A/N: Okay, several years later here's take two of this story. I've always thought about it and wanted to continue/rewrite it. I just rediscovered my childhood obsession with Nancy and Ned by playing the Nancy Drew computer games, which are awesome and totally fun by the way. So here's an updated version of The Puzzle Mystery. I promise to continue it next time. The first chapter doesn't really contain any new information, but it's been completely rewritten. Hope you enjoy!

WASHINGTON D.C.

Nancy sighed heavily and pulled her titan hair back away from her face. Using the hair elastic she always kept around her wrist, she secured it up in a messy bun and then adjusted the reading glasses on her nose. Her back was starting to cramp, but she was so close to a breakthrough she could feel it. There was something in the stacks of files that covered her antique coffee table that would blow the case wide open. She could feel it in her bones. There just had to be something there that gave her a clue about this murderer.

The twinge in her back grew to a constant throbbing. Nancy set the open manila folder on her lap over onto the couch cushion beside her and stood up to stretch her aching muscles. It was already almost two in the morning. She'd been at it for hours. The breakthrough she'd been seeking just wasn't coming. This wasn't what she'd imagined when she'd joined the FBI three years ago. She'd known there wouldn't be any more buried treasures or missing heirlooms. But she hadn't expected this. She'd expected drug cartels and theft rings. She'd expected the occasional missing diplomat or heiress. She hadn't thought about the death. She hadn't expected the murders.

It was the biggest case of her career. It was the biggest case the FBI had seen in years. People were calling the butcher who'd left a string of bodies up and down the east coast a modern day Jack the Ripper. The crime scenes were the most gruesome she'd ever seen. Bodies taken apart at every joint and strewn across a room. The actual locations, usually abandoned warehouses, weren't the first time law enforcement would see the crime scenes though. The bastard was taking pictures of his victims while they were still alive and turning them into 1000 piece puzzles. They'd arrive in boxes wrapped in brown paper on the door step of the closest police station. No finger prints. No DNA. No suspects. The media had started calling him the Puzzle Murderer.

She crossed over to the window looked down at the busy street. Pulling aside the gauzy white curtain, Nancy pressed her forehead against the glass. Two a.m. and Washington D.C. was still alive beneath her. It was so different from quiet River Heights. Life certainly hadn't turned out the way Nancy Drew expected. She'd thought she'd be married by 26, but there she was with no boyfriend in sight and not even enough spare time to keep a goldfish alive. Her father had gotten her one because he didn't want her living alone it DC, not that the goldfish would have been able to do anything. It was just a weird surge of over protectiveness upon his only child officially moving away from home.

Nancy had graduated from Wilder single after breaking up with (or being dumped by depending on who told the story) Frank Hardy. She was tapped by the FBI at her graduation. An agent was waiting for her at the door before she could even go out and find her dad or Hannah. He'd introduced himself as Agent Stone, given her his card and told her to call him if she was interested in a job. A week later she was starting the training academy. The rest was a blur of cases, stings, under cover ops, bodies and coffee. So much coffee. Nancy hadn't slept more than four hours a night in two years. Not since she'd been assigned to homicide. The victims and their families haunted her dreams.

Her alarm would go off in just under five hours. Nancy sighed heavily and made her way back toward the pale blue sofa. Hannah had decorated the apartment. She'd flown down from Chicago after Nancy finally got tired of living in a hotel room armed with Carson Drew's credit card and fully furnished the one bed/one bath apartment Nancy had found in the heart of the city. It was like an extension of the house in River Heights with its pastel colors and white accents. Or, at least it could be if Hannah would ever let Nancy leave her files scattered across every stable surface and dishes in the sink.

Nancy closed the file she'd been looking through and attempted to neatly stack them before sticking them in her brown leather satchel. Her days were on repeat. She was in the office by eight to start pouring over files to see what she was missing, rarely took a lunch break and then packed everything up to take home and sit on her couch trying to find the same clues that had been evading her all day. What Nancy would give for a missing treasure. What she would give for a missing antique locket and to be able to run around the country in her blue mustang with Bess and George. Those days were long gone though, and all Nancy could do was fall into bed and repeat the previous day all over again.

…

DALLAS, TX

Ned was regretting that last beer. He had been celebrating the night before. He'd just gotten promoted. The entire precinct had taken him out for a drink. Everyone wanted to buy him a round. But in the light of the bright Texas sun, he was regretting it. It was his first day as a detective and he was more hung-over than he'd been after his last Omega Chi party back at Emerson. He sat in his new office with the shades drawn, the door closed, the lights off and his head down on his desk, trying to block out the day.

