Next chapter's up. I hope you like it :)


It was raining.

Nancy had always loved the rain. She would lie in bed, listening to the raindrops hit the window softly. After she met Ned, every time it rained when they were together they would curl up on the couch, pop popcorn, and watch the newest movie out.

Now Nancy was missing. Ned stood in front of the window looking out, watching as fat raindrops fell to the ground. For a long moment, his mind flashed through the memories of those rainy days spent on the couch with Nancy. And he wondered if he would ever hold his girlfriend in his arms once again.

--

The first thing Nancy became aware of when she woke up was the pain that she was in. She was alone in the same room she had been kept in earlier, still on the bed. All of the sheets and the bedspread had been taken off after the kidnappers were finished with her, but only after they were sure that the bleeding had stopped.

The man that was the obvious leader of the group had given his assistants instructions to take care of her for good tonight. She had been missing for over a week, and their chances of being caught were eventually going to incline over time. They had taken their assignment very seriously, and beat her several times until she eventually lost consciousness.

Nancy closed her eyes. It was only a matter of time before they came back to finish the job. Her wrists were tied too tight to get out of. There was no way out. Suddenly, she heard footsteps in the hallway, approaching her room.

This is it.

--

Ned helped his mother with dinner that night. Ned had intended to skip dinner, especially after he learned it was already seven when his mother had decided to start it. But she insisted that he eat something, saying that he couldn't keep skipping meals. Worrying would do nothing; neither would picking up unhealthy habits due to the stress and anxiety caused from the entire incident. His parents knew that Ned needed a distraction, so his mother asked him to help her with dinner.

"What do you want put in the salad?" he asked.

"Whatever you want," she replied lightly. "You're in charge of it."

Suddenly, the telephone rang. "James, honey, can you get that?" she called to her husband. She sighed and returned to the carrots she had been cutting. It wasn't long, however, before Mr. Nickerson walked in to the kitchen, his face mixed with emotions. Both Ned and his mother took one look at his face and knew something had happened.

"What did they say?" Ned asked.

"They found her."

--

Nancy had been found, unconscious, in the front seat of her car.

The car was about ten miles away from where the remains of her car window had been found—about an hour and a half away from River Heights. The car had been stripped of everything valuable. The front driver's side window had been broken, and in several areas down the side of the door were traces of blood. Other than that, the car was unharmed.

Nancy, who had been slumped over the steering wheel, was taken to the nearest hospital with a concussion and a fractured bone in her right arm, along with the possibility of internal injuries. Everyone prayed that there were none.

Media swarmed the entryway to the hospital as Carson Drew walked up the steps, closely followed by Ned. They immediately went to the front desk, where they were directed to the emergency room waiting room. It was there that the next two agonizing hours would be spent as they waited for news from the doctor.

Carson Drew paced the floor nervously as Ned stayed seated, his head buried in his hands. Every time the door to the emergency room opened, Mr. Drew would pause and Ned would lift his head, only to feel the familiar disappointment of knowing that there was still no new news. But finally, at ten thirty that night, the doctor finally emerged from the emergency room.

By now, Mr. Drew and Ned were the only two in the room left that had not been spoken to. The doctor approached them. "Are you here for Ms. Drew?" he asked.

The two men nodded. "How is she?" Mr. Drew asked.

"Ms. Drew is in the ICU right now. She has a severe concussion due to apparent head trauma. It looks as though she has been hit in the head numerous times. She's still unconscious as of now, but when she wakes up, she might feel dizzy or lightheaded and may not remember what exactly happened to her. Fortunately, that is the most severe injury that she has. She will be watched carefully for the next few nights; we want to make sure that she doesn't slip into a coma, of course. But she should recover just fine."

"Thank God," Ned said softly.

"Are we allowed to visit her?" Mr. Drew asked.

The doctor nodded. "For ten minutes in the ICU, and only one visitor at a time."

They thanked the doctor as he left.

--

A few moments later, Ned was standing next to Nancy's hospital bed, very gently holding her uninjured hand and rubbing it.

She was still unconscious. She had been ever since she had been found earlier that evening.

He said she would wake up soon, Ned thought.

Her body was bruised and scarred beyond belief. Obviously, her captors had no mercy over her, and had no intention of letting her live. But the question was, why?

--

The next afternoon, detectives came with hopes of speaking to Nancy. When they knocked on her door at two o'clock, they heard Ned's voice responding with "Come in." The detectives walked in and closed the door behind them before facing the young couple.

Nancy was awake, but very weak. She was sitting up in the hospital bed, propped up by several pillows. Ned was holding her hand.

"Ms. Drew, I am Detective Brown and this is Detective Harrison. We were wondering if we could speak to you privately," he added, eyeing Ned.

"Ned stays," Nancy said. Her voice, although weak and slightly hoarse, was very firm.

"Very well," Detective Brown said. "Ms. Drew, do you remember what happened to you at all?"

Nancy closed her eyes. The truth was that she had no memory of what had happened at all. "I—I'm sorry, I can't remember," she said finally.

"You can't remember anything at all?" the detective asked. "Any little bit will help us, Ms. Drew."

"I know. I know it would. I just—I can't remember."

"That's fine, Ms. Drew," Detective Harrison said. Detective Brown nodded in agreement, somewhat resigned. "If you can remember anything at all, let us know." As one of the detectives left the room, Detective Brown paused to speak to Ned. "There's going to be a news report tonight," he said. "The police have told the media that Ms. Drew was found dead; if her kidnappers find out that she's alive, we're afraid they might go into hiding. Just be careful what you tell people," he warned before he, too, left the room.

Nancy sighed and Ned kissed her hand. "It's not your fault if you can't remember, " Ned said. He gently stroked hair.

"I know," she said.

"They'll find them," Ned said. "They'll find them eventually." He kissed his girlfriend one last time. "I have to go," he said. "I promise I'll be back as soon as I can."

Nancy nodded. "I love you," she said.

"I love you, too. Take care."

--

"Hey, Chad, where did you put the remote?"

"Haven't had it."

"You were the last person to watch television. Don't tell me you didn't use the remote."

"I don't know. Get your lazy butt up and get it yourself."

"Would you two please stop your arguing? It's getting old."

"Not as old as you, old man."

"Real mature."

The three kidnappers and would-be-killers were at a hotel in the middle of San Antonio, Texas—hundreds of miles away from where detectives remained, baffled, searching through every aspect of the case. It was their second night there after their quick escape from Illinois. Their money was coming from the several bad checks that Louis, one of the three kidnappers, had been writing all over the city.

The room had two beds and a pull out couch—leaving a bed for each man. The head of the group, Peter, was sprawled out on one of the beds with a map of Mexico spread open in front of him. It was only a matter of time before someone discovered that they were writing the bad checks, and they needed to find somewhere safe to hide out. Somewhere out of the country. The older man looked up when he heard something on the television that caught his attention.

"Hey, turn that up, will ya?" he said.

"…Nancy Drew, whom has been missing for well over a week, was found late yesterday evening dead in her car over one hundred miles away from her hometown, River Heights. Ms. Drew was reported missing last Tuesday after failing to return home from a party being held at Emerson College. Investigators are left with very few clues in the case…"

Chad shut the television off. For a long moment, the three men sat in silence. Finally, Louis said with amazement, "We did it."