Foreword: Hi all! I'm quite surprised at the makeover FanFiction went through, but I like it, since it looks much cooler than before.

So, I'm temporarily back from my loooooooong hiatus, and here is the twenty-fifth chapter of the story. I just realized, the story I write is kinda like the British way of counting the floors. The first floor (in US) is ground floor (in UK), and second floor (in US) is first floor (in UK) and so on. I find it really interesting. :-)

Only one more chapter to go, people! And thanks for reading my story!

Chapter Twenty-Four

Pourquoi?

Why?

Carson Drew looked up at a streak of moonlight that leaked through the thick leaves of the trees, which almost completely blocked the window.

"I can't waste a minute," he muttered to himself, feeling his pulse quicken and his head beginning to spin from the slowed circulation of blood in his wrists.

"He didn't have to tie me up this tightly," he grunted as he felt the rope cutting deeper into his skin.

The place was completely quiet—too quiet to be in downtown River Heights. This meant he must be at least a thirty minute's drive from the center of the city, where the police headquarter was located.

But he couldn't count on it. The road was not the most crowded, since it was long after Rush Hour, and the streets were nearly empty, especially in the rural area. Wishing that his captor would not drive past the speed limit—which he doubted because getting caught driving over the speed limit would delay his murder plot even more—Carson calculated that he had less than twenty minutes to do something about the current situation.

Carson sighed. "I'm too old for such a thing," he muttered. Remembering that this was a warehouse, he turned his neck as far as he could to take a look at his surroundings.

There were many wooden boxes, up to five of them stacked on top of one another. The side of each box was around one yard. The boxes were apparently separated into different manufacturers.

Carson squinted slightly and noticed that there were also a few oil drums located behind the boxes. Whether there was oil in any of them he did not know, but he suspected that they were all full.

The rope that bound his wrists was beginning to cut into his skin. Carson grunted as he felt blood oozing from the wound. But suddenly, he realized that rope would too thin for it to cut his wrists. Also, it was slippery, albeit not slippery enough for him to free his sore wrists. Using his fingers, he felt the object. It was twine, and it was covered with oil.

Carson grinned. "So, you're planning to burn my rope as soon as this place explodes. That way, when my body is discovered, there would be no trace of his being immobilized, so the police would think that this was either suicide or an accident, never a murder.

The man closed his eyes and thought desperately. There had to be a way out of this warehouse. The only thing he needed was time to think, but he knew that he was not given a lot of it. He felt the twine with his fingers again.

"If only I had something sharp…"

He reached for his pocket and took out his wallet, but the credit card helped little to free his wrists. Carson sighed and looked at his legs which were stretched in front of him but tied together, like his wrists. All he could do was to move his legs up and down, not much more in terms of maneuvering. He thought about kicking something in front of him, but he found his legs too short to reach any of the boxes in front of him; they were at least five yards away.

Carson brought his feet under his thighs and used all his leg power to stand up. Slowly, he rotated his body ninety-degrees, centering on the pole, and looked at his surrounding from that position. There, he saw nothing new; more and more boxes lay in front of him, all too far for his feet to reach.

Rotating another ninety degrees, the attorney noticed that there was one wooden box that was within his reach, and on it was the inscription: "Smith's Glassware."

Carson sat down again and used all his strength to break open the box. From its weight, he knew that it contained something, but he could not be sure what it contained unless he opened it. After he succeeded in prying open the lid, the man looked inside and saw a few plates stuffed tightly together at the bottom.

The man immediately tipped the box. The plates rolled outside, landing just a few feet from Carson's feet. With all his strength left in him, the attorney broke the plate with his heel and moved the sharpest piece toward him. With the other foot, he kicked the piece back to his hands, and he rubbed it against the twine.

"Come on…" he muttered, his breathing rough. "Come on…"

The wind blew even harsher than before as Joe and "Diana" stood there, facing each other and studying each other's expression.

"What did you say?" Joe asked, his expression unchanged. But he was clearly shocked to hear what "Diana" said just earlier.

"Diana" smiled. "Oh, you didn't hear it clearly? Diana gave me this wound. You see, it was her full intention to kill me."

Joe gripped his fist harder than before. "Do you really mean that? Why on earth would Diana do such a thing to you?"

