Page 45 of Guess Again
“Three months ago.”
“So you guys were broken up for the past three months and had just gotten back together. She stayed over Friday, June twenty-seventh. And you saw her Saturday morning?”
“Yeah, briefly. She left early. Said goodbye and that was it. I was still in bed. I waited for her to call me because, you know, it’s that stupid thing you do. See who’s going to call first. But when I didn’t hear from her after a couple of days, I called her. I couldn’t reach her, and she never returned any of my texts. Sometimes we connect through social media, but when I saw that she hadn’t posted anything all week, I called her parents and then we called 9-1-1.”
Maddie changed angles.
“Back to the breakup. Was there another woman involved?”
“No, it was nothing like that. Like I said, it was just stupid stuff.”
“Was she maybe seeing another guy?”
Nicholas took a deep breath and exhaled it. “Not while we were together.”
“But after you broke up?”
“Yeah. Portia told me that she had a brief thing with a guy. We were on a break, so I let it go.”
Maddie squinted her eyes. “You know this guy’s name?”
“That she was seeing?”
Maddie nodded.
“Yeah. I told the other detective about him. Guy’s name was Blake Cordis.”
CHAPTER 42
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Monday, July 28, 2025
ETHAN DROVE HISJEEPWRANGLER WHILEMADDIE SHUFFLED THROUGHpapers in the passenger seat. Because she was not formally assigned to the Portia Vail case, they avoided taking her unmarked squad car out to Prescott Estates, where Blake Cordis worked. The previous day, after they had spoken to Portia Vail’s fiancé, Maddie went back to the station and pulled everything she could find on the Portia Vail case. She and Ethan spent Sunday night at her house combing through the files.
Over Chinese carryout and light beer, Ethan had brought Maddie up to date on the nebulous connection between Portia Vail, Blake Cordis, and Callie Jones. Blake Cordis had been Callie’s high school volleyball coach, but beyond that Ethan was stumped at how the man fit into the puzzle Francis Bernard was crafting. When midnight came, they returned the files to the box Maddie had taken from the station and decided their best chance at answers was to pay Blake Cordis a visit. They made love into the small hours of night, attempting to distract their thoughts away from Francis Bernard, the man who had altered each of their lives so tragically as to imprint himself forever onto their existence.
As they drove now, Maddie read through the stack of papers she’d pulled from the Portia Vail file that listed every incoming and outgoing call and text from the girl’s phone over the previous year. In the last three months, starting in April, Blake Cordis’s number was either called or texted one hundred twenty-seven times—far greater than any other number. When they examined Portia’s contact list, it was noted that Blake’s number had been added as a new contact on April 2, 2025—just after Nicholas Brann mentioned he and Portia had split up.
“A hundred twenty-seven calls or texts in ninety days,” Maddie said as they drove the long, lonely roads of central Wisconsin on the way out to Beaver Dam. “That’s some hot and heavy stuff.”
“Sounds like it.”
Maddie turned a page. “Okay, so listen to this. About a week before Portia went missing, the calls between her and Blake Cordis stopped. Mostly. She stopped calling him, but he kept calling her. Lots of incoming calls from him. And several texts. But no return calls from Portia.”
“So Portia and Nicholas take a break,” Ethan said. “She hooks up with Blake Cordis as a rebound guy, and after three months decides she wants to get back together with Nicholas. She stops responding to Blake Cordis’s calls and texts, and stays at Nicholas’s apartment on Friday, June 27—the first time she’s stayed at his place since the breakup. She wakes up Saturday and leaves. No one’s seen her since.”
“Except you, in the picture Francis Bernard somehow led you to.”
As he drove, Ethan tried again to piece it all together—the governor appointing him to his daughter’s cold case, Blake Cordis who had been Callie’s new volleyball coach, and now Portia Vail, who was involved in some sort of relationship with Cordis. And intertwined within it, like an overgrown and uncontrollable weed, was Francis Bernard.
“Portia’s been gone for a month,” Maddie said. “We have to assume she’s running out of time.”
“I have a feeling that’s what Francis is counting on.”
Hurry, Special Agent Hall. Callie Jones may be dead and buried but the clock is tic tic ticking on this one . . .
CHAPTER 43
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Monday, July 28, 2025