If you'd told Ned Nickerson six years ago that he would drop out of law school and decide to become a cop, he would have politely laughed in your face. He would have done it politely, because his mother raised him far too well to ever be deliberately rude. The only time he'd ever done something that could be construed as rude on purpose was that time he'd punched Frank Hardy in the jaw, and that was entirely justified. Other than losing Nancy to that jackass, Ned had had everything going for him. He'd been on the fast track to a position in a lucrative law practice. He'd gotten accepted into law school and had landed a really great summer internship in Chicago.

Then Ned's cousin Kevin's daughter, Vikki, disappeared from their front yard. There were no leads. No suspects other than Kevin and his wife, Melissa. There was no body. There was no justice. There was just a series of mistakes made by the Mapleton police department and a broken hearted family. Ned wasn't so interested in law school after that. He didn't want to ever have to defend someone he knew was guilty. He didn't even want to be a prosecutor. He wanted to prevent things like that from ever happening. His parents begged him not to, but he rescinded his acceptance to the University of Chicago's law school and enrolled in the police academy instead. He graduated at the top of his class and then moved to Dallas because they were hiring and it was far away from all of his memories of Nancy Drew.

Ned had to thank her though. Nancy was probably more than half the reason he was a good cop. He knew how to judge a suspect's character by one conversation. He knew how to sit still through a stakeout. He also knew the best snacks to bring, although that was probably as much due to Bess as to Nancy. He had a sixth sense about dangerous situations. He always knew the exact moment to dodge a bullet. On its toughest day, the police academy was easier than being Nancy Drew's boyfriend.

"Hey, Nickerson," his friend and former beat partner, Rick, called. "This package came for you."

"Who's it from?" Ned said.

"No name," Rick said, handing Ned the box wrapped in round paper. "I shook it. Sounds like cookies. There's probably a note or something inside. I bet it's from one of those girls at the bar last night interested in the new detective."

"Man," Nate said setting the box down on the desk and lifting up a taped flap. "You were shit at guessing your Christmas presents, weren't you? This thing is way too light to be cookies."

"Just open it," Rick said, sitting down in one of the rickety folding chairs on the other side of Ned's desk.

Ned carefully peeled away the paper and frowned at the plain cardboard box that was inside. This wasn't from one of the police bunnies, the women who hung around cop bars hoping to snag themselves a police officer husband. Their boxes were almost always white or some sort of pastel color and they couldn't help but deliver them in person. It was kind of sickening. They'd hang around outside the precinct at the end of the day and fall into step with you offering to make you dinner. They didn't send anonymous brown boxes wrapped in brown paper. Ned lifted the lid and frowned.

"It's a jigsaw puzzle," he said, frowning.

"What's it of?"

"Does it look like there's a picture on the damn box?"

"Somebody's a little hung-over," Carter grumbled as Ned dumped the pieces out on his bare plastic and chrome desk and started sifting through them.

"Who brought you this package?" Ned said, shoving his black leather chair back away from his desk.

"One of the rookies," Carter said, standing up as well. "Walters I think."

Ned walked out into the bull pen and looked around. Walters was standing over by the water cooler laughing at a joke one of the other guys just said when Ned barked out his name. The younger cop nearly jumped out of his skin and turned to look at where the voice had called from.

"Where'd the box come from, Walters?" Ned said, grabbing the younger man by his crisp blue uniform shirt.

"Some guy handed it to me," Walters said, struggling out of Ned's grasp. "He said to give it to the new detective."

"What did he look like?" Ned said.

"I don't know," Walters shrugged. "Just a guy. He had on a hat. I didn't see his face."

"Do you know what kind of hat it was?" Ned said, slowly releasing his clenched fist. "Anything? Anything at all?"

"No," Walters said, smoothing out his shirt.

"Because you're the first person to see that puzzle killer that's been terrorizing the east coast and live."

Walters reached for the nearest waste basket and puked.

…

WASHINGTON D.C.

Nancy was slowly spinning in her black leather desk chair. One second she was staring at the wall and the next she was looking down out of her office in the J. Edgar Hoover building onto the bustling D.C. street below. The case was at a standstill. There was no new evidence or new leads. At least there wasn't a new victim. Nancy just wasn't sure what to do next. All of the victims were young prostitutes. He didn't exactly have a type. It wasn't like they could pinpoint his next victim and take her into protective custody.

