention of his office being haunted. I knew that he wouldn't let himself entertain the thought that I could be here.

"That's absurd," Beckett said. "My office is not haunted."

"Denial," I said, walking over to the radio on his desk by the computer. "Perfectly normal. It is the first stage of grief, after all."

What would it take for him to believe that I was here?

I turned on the sound system. It was set at a light rock station. It was something I had expected him to listen to, though it hardly sounded like something a murderer would listen to.

I changed it to the local country station. "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood started to play. How appropriate. A girl finally getting the revenge she deserved.

Seeing Beckett frightened was priceless. As he turned around to look at the radio, the blood began to drain from his face. Satisfied at making my presence known, I smiled.

"This is ridiculous," Mrs. Moore said, standing up. "We're not going to waste our time with this."

I saw the two clients get up and exit the room angrily. I could feel a smug smile on my face as they closed the door.

Beckett closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No doubt you're the one behind this shenanigans, Miss Lewes."


Jack couldn't remember the last time that the house had been this silent at 7:00. Amy had been put to sleep, and now it was just Jack in the house.

The Turners had left for New York early this morning, while, under Kate's orders, stayed home for the day. That couldn't have been a worse idea. He was aware of how empty the house felt without Melissa in it. Her cheery spirit had lightened the house, especially after Amy's arrival.

He wouldn't allow himself to miss her. Jack knew that if he stopped and allowed himself to realize that she was gone for good, he would miss her. That was the last thing he needed – to miss a woman, much less the one that had been such a vital part of his life the last few months.

Although, when he stopped to think about where she was, he did begin to miss her. It overwhelmed him that he would be the only one raising their child. The first few years would be the easiest. As Amy got older, though, she would ask why Will and his child always came with a woman, and why didn't she have a woman living with them?

That sickened him to think that someday he would have to explain that to her.

He wondered what the teenage years would be like. Who would be there for her to ask questions that only Melissa could answer, like how to talk to a boy, or what sort of dress to wear a high school dance?

He wondered if Will was right. Was Beckett the one that killed Melissa?


The first night back in New York was the hardest for Kate. She was on the other side of the country, and Melissa was still buried.

The very thought that she was dead made her throat tighten. Tears sprung to her eyes. She was forced to close her eyes while in bed as to not start crying.

It was too hard for her to believe that she would never see Melissa again. No one could have guessed that she would have died that night.

No one had a chance to say goodbye.

Kate began to cry. She was tired of crying. It seemed to be all that she had done since Melissa died. Her best friend of thirteen years had a life was cut much too short.

Melissa was not the only person she was thinking of lately. She worried about Jack and how he could handle raising Amy alone. What concerned her was that he was so calm the past few days. She wondered how deeply in denial he was.

"Kate," Will said softly.

Even though she had most likely woken him up, she rolled over to face Will. He enveloped her in a hug, much like the one he had given her when they found out that Melissa had died.

She had not said anything; not about how it wasn't fair that she was taken so young or that she still had something she needed to tell Jack. Kate had done something she never did before.

She shattered like glass.