Her head throbbed painfully as Nancy slowly came back into consciousness. For a second, she couldn't remember where she and she panicked when she couldn't move her arms or legs. Then it all came rushing back to her.

She was on the floor, her hands and feet tied, her back against something hard. Opening her eyes slowly, she took bearing of her surroundings. It took a while for eyes to adjust to the dark but she soon realised that she was still in the room. She could make out Ned's form a couple of feet to her left.

So Alex had left them alone for the while. But what did he have in mind for them?

She didn't know how long she'd been out and whether Alex was still in the house but she knew she had to take advantage of being alone.

Wriggling her tied hands behind her back, she tried to reach into her pocket. Thank God, the knife was still there.

Very slowly and painfully, she managed to get it out. It was even more difficult to get it to open with her numb fingers but ultimately she did. Then slowly she began to saw through her bonds.

She had just managed to cut into about half the ropes when she heard a high pitched female voice somewhere in the house. Her senses heightened, she strained to hear what the woman was saying but couldn't make out the words. Where had she heard that voice?

Just then she heard footsteps coming towards her. She had barely managed to shift her position to completely conceal her hands before the light flicked on.

"Up so soon, Drew?" Alex face swam into her vision.

"How do you know me?"

"He didn't. I did. You're sort of famous in River Heights. Detective extraordinaire. What a joke." Kourtney waltzed into the room, sharpening a blade.

Alex put an arm around her waist.

"I suppose you've already met my girlfriend."

Girlfriend! Nancy suddenly realised that it hadn't been Alex who was stalking her. It had been Kourtney. In fact she remembered seeing her around. The conspiracy ran deeper than she could have ever imagined.

"We read the messages your boyfriend sent you. We knew you were going to be trouble when I saw you earlier today on campus. And you were with that wild goose chase you just sent me on." The way Kourtney had her knife pointed at Nancy was unnerving her.

"She's gonna pay for that, babe." Alex crooned to her. "Did you send the message?"

"Uh huh." Kourtney bent down and flashed Nancy's phone in her face.

Ned's not here, Josh. I think we were wrong. Checking out something else. Meet me by the fountain in the park at 10:30.

Nancy quickly checked the time before Kourtney snatched away the phone. It was 9:45.

"Well I better go and meet your friend." Kourtney smiled at her, tucking the knife in her boot.

Nancy had less that forty five minutes to save Joshua.

"Why did you kidnap Ned?" She turned towards Alex once Kourtney had left.

"Same reason you're here. You meddled in my business."

"But why? You had everything." She had to keep him talking to distract him from noticing that she was discreetly trying to cut the ropes binding her wrists.

Alex's face twisted into a crooked smile.

"Well curious, aren't you? Let me tell you a story. I was eight when my brother Alan died. Barely eighteen but already set to become one of the greatest sportsmen the country would see. It was obvious he was my father's favourite and his death broke my father. And then he turned to me. Dedicated his entire life towards making me the athlete his older son would've become."

He laughed, an ugly humourless laugh.

"And he was successful. After a while I started to realise what this life brought. Popularity, girls, awards, money. And the main thing. Believe me, Nancy I've tried a lot of things. But there is no high like the high of victory."

Nancy had almost gotten her hands loose now..

"For a while, all was great. Before everything started to go wrong. The losses. Injuries. And I craved that high. Needed it. That's when I met Kourtney. Her brother deals these drugs. Some of this stuff won't even come up in tests. Again for a while things were good. I'd messed up just once and Joshua had seen them but I was sure I had him fooled."

"Then the rumours started. Of course I had been wrong and he had been the one to spread them. So I started sending him the notes, hoping he'd be scared enough to quit the team. I know enough about his family to know he would never be able to afford Emerson without the scholarship. But when he didn't, I decided to go a step further. Kill two birds with one stone if you may. I put a bottle of pills in his kit and sent in an anonymous letter to my father suggesting he do a check that day. But Joshua must've told and my father must have believed him because that evening when I returned home I found him sitting here, my stash spread out on the coffee table."

Alex gritted his teeth.

"Do you know, Nancy, what it feels like for your only family to choose someone over you? I do. Because that day, my father told me he was disowning me. He would not let me participate in any competitions coming up- the University Championships next month, the Europe Meet, the Decathlon. Instead, he was going to ask the university to sponsor Josh while I was supposed to feign injury and quit. Permanently. These are the tournaments that would ultimately get me into the Olympics and my father was just giving away the one thing I'd worked my whole life for. To the person who had ruined everything for me. He said he was doing me a favour by not letting the administration know so that I can get my degree. This coming from a man I've worked the last sixteen years to please." He spat.

"What were you going to do to Josh?"

"Believe me, nobody was going to get hurt. Only if Josh had realised what's good for him. When he didn't I made another plan. What if he was to lethally overdose on some of these drugs?" The frankness in his voice sent a shiver down Nancy's voice.

"And then he involved your boyfriend. Asking all these questions. I saw him hanging around my father's house. Obviously trying to collect evidence to show the Dean. Now I have to get rid of all three of you." He said it as if it was just a minor inconvenience.

So Alex hadn't realised how flawed his plan was. So many people already knew what he was up to.

Her hands were loose now. But her feet were still bound...

"You'd never pull it off." She mocked.

"What makes you think so?" He sneered, bending down to her level, his faces inches from her.

Nancy didn't wait. Swinging her arm as hard as she could, she punched him in the nose. At the same time, she used her feet to trip him. She was ready to use the knife if need be, but in the end she didn't have to. Alex's skull hit the floor with a dull thud and he was out in an instant.

After cutting the bonds around her ankles, Nancy searched around the house till she found a phone. Ned's. And then she called the police.