The imposter laughed loudly, her laughter as sharp as knife. "Wow, you really think that your childhood friend was an angel?"

As the sun began to set, the woman sighed. "My real name is Annette Lafleur. You know what this means, right?"

Joe nodded. "I remember what you said; Annette was the name that Diana used after she was put in the witness protection program and transferred to France."

The woman nodded, the smile on her face slowly spreading across her countenance.

"Mon Dieu! You sure do have a good memory," she said, amused and chuckling.

"I'm a detective, after all," Joe replied, his face as stern as always. "But I'm more interested in what drove you to kill so many people. What happened to the real Diana? Why are you acting as her when you're a complete stranger?"

Annette raised her head to the sky and heaved another heavy sigh. "Diana and I worked in the same office before," she began, "and we became best friends because we had the same name and looked a lot like each other. When standing side by side, you couldn't even tell the difference!" She chuckled. "Strange, huh?"

Joe remained silent.

"I'm not sure how Diana met Martin Rousseau, but they started dining together and acting like lovers. As her best friend at that time, I couldn't have been happier for her, since the man was handsome, muscular, and elite. Who could deny that? After all, he was a designer famous enough to have his own shop in the Champs-Élysées.

"That was about three years ago. Everything was going smoothly then; Diana and I were best friends, and Martin was the nicest guy I could find on the planet. We were closer than most people would think, and I thought our bond would never be torn apart.

"Now that I think of it, I was being naïve. All relationship is bound to end in tragedy, and ours wasn't an exception."

A teardrop rolled down the girl's cheek.

"Three years ago, we planned to take a break from work and go to Wickford Castle, a famous ski resort in Wisconsin. The scenery was magnificent, and the hotel itself was glamorous. I could not think of a time that was happier than this.

"But Martin ruined everything when he accidentally swerved off the road while driving the car."

As Joe watched, the woman raised her hands to her head and covered her ears. Her face distorted into an expression filled with pain and agony, Annette screamed the next sentence as though her life was on the line.

"AND HE KILLED HER!"

"Who?" asked Joe.

"I don't know," Annette admitted, her voice calming down somewhat. "There was a woman walking toward the cabin, but Martin did not see her. When he did, it was too late. She was lying there on the ground with a pool of blood around her head, and we just stood there by the car, not knowing what to do."

"Why didn't you call the police or the ambulance?"

"I tried to!" shouted Annette "But Diana and Martin both stopped me from doing so. They were both afraid of going to jail and lose the opportunity to earn a reputation in the fashion world. Martin had just been introduced in the magazine as the Number One Aspiring Designer of the Year in a famous fashion magazine, and he was bound to be famous. I was forced to cooperate with them, and they threatened to harm me if I ever told anyone about what happened. Fortunately for them, there was no witness, and the police never got their hands on those murderers."

Joe kept silent, his face grim. "But…why did Diana give you that wound?" he asked, pointing to the scar on Annette's chest.

Annette gritted her teeth. "It was all her fault… Diana Windham was the one who ruined my life, and I ended up killing four people and disguise myself as her in order to take revenge and destroy everything she had!"

At this exclamation, Joe widened his eyes. "Wait… the victims were Renee, Martin, and Dr. Devereux. Who is the fourth person?" He waited for her reply, but he already had an answer in his mind. Although he wanted to make sure this was true, he did not think that he could bare the cruel reality that might strike. Nevertheless, he waited patiently, feeling the breeze brush against his blond hair and back into the forest.

Annette slowly turned her head to Joe and showed her wicked grin once again, the grin of a crazed killer. When she opened her mouth again, the words that Joe had always dreaded to hear came from inside: "Who else? It was Diana Windham."

A long, dreadful silence followed. Joe's stern expression stared into Annette's eyes, which stared back with icy emptiness.

"Did she…try to kill you?" asked Joe.

Annette touched her chest and closed her eyes. "Even though I received plenty of money from Martin as a fee to keep my mouth shut, I could not bear the guilt of keeping such secrets in my heart. One day, I decided to go to the police and tell them everything I knew, so I went to Martin's house to tell him that. However, he was not in his home, but Diana was. After I told her what was in my mind, she tried hard to persuade me to consider otherwise. She said she would double the amount of money they already paid me, but I refused all her offers. Then, when she went back to the kitchen after heaving a sigh, I thought she already gave up.

"When she came back, Diana was holding a knife in her hand, and she lunged toward me. She tried to stab me with her knife, but I managed to dodge it before she stabbed too deeply into my chest. Then, with the same knife with which she tried to kill me, I killed her."

Joe's eyes remained opened widely. "That…can't be," he muttered incredulously. "Diana…tried to kill you?"

Annette's gaze turned into a glare again. "I plotted revenge even after she was dead. I stabbed her so many times I couldn't even tell who she was when I was done. After I buried her body in the nearby forest, I went to have my face redone to completely resemble Diana in order to ruin everything she ever had in her life. The operation went so well even her dumb boyfriend Martin didn't know that I was someone else."

Joe could not find any word to say to this woman in front of him. He even felt a slight fear at seeing Annette's endless hatred toward Diana. She did not only take Diana's life, but she took Diana's identity and tried to kill Diana from society.

"I killed Devereux because I knew he would be the first person Diana would kill if she were alive, since he killed her father. I figured that if the police had enough time and enough help from you and your detective buddies, they would eventually arrive to the conclusion that 'Diana Windham' committed these murders."

"So…you were planning to get caught in the first place?" he asked.

Annette smiled. "That's why I went to you, Joe Hardy. I searched through all the data on Diana's life and finally found you, the person who could play the detective in this little game that I made. But I didn't expect you to figure out that I wasn't Diana. I'll congratulate you on that."

The detective grimaced. "Why did you kill Renee and Martin, then?"

"To tell you the truth, I could care less about Renee, since she had nothing to do with me. But Martin hated her with passion, so I decided to use him to make this murder mystery more interesting." She chuckled. "And it worked, didn't it? You were trying so hard to find someone who was strong enough to pull the little trick you thought of that you forgot the possibility that the victim would also be a killer."

Joe remained quiet.

"As for Martin, I had to kill him because he was the cause of all my troubles. If he didn't kill the woman, none of this could have happened."

After a long silence, Joe opened his mouth. "I admit, Annette, that you're very smart. You came up with this plot, and you fooled everyone…" He raised his gaze to Annette, and it was filled with sadness. "But are you satisfied at any of this?"

Annette stopped smiling.

"Are you really happy that you killed people who had nothing to do with your life? Are you really satisfied to lose your true identity and constantly wear a disguise as the woman you despise the most?" He sighed, his voice trembling slightly. "Are you really you?"

The woman looked at Joe, her eyes round with surprise.

"The real reason I loved Diana Windham was because she was the first one who truly found me. She was the one who gave me the goal and identity that I currently have. She told me that I could be a great detective, and here I am, trying my best to live up to her expectations. I kept my end of the promise, but she couldn't."

Joe clenched his fist and punched the nearby wall. The loud thud echoed inside the empty hotel.

"I don't know how you feel because I've never experienced what you went through. But I know that you lost yourself in your never-ending plan to destroy everything about Diana from the world. You destroyed her reputation, her identity, her life… And you destroyed your own as well… How can you bear the pain, Annette?"

Annette kept staring at Joe, but she suddenly began to chuckle. Then, her chuckle grew into a hysterical laughter as she kept laughing until tears drenched her cheeks. When she finished laughing, her face no longer held the cool expression that it always had. Now, it was distorted into the expression of grief and sorrow. Wiping her cheeks, Annette said nothing as she turned her back to Joe…and ran to the staircase. Within seconds, she was up on the second floor.

"Annette!" Joe shouted as he got up from the chair. He was almost at the bottom of the staircase when he saw a bright flash.

"Why did he come here by himself?" Frank murmured, irritated. "Why didn't my stupid little brother discuss with us first?" The detectives were on Frank's car, heading toward the hotel to which Frank deduced Joe went.

Nancy smiled. "I'm sure he wanted to find out for himself the truth. After all, nobody would want to believe it when a loved one turns out to be a serial killer."

"Hey, look!" George shouted, pointing toward a place far ahead in the horizon. "What's that?"

Nancy squinted and saw smoke rising from a single point in the distance. "Wait… Isn't that where Mr. Charlock's hotel is?"

Bess gasped. "Oh, my god! Is it on fire!?"

Frank bit his lip as he stepped on the gas pedal. The car increased its speed as it headed toward the destination that was now burning down in a pillar of smoke.