Bess had called that morning when Nancy was getting ready for work. She wanted Nancy to go back to River Heights for the weekend. Knowing Bess it would be more like Chicago. It would be a marathon shopping spree to get Nancy in something other than an FBI regulation black suit, followed by dinner at a ridiculously expensive restaurant and clubbing at some trendy new night club. Nancy had agreed if only to get out of D.C. for a few days. Maybe a weekend away was exactly what she needed to gain some perspective. Maybe if she put all of her case files aside for a day or two, she would see something that she'd been missing. Her father had already promised to look into booking her a ticket for Friday night. A two hour flight and she'd be home.

"You're bag packed, Drew?" her boss, Assistant Director Stevens said, poking his head in the door.

"What?" Nancy said, frowning.

"Looks like your Puzzle Murderer or whatever the press is calling him is moving west" he said. "We just got a call from the Dallas PD. A new puzzle got dropped off at one of their precincts this morning."

"But our guy has been going up and down the east coast," Nancy said, frowning. "What if it's just a copycat?"

"You're our expert on the case," Stevens said. "You've got three hours until your flight. I suggest you get a bag together and get to the airport. They're sending the detective who got the box to pick you up at the airport."

Nancy sighed heavily. Bess was going to kill her. This would be the fifth time she'd had to bail on their plans in the last three months. She hadn't seen Bess or George in her dad's birthday in February and that was five months ago. She also wasn't looking forward to Dallas in the middle of July. D.C. was hot, but Texas would be an oven. It was probably only a copycat killer anyway. The last murder was in Rhode Island. What was the chance that he'd gone all the way to Texas for his next victim?

She stuffed all of her files back into her satchel and slung the strap across her body. Digging her cell phone out of her bag with one hand, she walked down the hall to the elevator and pressed the down button. She was just missing the lunchtime rush as she made her way outside and hailed a cab. Her fingers finally closed around the plastic of her cell phone and she dug it out after sinking into the back seat of the cab that smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and body order.

"Hey, Nan," Carson Drew said. "I just checked into flights for you and… You're calling me to tell me that you can't come, aren't you?"

"Sorry, Dad," she said, sighing. "Something just came up. I have to fly to Texas."

"It doesn't have anything to do with that serial killer, does it?"

"Yeah," Nancy said, running the fingers of her free hand through her hair. "I don't think this is our guy, but it's my case. I have to check out every possible lead."

"Just be careful," he said.

"I always am…"

"The decrease in my health insurance premium says something different about that."

"I will, Dad," she said. "After this is all over I'll take that vacation time I've been saving. I'll come home for a week or two."

"Promise?" he said.

"Promise," she replied. "I love you. And give Hannah my love too."

"Will do," Carson said. "And I love you too."

…

DALLAS, TX

Ned never should have stopped drinking. His hangover was long gone, but if he'd given it the never failing college cure of more in the morning, the situation would be so much more bearable. There was a chance it wasn't her. Drew wasn't the most uncommon last night. But how many female FBI agents with the last name Drew could there be? Shit. He hadn't seen her in five years. He hadn't talked to her since a brief phone conversation the day of Vikki's memorial service.

"I'm so sorry, Ned," Nancy said, sniffling. "I could take a look at the case if you want. See if there's anything…"

"No," he replied. "No, Nancy. There's nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can do."

And now he was in the baggage claim waiting for her plane to land. He'd tried to get out of it. He'd almost sold Rick on it when Chief Ennis over heard him. Apparently it had to be Ned. He was the one that the guy had sent the puzzle to. Ned had no idea how the guy had even known about Ned's promotion, but he did. It was kind of unsettling, knowing that a serial killer was aware of his existence. He wasn't a young blond or red haired prostitute though, so he was pretty sure he was safe.

Well, he was physically safe at any rate, mentally he wasn't so sure. Nancy Drew had just walked into the baggage claim. Her carefully tailored black suit pants emphasized her long slender legs, and her white blouse showed off her slender build. Her titan hair was longer than he ever remembered it. It probably reached her shoulder blades, and she had it pulled back with a thin black headband. She had her black suit jacket draped over her arm and her fingers were curled tightly around the strap of a dark brown leather satchel. Nancy hadn't spotted him yet. He could tell by the way she let herself sigh heavily and sag her shoulders just a little. She looked tired. It was more than just the long day she'd obviously had too. She looked like she'd been tired for a long time.

Her eyes widened when she finally spotted him, and she stopped in her tracks. She studied his face for a moment before she slowly made her way towards him, a hesitant smile on her face. He held his breath as she walked towards him and swallowed deeply as she came to a stop in front of him. They both stood there for a long moment before Nancy smiled awkwardly and shrugged her shoulders.

"Detective Nickerson, I presume?" she said, smiling wider.

"Special Agent Drew," he said, shaking his head. "It's good to see you, Nan."

"Should we hug or something? Or would that be too weird?"