Nancy Grace: Death on the D-List

Then he saw the new blonde TV legal analyst come out walking, a little unsteady on her feet, but walking. Her arm was in a sling and she had a bandage on her shoulder. She was being helped by a plainclothes cop holding her tightly by the elbow, his other arm around her shoulder. Images of Prentiss Love, Fallon Malone, Leather Stockton, and Cassie Lake were turning on a revolving cube on the lower right of the screen.

The killer was some TV producer madwoman… a tall redhead who worked at GNE. Apparently she nutted up and committed the string of murders because her show was on the verge of getting axed. Shortly after snagging an interview with one of the stars, she’d offed them in order to have the last interview of record. With exclusives like that, the ratings skyrocketed. She and that freak, Harry Todd, were getting all sorts of offers, big-money ones from other networks.

Not anymore. She was headed to Bedford or Sing Sing or wherever it is they babysit killers in New York. All the TV people should go there, Francis decided.

It had been hard enough to grapple with the pain of losing his girlfriends in such a brutal manner, all the while feeling convinced that the Feds had somehow engineered the whole thing to frame him so he would no longer be a threat to their regime. But now, he was consumed with hate. He hated Sookie Downs with all his heart and soul.

Again, Francis looked down at his hands. So they weren’t the hands of a killer after all? The dreams about strangling Prentiss and Leather and Fallon… they’d seemed so real. He prayed to God the police had the right perp and it didn’t turn out to be him after all. Would he ever know the truth?

Even though the sun was now up and shining brightly outside, the interior of the house was dark with the windows covered in newspaper. Francis sat with his head buried in his hands, elbows balanced on his knees in despair.

What he wanted was vengeance, and in that very moment there in his mother’s wingback, he vowed revenge on Sookie Downs for killing the women he loved. Somebody had to do the right thing and kill Sookie Downs. Of course, Francis couldn’t trust the criminal justice system to prevail. What a joke.

Sookie Downs must die.

He looked out from over his fingers back at the screen. Abruptly, the images switched. A live shot of a police press conference going on on the front steps of GNE in New York City was interrupted by an emergency local cable cut-in. The news alert showed a towering fire and dark plumes of smoke billowing up over a cemetery. Something about the background looked vaguely familiar to Francis. The handheld camera shook as another explosion rocked the cemetery… the banner read in all caps CRESTLAWN SACRED GROUNDS CEMETERY THE TARGET OF TERRORIST ATTACK.

Francis jumped to his feet. A third blast ripped out of Aunt Matilde’s mausoleum, which he knew so well, while flames roared into the sky.

Francis instantly decided this would be a great time to get out of town. Prepared to live out of his car for a while again, he hastily threw clothes into his old duffel bag, along with several cans of Vienna sausage, and, of course, the new.38 he just bought at the bi-annual gun and ammo show. He gathered up his mother’s gas card and Leather Stockton’s red thong, still in its plastic baggie. Gently placing them both in his coat pocket, he turned off the lights in the living room and locked the front door.

Hey… why not kill two birds with one stone? He could easily track down Sookie Downs once she made bond. A thought hit him… Would Sookie Downs make bond? It would be a lot harder to kill her if she didn’t bond out of jail after initial murder charges.

Wait a minute… What was he thinking? Of course she’d make bond. It was New York City… even terrorists make bond in the Big Apple.

New York wouldn’t be such a bad place to go for a while, anyway. Francis had a new girlfriend there who’d been coming on to him for months on the airwaves. He didn’t know that much about her, but he planned to get to know her very well. She was beautiful and quite the spitfire. Francis loved that in a woman. And obviously, his new love needed him now more than ever.

Her name was Hailey Dean.

First, my deepest thanks to my editor, Gretchen Young, who maintained great faith in me and conspired with me to create Death on the D-List . You are not just editor, but friend tried and true. (Plus your daughter will grow up to be a New York City cabbie and will be of great use to us both.) Thank you.

To Jim Walton and Ken Jautz, who are NOT the inspirations for this book, thank you for the support, the opportunities, and the friendship.

To our wonderful staff on Nancy Grace . To Dee Emmerson, bless you!

Dean Sicoli, my Executive Producer, “Bestie,” without you there would be no HLN Nancy Grace and I’d probably be prosecuting shoplifting cases in night court right now. Friend, forever.

And last and dearest, thank you, David. Finally I got it… true love. You and the twins are the joys of my life.

And my deepest thanks to my Father God and Christ, nothing can separate us from Your Love.

Nancy Grace joined Court TV from the Atlanta Fulton County District Attorney's Office, where she served for a decade as Special Prosecutor, compiling a perfect record of nearly 100 felony convictions at trial and no losses. She has also appeared on The View and The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss today's most important trials. She lives in New York City.