Landmine
Chapter 17
Nancy stared at her chicken salad with no interest in eating it at all. The only thing she had been able to do since she, Frank, Ned, and Joe entered Thelma's was to stare at her food and keep an eye on her watch.
"Hey, are you okay?"
The sound of Ned's voice caused her to jump.
"I didn't mean to scare you," he said, softly.
Nancy waved him off. "You didn't—I was just off in my own little world. What were you three talking about?"
Joe smiled and looked at Frank and Ned. "Nothing, really. These two were just staring at you wondering who would say something to you first," he said, amused.
Ned and Frank each gave Joe a cold look.
Joe just shrugged it off and leaned closer to Nancy. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Between you and me, I think Ned just won."
Nancy laughed and saw that Frank and Ned still held the same cold expressions on their faces.
Despite that, Joe didn't let up. "Really, Nan, I'm glad I look to you more as a sister. Can you imagine what it would be like if you have three guys vying for you attention?"
"That's enough, Joe," Frank growled through gritted teeth.
"Come on, Frank—he's just trying to give you two a hard time," Nancy said, chuckling.
"Yeah, but he's pushing it a little too far," Frank said.
"Well, if you didn't give me such good material to work with, we wouldn't have this problem," Joe protested.
"How about we drop this?" Ned suggested.
"Fine," Joe said. "Spoil all of my fun."
The table once again grew silent. Nancy checked her watch again and let out a sigh.
"Are you okay?" Ned asked again.
Nancy nodded and gave him a weak smile. "I'm just ready to go back and get this over with."
"It's not going to be easy facing your dad," Joe pointed out, biting into a French fry.
Nancy shrugged. "Maybe not, but I'm ready for anything he wants to throw at me."
"I wonder why he didn't go after us on the stand," Frank mused.
Again Nancy shrugged. "You two were considered his weak witnesses. There was nothing he could really say to you that would put doubt into the jurors' minds."
She pushed aside her barely eaten chicken salad and took a sip of her iced tea. She looked at her watch again and saw only a couple of minutes had passed. "Let's get back over to the courthouse."
Joe forced as much down as he could as everyone got up from the table. Nancy barely paid attention to the three boys as they argued over the bill as she walked out into the bright sunlight.
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Nancy looked at the bailiff as she placed her right hand on the Bible and raised her left hand. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" he asked in a monotonous voice.
Nancy nodded. "I do."
"You maybe seated," he said in the same voice.
Nancy sat down and watched as Gwen approached her. "Nancy, you like to devote your time to solving mysteries, is that correct?"
"Yes," Nancy said.
"How many would you say you've solved?" Gwen asked.
Nancy shrugged one shoulder. "I really couldn't say," she admitted.
"Hundreds would be a safe assumption, would it not?" Gwen asked.
"I guess," Nancy said.
"You were friends with the first victim, Ann Granger, is that correct?" Gwen asked.
"Yes."
"In fact, you were the inspiration for her book, Never Again," Gwen said.
"I wouldn't say inspiration," Nancy said. "She just used me as a basis for one of her characters."
"Were you the one who discovered Ann's body?" Gwen asked.
Nancy felt a chill go through her at the word body. "I did, along with my boyfriend, Ned, and Ann's husband, Thomas."
"You were supposed to be meeting her for dinner?" Gwen asked.
Nancy nodded. "Yes. I wanted to take her out for a celebratory dinner for her book. Ned, Thomas, and I waited for about thirty minutes for Ann to meet us at Alberto's, and when she didn't show up we became worried. We went to her house and that's when we discovered that she had been murdered."
"Did you become involved in the case then?" Gwen asked.
"No, we called the police. I didn't want to get involved if I could help it," Nancy said.
"But Ann was your friend," Gwen said.
"And that's exactly the reason I didn't want to be involved," Nancy said. "It was too personal for me and I knew the police could handle it."
"What changed your mind?"
"Later, an envelope was placed on my doorstep," Nancy said.
"And what was in this envelope?" Gwen asked.
"A lock of hair that testing later confirmed belonged to Ann," Nancy said.
"And that made you become involved in the case?" Gwen asked.
"Yes—the killer was now getting me involved whether I wanted to or not. And now he knew where I lived and that worried me," Nancy said.
"Let's fast forward to after the second murder," Gwen said. "It was your idea that the killer was using Never Again as some sort of guide for the murders?"
"Yes, that's correct," Nancy said.
"How did you come up with that idea?" Gwen asked.
