Page 58 of Guess Again
Ethan nearly told her about Portia Vail and that the girl’s life was in his hands. He nearly told her about Francis Bernard and the man’s impending transfer, which Mark Jones was racing to arrange for Monday. A transfer that Ethan might be able to stop if he could learn the identity of this anonymous client.
“Is it something about Callie?” Lindsay asked.
“It’s related to her case. That’s all I can tell you for now. But the bottom line is that we don’t have time for you to meet with this client to learn their identity. That could take several sessions, and we can’t do it. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Lindsay stood up and they faced each other across the desk.
“I’ll let you look,” she said. “I’ll give you what I have on my end and see if your guys can get through the encryption. But I need you to promise me you’ll do it quietly.”
“I’ll do better than to keep it quiet. I’ll keep it off the grid.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“I know a guy who can help.”
“At the DCI?”
“No. Just a friend.”
CHAPTER 55
Cherryview, Wisconsin Wednesday, July 30, 2025
IT WAS CLOSE TO10:00P.M. WHENETHAN PULLED UP TO THE MANSIONthat sat on the shores of Lake Okoboji. He rang the doorbell, which Ethan knew sent a soft tone through each room of the house. A moment later, Christian Malone answered the door.
“Sorry to call so late. But I’m in a bind and need some help.”
“I’m still on Cali time. Ten o’clock is not late. What’s going on?”
“I’ve got something else that’s come up that I could use your help with.”
“Come on in.”
Ethan followed Christian through the enormous house and into the kitchen, where they sat at the island. Christian opened two New Glarus Spotted Cows and handed one to Ethan.
“Thanks,” Ethan said.
“I’m still working on recovering the text threads from the girl’s SIM card. I found the footprints, but the actual texts are still garbled with an old, first-generation type encryption. Looks like she used a text encrypting application to send and receive texts from the prepaid Samsung, and then deleted the texts afterward. The app used a time stamp that permanently erased the threads after seven days, so the likelihood that I’ll recover all the texts are slim. The best I can do is try to pull the last few text threads that were sent before the phone’s battery powered down, which would have stopped the time stamp. Should be a few days’ worth if I can navigate through the encryption.”
“Appreciate your efforts, Christian. I’m looking for a text thread from the Saturday she disappeared. That was July 18, 2015.”
“The only way that will happen is if the phone’s battery died down without being charged. If that happened within, let’s say twenty-four hours of the girl going missing, then the encryption app wouldn’t have been able to erase the last few texts she sent. I’ll keep working on it. Something else came up, too?”
Ethan nodded. “Ever heard ofThe Anonymous Client?”
Christian shook his head as he took a sip of beer. “No.”
“It’s an online counseling platform based out of Milwaukee that offers psych consults and sessions from the comfort of your home.”
“So you talk to your shrink over a Zoom call?”
“Sort of.”
“You want me to talk to someone about my PTSD from passing my kidney stone?”
Ethan smiled. “One of the features of the platform, and what’s made it so popular, is that patients can choose to speak to their doctor anonymously. The concept has eliminated the stigma that prevents most people from seeing a shrink.”
“How does one go about staying anonymous?”
