Foreword: Thank you, SchoolBoredom, for reviewing my older story. It's great to know that my story wasn't forgotten just months after I finished it. But I'm sure it's easier to find my story in the pile of Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew stories compared to Harry Potter or Yu-Gi-Oh (LOL). Anyway, here is the sixteenth and the last chapter in the newest mystery: Ocean of Deceit. The title is one of my favorite words in the entire English dictionary: forevermore. That means "at any future time" or "in the future". I like it more than "evermore" because it has the word "forever" in it, and that sounds like a good word to express Nancy and Ned's relationship. So, here is the grand finale. You'll find out what happened to the other suspects and, more importantly, if Ned will survive the shot to his stomach. Read, enjoy, be surprised, and review! The next story will be up next week, and it's going to involve murder and mayhem as well. To find out more, read the postscript.

16

Epilogue: Forevermore

Ned held his hand on the wound in his stomach. He groaned as he felt the agonizing pain. Nancy watched helplessly without knowing what to do. "Oh! I know!"

The girl detective put her hand in her pocket. She found nothing. She then looked in her purse. "There!"

Nancy took out a towel. She then used it to cover the wound. "Where are the others?" she muttered, frustrated.

From out of the blues, the black car Kent came on smashed the door of the barn and broke it open. Inside, Nancy could see the silhouettes of three people, and she knew they were Frank, Joe, and George.

"Nancy!" Frank shouted as he ran out of the car. "Are you alright?"

"I am, but Ned was shot by Kent!" Nancy said, worried and shocked at the same time. "We'll have to go to the hospital! He's bleeding pretty badly!"

Frank thought for a moment. "But the nearest hospital is one hour of driving away!"

"We'd have to hurry!" George said.

Joe looked at the car. "So, Frank, want to let me drive this time?"

This time, nobody had any objection.

Joe nodded happily and went into the car. "This car is big enough for all of us, I think," he said, looking at the two people on the floor: one was bound and gagged and the other was unconscious.

The detectives didn't waste a minute. Joe turned the ignition on and the car roared like never before. In no time, they were driving at a speed of seventy miles per hour. Even Frank was impressed at the speed Joe could get the car going.

Ned was holding his stomach the entire time, and as time passed, he slipped into unconsciousness.

When he woke up, he was in the hospital bed. Nancy and George were looking down at him with expressions of concern. "What…happened?" he asked, feeling his torso. It was still sore, but better than the time he was shot.

"You should thank Joe," George said with a grin. "He drove the car so fast we got here in forty minutes! And I guess he took about ten years out of the car's life. But I'm really glad you're okay."

"Same here," Nancy commented. "Thanks a lot for saving me, Ned. I would've surely died if you didn't come and save me at that instant. You weren't a hundredth of a second too early."

Ned chuckled. "I guess having been trained as a football player has some advantages, too; you get harder abs that won't even let a bullet go through!"

To this, both girls laughed.

"But seriously, I'm glad I could save you…for once."

Nancy was surprised. "Oh, Ned! Don't tell me you were jealous because Frank saved me twice since the day we got here!"

Ned blushed a little. "Well, you might as well say that. I really…"

Ned didn't complete the sentence. Nancy kissed lightly on his forehead. "Thanks a lot, though. I hope you will continue being my knight in shining armor when I'm in trouble!"

Grinning, Ned returned, "If you get into that kind of trouble all the time, then count me in. I'm always looking for that kind of trouble."

The door opened just as Ned finished the sentence. A doctor in a white suit came inside. He had a pair of glasses, gray beard with slight trace of white in it, and almost no hair except for the temple area, which had dark gray hair with white hair around the ears. He was holding a board with a huge clip on it and was smiling.

"Well, well, well, Mr. Nickerson. It seems like you were really lucky the bullet missed your heart or your lungs. In fact, it missed most of the important intestines by a fraction of an inch! Consider yourself lucky, even after being hit by a crazed murderer with a rifle."

Nancy could hear trace of British accent in the doctor's voice. When she looked at the clock, it was almost ten in the morning.

"You were sleeping for more than an entire day, Ned!" Nancy mentioned. "I was really worried."