"I started to read Ann's book after Brenda Carlton had been murdered. The murders in the book were correlating with the murders that were happening now," Nancy said. "And the notes that the killer left were word-for-word with the notes that were in the book."
"You told Lieutenant Hawkins that a picture was missing from your house," Gwen said.
"Yes, it was a picture of me and Ned that sat on a small table that was near my front door," Nancy said.
"When did you notice the picture went missing?" Gwen asked.
"The day of my attack," Nancy said.
"What happened that night, Nancy?"
Nancy glanced quickly at Dom and he winked at her. She ignored him and concentrated on Gwen again. "I got in around eleven that night from a date with Ned. I was still a little freaked about the missing picture, so I went around the house and double-checked all of the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. I was going upstairs when I heard a noise coming from up there."
Gwen crossed her arms across her chest. "What kind of noise?"
"It was as if someone was walking around but trying to mask their footsteps," Nancy said.
"What did you do?" Gwen asked.
"I started back down the stairs as quietly as I could. I wanted to get out of the house and call the police. Before I got down all the way, I tripped and fell. When I looked up I saw him at the top of the stairs," Nancy explained.
"Could you see who it was?"
Nancy shook her head. "No. The only things I could see was that he was wearing a ski mask and that he was holding a knife."
"What did you do next, Nancy?"
"I told him to stay away from me. When he kept coming down the stairs, I grabbed a vase full of flowers and threw them at him. I didn't even see if they hit him or not before I ran for the door," Nancy said.
"Did you make it to the door?" Gwen asked.
Nancy felt her stomach flutter at the memory. "No. He tackled me to the ground. I tried to fight with him, but he kept his hold on me. He then picked me up from the ground and threw me against the wall. I tried fighting him again, but he pressed his knife to my throat."
"Did you think you were going to die?" Gwen asked in a grim voice.
"I would have been stupid to think he wasn't going to kill me. But he just kept calling me Katie and he told me I wasn't going to die right now," Nancy said.
"Why did he call you Katie?" Gwen asked.
"He said it was my name, so I didn't argue with him about it," Nancy said. "But Katie was the name of the heroine in the book."
"Did he say anything else to you?"
"He wanted to know why I wasn't scared of him. He said he had been killing people for me and he wanted to know why I didn't understand that," Nancy said.
"Then what?"
"I knew that I needed to get away from him. Without thinking, I raised my leg and kicked him as hard as I could. I pushed past him while I had the chance, but he grabbed me again. I tried to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth.
"He then said he didn't want to hurt me but I wasn't giving him much of a choice," Nancy said. "That's when I felt this sharp pain in my back—he had stabbed me with his knife. He pulled it out and I fell to the floor."
"Did he do anything else?"
"He kept saying that he didn't mean to, but I barely paid any attention to him. The next thing I heard was him on the phone with 911. After he was finished he told me he had to go but he would be back for me. As soon as he left, I crawled for my phone and I called Ned and then I passed out. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital," Nancy explained.
"What did the doctors tell you?" Gwen asked.
"Apparently whoever stabbed me knew what he was doing so he wouldn't kill me," Nancy said. "Other than the fact that I lost some blood, I was going to be okay."
"What happened in the next few days, Nancy?"
"A few hours after my attack, Nikki Masters was attacked. We started to play around with the idea that the killer may have been at the book signing, so we checked the footage and got the photo of our suspect. We went to Nikki, hoping that she saw her attacker and could identify him for us.
"Before I could get the ID from her, I got the news that Ned had been kidnapped. I wanted to go back to my house in case the kidnapper called," Nancy said.
"Did anything happen when you got back to your house?" Gwen asked.
"Not for a while," Nancy said. "Then Frank called a little later and said that Nikki had ID'd her attacker as the guy in the photo. I went to take a shower and left Joe downstairs to watch over things."
"So Joe Hardy was at the house with you?" Gwen asked.
"Yes—Frank wanted him with me in case I needed back-up," Nancy answered.
"What happened next?"
"I started calling for Joe and when he didn't answer me, I became worried. I searched the house for him and finally found him sprawled out on the kitchen floor, unconscious," Nancy said.
"Did you try to wake him up?" Gwen asked.
"Yes, but I couldn't get a response from him," Nancy said. "I then felt like someone was behind me, but before I could turn around, I was grabbed from behind and my face was covered with a rag soaked in chloroform. I managed to tear his hand away long enough to scream, but he overpowered me and then I passed out."
