0:00

Dan and Nancy reside in the peaceful

0:02

suburbs just outside of Portland, where they're

0:04

living out their golden years. And though

0:06

they met later on in life, their

0:09

marriage still spans over two decades, and

0:11

they're seen as pillars of the community.

0:13

It's a love story adored by all.

0:15

Nancy is a struggling romance novelist. She

0:17

likes to write about betrayal, sex, and

0:20

even murder. Dan is a chef and

0:22

culinary instructor. He enjoys foraging through the

0:24

woods for fresh mushrooms and growing edible

0:26

flowers. But when Dan is shockingly found

0:28

dead in his classroom, Nancy's once

0:30

simple life is turned upside down. Because

0:32

as the investigation unfolds, Nancy finds herself

0:34

at the center of a murder case

0:37

that could be ripped from the pages

0:39

of her own novels. You're about to

0:41

hear a clip from Happily Never After,

0:43

Dan and Nancy. Follow Happily Never

0:45

After, Dan and Nancy on the Wondery app,

0:47

or wherever you get your podcasts. Nicole

1:02

Herman was lounging on a beach

1:05

in Croatia with a perfect

1:07

view of the ocean. It

1:09

looks a lot like Oregon, with the exception

1:12

that the water is like turquoise. It

1:14

was nice and sunny, exactly

1:17

how Nicole pictured her honeymoon.

1:21

Nicole's new husband got up to take a

1:23

swim, but she didn't join

1:25

him. She was in the middle of

1:27

a novel. The man on the

1:29

book cover had a square

1:31

jaw and a come-hither stare. All

1:34

day, Nicole had just been waiting

1:36

to get back to him. He

1:42

sat on the floor and gestured for her

1:44

to sit between his legs. He

1:47

showed her how every gun worked, then

1:50

loaded and unloaded each of them.

1:52

Are you showing me this so

1:54

I can kill my husband? Travis

1:57

spoke slowly, choosing each word with

1:59

care. Maybe in the beginning

2:01

you met something to him, but

2:03

now you're just another loose end. He

2:06

will know a hundred ways to kill

2:08

you and make it look like an accident. She

2:11

pressed her forehead against his and closed

2:13

her eyes. Don't make

2:15

me like you. I'd rather you

2:18

were a knuckle dragging me under the hull.

2:21

Unless I'm dead. And

2:24

this is over. Maybe. But

2:29

I do plan to use your body until

2:31

I leave. Scandalous.

2:38

I was probably reading anywhere from 150 to 300 pages a day.

2:43

Nicole had been laid out on the

2:45

beach for hours reading. She

2:48

was already on book number two

2:50

in the Wrong Never Felt So

2:52

Right series. And she

2:54

was determined to get through all five books

2:56

by the end of her trip. Every

2:59

book was more or less the same. Burley,

3:02

former Navy SEAL comes to the

3:04

rescue of beautiful young woman on

3:07

the run from her dangerous husband. It

3:10

was an odd choice of reading for a honeymoon.

3:13

But away from the beaches of

3:15

Croatia, back home in Portland, Oregon,

3:18

Nicole was a deputy district attorney.

3:20

Those are things as a prosecutor that

3:22

you sometimes want to get ahead of and

3:24

in front of. And for

3:27

months, she and her team had been

3:29

trying to solve a murder.

3:32

But progress had been slow. Direct

3:35

evidence kept eluding them. As

3:38

the pressure mounted, Nicole and her

3:40

team had turned to an unlikely

3:42

lead. A series of

3:45

romance novels written by the dead

3:47

man's wife. It was

3:49

a little bit meta in terms of

3:51

what we were dealing with. Her books

3:53

were packed with details borrowed from their

3:55

own lives as a local Portland chef

3:58

and a romance novelist. details

4:00

that the DA's had no other way to

4:02

get their hands on. So

4:05

now Nicole was doing homework on

4:07

her honeymoon. I

4:10

wasn't so sure there would truly be

4:12

anything, but it was sort

4:14

of in the back of my mind, what if

4:16

something similar to this had played out in one

4:18

of her novels, and it's all written right

4:20

there for us to find. More shirts were

4:23

going to be unbuttoned. More

4:25

dresses were going to get unzipped.

4:28

And every new chapter, every

4:30

new scene, could potentially

4:32

be the one to crack the murder

4:35

case that was waiting for her back

4:37

home. Binge

4:43

all episodes of Happily Never After, Dan

4:45

and Nancy, early and ad-free on Wondery

4:47

Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery

4:50

app or on Apple Podcasts.