Page 18 of Guess Again
Days after her escape, Francis Bernard had been arrested for the murder of Detective Henry Hall, and dead women stopped showing up on the shores of Lake Michigan. Maddie was certain, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Francis was the man who abducted her. But no hard evidence had ever linked him to her, and any proof that might have existed was incinerated when Francis set his home ablaze.
It was thirty years later, at Francis’s first parole hearing in 2023, that she first met Ethan Hall. They were both there to speak out against Francis being released. The man had affected each of their lives in ways unimaginable—nearly killing Maddie and setting loose a lifetime of nightmares every time she slept; and leaving Ethan fatherless when he was just thirteen years old. Their pain had brought them together, and a shared commitment to keep Francis behind bars strengthened their union. Now, two years later, she and Ethan were more than lovers. They were soulmates, initially united by grim circumstances, but forever tied to one another by a mutual determination to prevent the evils of one man from dictating their lives or happiness.
Despite the fact that Francis had been behind bars for more than three decades, Maddie could not rest easy. A decade earlier, after Francis Bernard had been in prison for twenty-two years, the first letter arrived. It came a week after the ACLU won a legal battle demanding better living conditions in the prison where Francis was held. One of the stipulations granted inmates in solitary confinement access to the U.S. postal service, allowing them to receive and send letters through the mail. And like clockwork, a new letter had found its way to Maddie’s mailbox every year since.
“Hey.” She heard Ethan’s tender voice behind her and slowly spun around in her chair to face him.
“Well?”
“Denied,” Ethan said.
Maddie let out a deep breath. “Thank God.”
CHAPTER 21
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Monday, July 14, 2025
MADDIE PULLED A PLASTIC EVIDENCE BAG FROM HER DESK DRAWERand handed it to Ethan. It held the latest letter, the tenth one Maddie had received. Like all the others, she would run this one through the crime lab at the Milwaukee PD. But they both knew it would be clean. The previous letters had been microscopically analyzed by forensic technicians, but to no avail. No prints, no DNA, and nothing to trace the letter back to Francis Bernard—other than the Boscobel postmark. It was naive to think Francis would make a mistake on his tenth letter.
Ethan read through the plastic.
My Dearest Maddie,
Oh, how time flies. Eight years left, unless the parole board makes an early decision. I can’t wait to see you again. The next time we visit Lake Michigan, I’ll be the only one who leaves the shore alive. As always, it’s a promise.
The letter was dated the previous week, before today’s parole hearing. It was signed, as each of the previous ones had been, with a single heart colored in with black ink.
“I’ll never understand how he’s sending them,” Maddie said.
Ethan continued to stare at the letter. “The ACLU forced changes to the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility to allow inmates access to the USPS. That’s how.”
“But prison authorities said they’d monitor his mail.”
“To the extent that they’re allowed,” Ethan said. “The ACLU is powerful, and they fight hard. The warden doesn’t want funding denied to his prison, so although he might promise to intercept Francis’s outgoing mail, there’s no guarantee that it’s ever actually happened.”
“But how could he do it without leaving a trace of DNA? Or a single fingerprint? There’s no way he has access to gloves in his prison cell.”
Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
They’d been through it before. The paper and the ink had been analyzed, as well as the penmanship. It was clear that Francis was receiving help from someone. Perhaps one of the guards.
Maddie took a deep breath. “So I’ll just endure his threats every year until the son of a bitch is finally released.”
“I’m working on that,” Ethan said.
Maddie shook her head. “It’s the law. It doesn’t matter how much you work on it, Ethan. Francis will be up for mandatory parole after serving two-thirds of his initial sixty-year sentence. He was grandfathered into the system. That’s forty years, which is eight years from now. So no matter how hard we try or how many parole hearings you speak at, there’s a hard stop coming in a few years.”
“Unless something happens in prison. Mandatory parole is based on inmates staying out of trouble and not committing other crimes while incarcerated. Sending threatening letters through the mail is a crime.”
“We’ve tried, Ethan. However he’s getting these letters to me, he’s too smart to allow himself to get caught.”
Ethan dropped the evidence bag containing Francis’s letter onto the desk and lifted Maddie’s chin with his hand. He kissed her on the lips. She forced a smile, the Bell’s preventing the left side of her lips from quite matching the right.
“You know I’m never going to let anything happen to you, don’t you?” Ethan said.
“You know I’m going to put a bullet through his head if he ever gets out of prison and steps foot on my property?”
Now Ethan smiled. “I’m counting on it.”