"What happened when you woke up?" Gwen asked.
"I found that I was tied up in a chair. I wasn't exactly sure where I was because it was dark. Then a bright light came on above me and I saw that I was on a stage," Nancy explained.
"Did you see of hear anyone?" Gwen asked.
"I heard clapping and I turned towards it. I saw a man who was dressed in a tuxedo approaching me," Nancy said.
"Were you able to see his face?"
"Yes."
"Is that man in this room?"
"Yes—it was Dominic Shepard."
"Did he say or do anything to you?" Gwen asked.
"He just kept calling me Katie and kept talking to me. I told him that wasn't my name, but he wouldn't listen," Nancy said. "Then I asked him why he was killing so many innocent people and he told me they weren't innocent."
"Did he tell you why he killed them?"
"Yes," Nancy said, glancing at the jury. "He said he killed Ann just to do it. He wanted to see how many people her death would impact. And he was mad about the ending of her book and he wanted her to know that."
"What do you mean?"
"He didn't think that Katie should have lived in the book and he wanted to fix that," Nancy said. "I asked why he chose me to go after and he said it was because he saw me at the book signing with Ann. He knew I had a lot of connections in River Heights."
"What about Brenda?" Gwen asked.
"He said he killed her as a favor for me," Nancy said.
"Could you explain?" Gwen asked.
"He said he saw how upset she made me, so he had to kill her," Nancy said simply. She watched as Frazier Carlton tensed in his seat and glared at Dom.
"What happened after that?" Gwen asked.
"I wasn't going to let him kill me without a fight, so I wanted something to distract him. I saw that he hated it when I made him angry so I decided to go for that," Nancy said.
"What did you do?" Gwen asked.
"I made a comment to him that he didn't like and he slapped me," Nancy said. "He wanted to show me that he was still in control so he pulled out the picture of me and Ned that was stolen from my house. He then said he had a surprise for me and raised the back curtains to reveal Ned and Frank in the same position as me."
"He then wanted you to choose who he was going to kill next," Gwen said.
Carson jumped up from his seat. "Objection! Leading the witness!"
"Sustained," Judge Kent said, looking at Gwen.
"Nancy, what happened when Dom pulled back the curtains?" Gwen asked.
"He wanted me to choose who was going to die between Frank and Ned. He said if I didn't make the choice, he would do it for me," Nancy said.
"Did you make a choice?" Gwen asked.
"Yes—I chose Ned," Nancy said. "I saw that Frank had gotten free from his ropes so I knew that Dom would never kill Ned because Frank would stop him. Frank wrestled with him for a while and was finally able to get the upper hand. He freed me and Ned and we looked for a way to get out because he had all of the doors locked."
"But Mr. Shepard stopped you before you could get away," Gwen said.
"I guess I wasn't paying attention, because the next thing I knew he had grabbed me again and had the knife to my throat," Nancy said.
"How did you finally get away from him?" Gwen asked.
"With luck," Nancy admitted. "If the police hadn't showed up when they did, I wouldn't be sitting here right now."
"So, with the arrest of Mr. Shepard, that was the end of your troubles, right?" Gwen asked.
"Hardly," Nancy said. "After his arrest, he sent me a note saying we would pick up where we left off. So I went to the jail to confront him and he attacked me again."
"From the inside of a jail cell?" Gwen asked, incredulously.
"Yes."
"Nancy, if Dominic Shepard were to be found innocent, do you think he would come after you again?" Gwen asked.
Nancy took a deep breath and looked right at Dom. "I have no doubt in my mind that he will continue to come after me until he kills me."
"Thank you, Nancy."
Carson stood up. "No questions, your Honor."
"Miss Drew...you may step down."
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Author's Note: Again, thank you for the wonderful reviews! They make me so happy every time I read them! I didn't have Carson question Nancy because after talking it over with another author we both felt there was nothing he could really say to her unless it was just a personal attack against her—letting out his pent-up frustration towards her wjile she was in a vulnerable position.
Amy- I understand what you're saying about some of the aspects of the trial and I respect that. I am an amateur when it comes to writing anything trial-related, so I know I have missed a few things that should be evident. I know that witnesses are not allowed in the courtroom if they are about to testify—I just kind of forgot that as I was writing it. Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention, though and I am glad that you are enjoying this story.
Dean will be coming up next, so not to worry. And yes, Dom will be testifying so that oughta be exciting!
Let me know what you think!