Prologue

Florida State Penitentiary, August 2000

Entry found in Howie's diary...

Hi, my name is Howard Dorough. I was born on August 22, 1973. Like most people, all I wanted out of my life was to be happy, successful, and someday have a loving wife and kids. I saw success when the Backstreet Boys finally made it in 1998. Those were some of the happiest times of my life. They will have to keep me going because I don't think I'll ever have that loving family I so desperately wanted.
My life was fine until Cassandra Woodland became a part of it. I thought I'd found love. But what I found instead were lies, deceit, and in the end, death.
I'm sitting here today in the Florida State Penitentiary serving time for First Degree Murder. Time. That word could very well be an oxymoron because time is something that I don't have anymore. I'm slated to be put to death in 90 days by Lethal Injection.
Before you all shed tears for me, please sit back and let me take you back to a time when my life was happier. To a time when I cherished every day and thought I had all the time in the world. To a time when I thought I needed someone so bad that I was willing to overlook the obvious...until it was too late.