Nancy was jarred awake by the ringing of her telephone. She looked over at her digital alarm clock and the bright red numbers said it was two o'clock. Oh, this had better be good, she thought, silently cursing her phone.

"Yeah?" she said, as way of answering it.

"Nancy? It's B.D.," the voice on the other end said.

Nancy was wide awake now. She knew that B.D. wouldn't be calling unless something was wrong.

"What's going on, B.D.?" Nancy asked.

"I need you to come down to the Today's Times offices. Meet me in the parking lot," B.D. said.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Nancy said, throwing back the covers. She hung up the phone and threw on some pants and a sweatshirt. She put on her tennis shoes and scribbled a note for her father, not knowing how long she would be out.

When Nancy arrived at the Times offices, she saw several police cruisers with their lights flashing. Before she was even able to get out of her car, B.D. was walking towards her.

"B.D., what happened?" Nancy asked.

"He struck again, Nancy," B.D. said, grimly.

"What? Who?" Nancy asked.

"Brenda Carlton," B.D. said.

Nancy looked at him with wide eyes. Sure, she and Brenda never got along, but Nancy never wanted her dead. She felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach and she was trying to catch her breath.

"How?" Nancy asked, softly.

"She was strangled," B.D. said. "There's something else you need to see."

B.D. led the way to where Brenda's bright red car was sitting. Nancy could see a chalk outline, but no sign of Brenda's body.

"The coroner's already come," B.D. answered, seeing where Nancy was looking. "Jimmy's doing the autopsy now."

Nancy nodded numbly. He grabbed an evidence bag off the hood of the car and handed it to Nancy. She took it from him and saw what was in it. There was another note.

"'Two are gone, but I'm not through; Who's next, you ask? It could be you,'" Nancy read aloud. "Great–another stupid poem."

B.D. nodded his head. "He promises even more murders."

"And we're not any closer to finding out who he is," Nancy said. She looked on the hood and saw another pink rose. "What's with the flowers?"

"We don't know," B.D. said. "The only thing we can figure is it's his calling card."

"Did you check to see if her hair was missing?" Nancy asked.

"I didn't really get a chance to see, but I told Jimmy to be on the lookout for it," B.D. said.

Nancy nodded. "There has to be something, B.D.; something that we're missing."

"If you know what it is, Nancy, I'm all ears," B.D. said.

"If I knew that, this guy would be in jail by now," Nancy said.

"Yeah, well..." B.D. didn't finish his thought. "I'm heading down to the station. Do you want to come with me?"

"I'll bring my own car," Nancy said. Then a sudden thought hit her. "Has anyone called her parents?"

"We've tried, but there hasn't been any answer," B.D. said. "We'll keep on trying."

Nancy nodded. "I'll meet you at the station," she said.

She got in her car and followed B.D. down to the police station. Before they could even get into the station, they were bombarded by reporters.

"Who the hell tipped them off?" B.D. grumbled.

Nancy didn't say anything, but followed him in as the reporters fired questions at them.

"How do you explain the latest murder?"

"Why haven't you caught the killer?"

"Do you even have any suspects?"

"How long do the citizens of River Heights have to live in fear?"

B.D. waved them off with a "no comment" and pushed through the doors, letting Nancy pass before him.

"Someone get those reporters away from here!" B.D. shouted as he entered. "Tell them we will hold a press conference later on in the day."

He strode right for his office and flung the door open. He went to his desk and picked up his phone.

"Jimmy, tell me you got something for me," B.D. said warily into the phone.

"She died of asphyxiation due to strangulation," Jimmy said.

"What about the hair?" B.D. asked.

"Chunk of it's missing, just like Granger," Jimmy said.

"Thanks, Jimmy," B.D. said. He hung up the phone and ran and hand over his tired face.

"What did Jimmy say?" Nancy asked softly.

"She died of strangulation and the S.O.B. got a chunk of her hair," B.D. said.

"Why would he change his method, but take the hair again?" Nancy asked.

"I don't know, Nancy," B.D. said. "I don't even want to try to get into this psycho's mind."

"Where is he?" A voice shouted from the outer room.

Nancy and B.D. looked at each other and walked out of the office. Standing out in the lobby was a very disheveled and angry Frazier Carlton.

Frazier spotted B.D. and stormed up to him.

"This is all your fault!"

B.D. held up a calming hand. "Mr. Carlton, I'm going to have to ask you to lower your voice."

"Lower my voice!" Frazier bellowed. "My daughter is dead and you want me to lower my voice?"

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Carlton," Nancy said quietly.

Frazier turned on Nancy. "You're sorry. Is that all you can say? You never got along with my daughter and here you are trying to offer me your condolences. Well, you know what? They mean nothing to me! For all I know, what happened to my daughter was all your fault!"

Nancy tried not to let his words affect her, but it was hard. She was already blaming herself for what had been happening and here he was voicing it and making it real.

"I know that Brenda and I never got along, but I would never wish for anything like this to have happened to her," Nancy said, with a strained voice.

"Well, your wishes mean nothing to me right now," Frazier said, through clenched teeth. "I wish it had been you, Miss Drew. I wish it had been you who had died tonight!"

B.D. stepped in front of Nancy and put a hand on Frazier's chest. "I understand that you just lost your daughter, Mr. Carlton. But that is no reason at all to blame Nancy for her death or to wish the same thing to happen to her. Nancy had no control over what happened to Brenda."

The color drained from Frazier's face and he seemed to lose his momentum. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "She was my little girl. That monster took away my little girl."

He fell into a heap on the floor and broke down, sobbing. As Nancy watched him, she could feel her heart aching for him. The words that he had just said to her stung, but she also knew they were spoken out of grief and pain. She leaned down beside him and put a comforting hand on his back.

"We'll find him, Mr. Carlton," Nancy said. "I know that does nothing to bring Brenda back, but we will find him and when we do, he'll pay for everything."

Frazier looked up at Nancy through teary eyes. "Thank you, Nancy."

Nancy nodded and looked up at B.D. He nodded to one of his officers who came over to them.

"Mr. Carlton, I hate to ask you to do this, but I need you to follow Officer Richards to the morgue to identify Brenda's body," B.D. said quietly.

Frazier looked up at B.D., horrified.

"Mr. Carlton, if you don't feel up to it, I could do it for you," Nancy said.

"No...thank you, Nancy," Frazier said. "I should be the one to do it."

Officer Richards helped Frazier up from the floor and led him out the door.

"Are you okay?" B.D. asked Nancy.

Nancy nodded. "He didn't mean what he said, B.D. He's hurting."

"Still..." B.D. said. He ran a hand through his hair. "Listen, Nancy–why don't you head home? There's nothing else that can be done right now."

"Are you sure?" Nancy asked.

B.D. nodded. "Will you let one of my officers follow you?"

Nancy didn't feel like arguing with him and she could see that it would put him at ease. "Sure."

B.D. smiled at her for the first time that night.

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When Nancy got back to her house, she saw that it was five o'clock. She was tired, but yet, she couldn't force herself to go to sleep. She was anxious and she couldn't shake the chill that kept going down her spine. Thoughts kept swirling in her mind. What was this guy's game? Why did he seem to be killing people who were associated with her? How many more people was he planning to kill? Would it ever stop? And what was with the name Katie?

Nancy shook her head, as if that would clear everything that was going on in her mind. Her eyes wandered around her room until they rested on Ann's book. Why do I always come back to the book?

That thought nagging her, Nancy picked up the book and flipped through the pages. She landed on the first murder, and her eyes widened. The first victim was stabbed once through the heart. She kept on reading and was shocked to see the killer in the book left a single pink rose and a note with the victim.

No way, Nancy thought.

She quickly flipped through the pages until she found the second murder. The victim had been strangled and there was also another pink rose and a note.

"That's what the killer's doing," Nancy said to herself. She could hear her heart thudding in her chest. "He's copying the murders from Ann's book!"

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Author's Note: I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry! I know it's been a lull in the update and you are probably going crazy! But like I said, I started school this week and I had to write in the little breaks that I didn't have homework. I will try to be a little more frequent, but I will not promise anything.

For the most part, everyone was really glad that I killed off Brenda. Apparently, I'm not the only one that didn't like her. So that either makes me really morbid or you really morbid. (We can decide that one later.I tend to think I am, though.) And someone said that it took a lot for me to kill off a core character, and they were right. I still back up the murder, because it needed to happen. When these murders happen, remember, I'm not trying to think about it with my feelings, but with Dom's.

Well, let me know what you think and I will try to have another update soon!