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Every great romance story has a happily ever

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after. Two people meet, fall in love, and

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end up together for the rest of their

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days. Nancy and Dan Brufey

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were one of those couples. Dan was

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a chef who taught at a Portland culinary school.

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Nancy was a romance writer who

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filled her novels with sexy fantasies,

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portrayals, and murder. When

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Dan ends up dead, details of his murder

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that could have been ripped from the pages

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of Nancy's novels become clues, and

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Nancy becomes a main suspect. So

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this isn't a romance story. It starts with a

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happily ever after, but it doesn't end with one.

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Was Nancy just researching her next novel,

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or was she planning a murder? This

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is a story about what happens when

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the lines blur between fiction and reality.

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I'm about to play a clip from

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Happily Never After, Dan and Nancy. Follow

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Happily Ever After Dan and Nancy on

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Wondery app, or wherever you get your

0:51

podcasts. Nicole

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Herman was lounging on a beach

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in Croatia with a perfect

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view of the ocean. It

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looks a lot like Oregon, with the exception

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that the water is like turquoise. It

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was nice and sunny, exactly

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how Nicole pictured her honeymoon.

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Nicole's new husband got up to take a

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swim, but she didn't join him.

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She was in the middle of a novel. The

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man on the book cover had

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a square jaw and a come-hither stare.

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All day, Nicole had just been waiting

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to get back to him. He

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sat on the floor and gestured for her

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to sit between his legs. He

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showed her how every gun worked, then

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loaded and unloaded each of them.

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Are you showing me this so

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I can kill my husband? Travis

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spoke slowly, choosing to kill him. each

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word with care. Maybe in the

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beginning you meant something to him, but

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now you're just another loose end. He

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will know a hundred ways to kill you and

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make it look like an accident. She

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pressed her forehead against his and closed

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her eyes. Don't make me like

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you. I'd rather you

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were a knuckle dragging me under the hall.

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Unless I'm dead. And

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this is over. And maybe.

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But I do

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plan to use your body until I leave.

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Scandalous. I

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

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had been laid out on the beach

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for hours reading. She

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was already on book number two

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in the Wrong Never Felt So

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Right series. And she

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was determined to get through all five books

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by the end of her trip. Every

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book was more or less the same. Burley

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former Navy SEAL comes to the

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rescue of beautiful young woman on

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the run from her dangerous husband. It

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was an odd choice of reading for a honeymoon.

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But away from the beaches of Croatia,

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back home in Portland, Oregon,

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Nicole was a deputy district attorney.

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Those are things as a prosecutor that you sometimes

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want to get ahead of and in front of.

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And for months, she and her team had

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been trying to solve a murder.

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But progress had been slow. Direct

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evidence kept eluding them. As

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the pressure mounted, Nicole and her

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team had turned to an unlikely

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lead. A series of

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romance novels written by the dead

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man's wife. It was a

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little bit meta in terms of what we were dealing with.

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Her books were packed with details borrowed

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from their own lives as a local

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Portland chef and a romance. novelist.

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Details that the DA's had no other

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way to get their hands on. So now

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Nicole was doing homework on her

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honeymoon. I wasn't

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so sure there would truly be anything

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but it was sort of

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in the back of my mind what if something

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similar to this has played out in one

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of her novels and it's all written right

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there for us to find. More shirts were

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going to be unbuttoned, more

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dresses were going to get unzipped

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and every new chapter, every

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new scene could potentially be

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the one to crack the

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murder case that was waiting for her

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back home. Binge

4:45

all episodes of happily never after Dan

4:48

and Nancy early and ad-free on Wundery

4:50

Plus. Join Wundery Plus in

4:52

the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts.