Page 36 of Guess Again
Cheryl nodded. “Yes, that’s it. And she had just been accepted to college. Or it was collegeandmedical school. An elite, eight-year program. And because of it all, she was carrying a heavy burden on her shoulders.”
“Listen, Cheryl, I believe everything you’re saying because that matches Callie Jones’s situation. But how can you remember all of this so clearly ten years later?”
“Because of something she said to me. It was a quote, and I’ve never forgotten it. She said, ‘The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins.’”
Ethan remembered his conversation with Lindsay Larkin. She had mentioned the same quote, and that she and Callie had used it for motivation after losing the state championship freshman year.
“It stuck with me,” Cheryl said. “I’ve never forgotten it. And I misinterpreted what she was trying to tell me. I thought she was suggesting that her pregnancy was going to cause her to lose all the things she had worked so hard for—her acceptance to college, the chance at going to medical school, her status with her parents, her friends, all of it. But that’s not what she meant. She meant that the baby she was carrying was her chance at winning what she really wanted out of life. And that she was so close to obtaining it, but was about to lose it.”
“About to lose it because she was going to have an abortion?”
“Yes. After she explained that to me, I told her to wait. People think all we do here is encourage abortions, but that’s not true. We help women in need. And this girl was in desperate need of help. I told her to wait on the abortion and to think about it. To talk with the father about it.”
“And she did?”
“Yes. She decided to wait on the abortion and left. But she came back the next day. When I saw her again, I thought she had decided to go through with it. But that wasn’t why she’d come back. She came back to thank me for helping her figure things out. She said she was going to have the baby, and I could tell, just from her demeanor, that she was a different person than when I had met her the day before. Happier. More content. She gave me a big hug, told me I’d changed her life forever, and that was it. She left and I never saw her again. Until now,” Cheryl said, looking at the photo of Callie Jones. “But I never forgot this girl. In some way, she changed my life as much as she said I changed hers.”
Ethan ran a hand through his hair at the revelation. “You’ll agree to give a formal statement explaining everything you just told me?”
Cheryl looked up from the photo. “Is she okay?”
Ethan shook his head.
“She’s been missing for ten years. But what you just told me may help me figure out what happened to her.”
“I’ll help anyway I can.”
Ethan took Cheryl Stowe’s contact information and headed out of the clinic. He’d just made the first break in a ten-year-old cold case. And it had originated with Francis Bernard.
CHAPTER 33
Somewhere North of Madison Saturday, July 26, 2025
SHE HEARD THE CAR DOOR SLAM. IT HAD BEEN TWO DAYS SINCE THEmasked woman had come to slip food through the door slot. She hurried to the other side of the room and lifted the slot to peek through. She heard the front door upstairs open, and then footsteps as they pounded down the basement stairs. When the woman emerged from the staircase, a black balaclava covered her face. Seeing that the woman was on a beeline toward the door, she let go of the flap and it clattered shut.
A moment later, the slot opened, and a pair of handcuffs rattled through and fell to the floor.
“Take the cuffs and go to the other side of the room,” the woman said.
The woman’s words were short and curt. Did she have an accent?
“Now!” the woman said, filling her with a jolt of fear and a sense of dread that something terrible was about to happen.
She took the silver handcuffs from the floor and hurried to the other side of the room. The woman lifted the slot and spoke through the opening.
“Close the bathroom door.”
She did as instructed.
“Now cuff yourself to the doorknob.”
She looked down at the cuffs and then back to the door slot.
“Cuff yourself to the door or this will get really ugly really fast!” The woman’s voice rose an octave with each of the last few words.
She forced her mind to work, to think through her options. There were only two: do as she was told and suffer the consequences of willfully giving up her ability to fight should this woman enter the room or, refuse and see what comes of it.
The woman spoke through the slot again, this time her voice was slow and calm.