At that moment, Frank and Joe entered the room. "So how is he, doc?" Joe asked.

"Much better. It seems like he can be out of this hospital in about two days or so."

Frank sighed in relief. "Okay, doctor. Thanks a lot. May we talk to him now? The nurse over there said that he mustn't be disturbed too much."

"Oh, it's alright. I'm feeling fine now," Ned said. "I want to ask a few questions first, anyway."

When the doctor left and the teenagers were alone in the room, Ned asked, "So, how is Kent and Percival?"

Frank took out a newspaper from underneath his arms and showed Ned the cover.

" 'Man will be put on trial for first-degree murder and attempted murder.' And under that is 'Illegal operation stopped and lawyer held responsible for importing illegal aliens and second-degree murder.' So Percival got second-degree murder?" Ned asked.

Joe nodded. "It seems like the person who actually killed Christina was Sam, and Percival was just there to lure her to the cliff. So I guess the two mysteries are finally solved."

Nancy remembered something and said, "Oh, yeah, about that… I called Mr. Chandler this morning. He seemed really concerned about your injury, since he was feeling responsible because he was the one who sent us to Florida. But he was relieved when he heard that you were okay. He said he's going to make us special complementary dinner when we go back to River Heights."

"That sounds mouthwatering," Joe said. "When we get back to Bayport, we'd sure love to visit you and eat that complementary dinner. After all, that restaurant is famous throughout the Northeast!"

"I'll bet that with you, the entire dinner will disappear like Houdini!" Frank said jokingly.

"That reminds me… What happened to the suspects when we went to the hotel to talk to them? It seemed like they, too, pulled a Houdini," said Ned questioningly.

Nancy grinned. "It was just all coincidence. Mrs. Morley was out to buy groceries at a local supermarket, but her cell phone ran out of battery. And Jerome said that he went to the publisher and talk about the book concerning the mystery he wrote using notes in Christina's notebook. He told the publisher to stop publishing the book because it wasn't exactly his idea. He told us that he felt sorry for Christina because she had been killed, and he is pretty superstitious, too."

"He thought Christina's ghost would come back and haunt him. Talk about weird!" mentioned George. "I guess that's why he became a famous writer: he has creativity, that's for sure."

"By the way," Nancy said, "Mrs. Morley really felt sorry for her brother. She said she would invite us to a dinner banquet back in Orange Farm Inn when you come back from the hospital."

"Wow, dinner after dinner!" George said, acting as if she was getting sick of it. The others laughed.

After a pause, Nancy asked Ned, "Tell me, was the story you told about your junior year in high school true?"

Ned smiled. "Yeah. I didn't want another girl I loved to leave."

At this point, George knew immediately that the two of them wanted to be left along, so she pushed Frank and Joe out of the room. Frank understood the message and grinned, but Joe seemed a little confused. The two didn't notice that and kept talking.

"I'm really glad I met you, Nancy. You attract mysteries as much as you attract men!" said Ned, smiling.

Nancy smiled. Her face was blushing slightly. "I'll try not to get into too much trouble, Ned. Maybe this detective thing isn't right for me…"

Ned grabbed Nancy's hand. "No, Nance. I want you to do as much detective work as you want. As a boyfriend, I'll support you no matter what."

Nancy added with a grin, "And I'll love you always, Ned."

Postscript: I'm sure Nancy Nickerson will be the person who is most satisfied with the last sentence. Next mystery will involve the Hardys, Nancy, and Bess. Murder will occur in the story and the detectives will try to solve yet another crime that seems to be impossible! The previous trick involved a map, so some people didn't understand it very well. But the next one will involve a timeline, so it'll be easier to comprehend and solve. The place will be in Seattle, while the group goes to listen to a symphoney performance with one of Nancy's friends in it.

If you didn't know, I picked that place because it's the seventy-fifth anniversary of Nancy Drew mystery stories and because Her Interactive, the game company that produces Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys computer games, is located there.

The criminals will get cleverer and more cunning, and will the detectives find the killer and bring the cold-blooded murderer to justice? You'll need to find out by reading the next novel, titled: Out of Tune.