s h i v e r [juliet]

[Canary (DELETED 9738)]

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see. The note fell from her hand, but she had her hand closed tightly around the wedding band. He never told her why, but she spent very little time agonizing over the why and more over the where and the how. Where had he gone? Where had they gone? And how long had he been seeing her? How long had Vivian mattered to him? Had she always held a piece of his heart that should have belonged solely to his wife? And how easy had it been to walk away? The questions faded into the background, replaced by the simple realization that she held his wedding band, that she felt the weight of the ring. He'd left her. He'd really left her.

She still loved him. She loved him in the way that any wife loved her husband. She loved him deeply, even knowing that he'd strayed, even knowing that he'd abandoned her. Somewhere, he had his hands all over Vivian; he whispered the same promises he'd once whispered to Cara, his little Canary, his little bird. She released her hold on his wedding band and took her first shaky breath, but nothing soothed the burning in her chest. He'd set her heart aflame, but in the worst way imaginable. The fire threatened to consume her. The fire threatened to swallow her in the way that his infidelity had swallowed her. He'd destroyed her. And she loved him. Oh, she loved him.

Cara wanted him back. She wanted him to realize his mistake. And she would have taken him back. She would have forgiven his infidelity. She would have laid blame entirely on Vivian, and even Vivian’s husband. If only he'd held her more. If only he'd shown her more love. Cara realized her own guilt then. If only she'd held Frank more. If only she'd shown him more love. Cara blamed Vivian, yes, but she also blamed herself. She just couldn't bring herself to blame Frank.

Cara and Frank forever. Cara and Frank forever became Cara and Frank for eight years and three months. For most of those years, he'd likely been with their next-door neighbor. He'd been satisfying his needs with some other woman, while his oblivious wife remained at home, nursing the idea of starting a family. Most husbands never left their wives, but Frank wasn't part of that group, apparently. Eight years and three months down the drain. Cara just couldn't believe it. She wasn't a stunning woman, not like Vivian. She didn't have big breasts. She didn't have a welcoming smile. Cara was ordinary in every way, at least in comparison to someone like Vivian, to a woman so close to perfection that she'd acted like the next Aphrodite.

Still dressed in yoga capris and a sports bra, she looked ready to run right back out of the house. And so she did. Her evening run had been extended into a night run. She ran from their Moss End home down through Bullwood. Cara felt as if her heart only needed a few more beats to implode, but she pushed herself onward. Vivian, with hair as bright as the sun. Vivian, with a laugh like bells chiming. Vivian, the homewrecker. Cara felt the tears as they ran down her cheeks. She wiped at the tears, but nothing stopped them from coming. Frank had left her, disappeared into the night, and she loved him. ****, she loved him.

Halfway through Bullwood, she slowed her pace. When she stopped, she stopped across the street from the police station. Cara looked in through the glass doors as if expecting Frank to waltz from behind the front desk and welcome her inside. Instead, she saw the corner of his desk, the lamp dark and the chair pushed in. Frank had been on vacation, the third day out of seven days, and he’d used all morning and afternoon to pack his belongings, load up the Jeep, and leave his wife in the dust. Cara couldn’t help it. She took off her tennis shoes and threw them at the glass doors. They made dull thumps that attracted the attention of all the cops inside, but none of that mattered. Cara had taken off again, running in her polka-dot socks.

[Juliet]

There was a yellowish bruise healing on her jaw from a member of the Lionelli that stung when she clenched her jaw. He had been sent to the ground before she'd put that final bullet into his chest, his face caught in a silent scream as he fell to ashes. It wasn't often that Juliet trained, but she'd needed it that evening. It had surely been a slap to the face for her to learn that one of her employees had been stealing from her. Ideas, diamonds, cash. She didn't know what to think. Cassadee had shown her disgust with a loud snort when Juliet had made the discovery, but the spirit hadn't been very chatty due to the numbness that her killer felt.

Betrayal was one of the emotions that she didn't quite know how to cope with. It was one stronger than depression, too, because it wasn't something that she didn't entirely have to cope with. Typically if someone betrayed her, Juliet simply just wrote them off - why should she waste any more of her time and effort dealing with someone who clearly didn't respect her? Her father had been one of the individuals whom she'd given this reaction to after April's death. He hadn't come to his niece's funeral, to the aid of his grieving daughter. He hadn't cared about anything regarding his daughter until Juliet Crawford was legally dead, and he'd tried to take over one of her companies - only to be angered to see that one Cassadee Hawkins had taken over.

She could still see the shock in his face in the court when it had been ruled a clean transfer of assets. She supposed the anger that had been lurking beneath the surface explained why he had hired the girl to steal things. But, it had only been a matter of time before things would come to a full circle, she was sure of it. Juliet still wasn't sure on how she was going to deal with the woman, Melissa. She didn't know how she was going to deal with her father, either, or his attemptive takeovers. Confrontation, she supposed, would be the best route. He couldn't deny what he didn't know she had proof of - camera footage, dna evidence, fingerprints found on her safe. She'd hired someone on the police force to match up her father's bank account with the one that Melissa had given her for a direct deposit and there had been a match.

It never ceased to amaze her how easy it was to pay off some of the cops in Harper Rock, either.

"Can I get you anything, girlie?"

The gruff voice drew her attention out of her thoughts, looking at the shopkeep who was frowning at her. She removed the pocket pistol from her bag, checking the ammo within and removing the clip before she handed it over. "Just the usual, Scott. Shotgun shells and a bag." She gave him an extra thousand so that she could get more shells so that she wouldn't have to return after only a few days. Her hazel eyes followed a woman in yoga pants and a sports bra running by as she waited, taking in the subtle curves and frowning as she saw the glistening of a trail of tears rolling down her face. Such a shame. Her attention turned back to Scott as the woman stopped and as he handed her the ammo bag, Juliet put it in her own. "And the blood?"

She didn't miss his grimace as he reached underneath the counter and handed it to her after. He nodded her towards the door afterwards as she slid it into her bag. She'd always been one to prefer fresh blood from an animal over the blood of a human, but she wasn't going to be picky that evening. She might as well just drink it from a bag on her way home. Juliet put the bag over her shoulder as she turned to step onto the road, heading in the direction of Wickbridge - it was a nice night out, so she might as well walk, shouldn't she? Reaching up to run her fingertips through her curly brown hair, a gasp escaping past her lips as she felt someone else collide with her own body briefly causing her to stumble before continuing on. She turned to face the woman she'd been watching, going in the same direction but running, now.

"Thanks for that!" She called after her, fixing her shoe as she straightened herself up, "Not."