Page 95 of Guess Again
Henry Hall: My department is already speaking with her at the hospital.
Francis: There’s nothing she can tell them.
Henry Hall: We don’t know that. We don’t know what she remembers.
Francis: I want her to remember. We’ll wait until she’s back home and then send her a reminder. Send her an audio clip of her screaming in terror. It might be better that she got away. This will be more fun.
Henry Hall: No. The forensics team will analyze something like that, and it’ll lead back to us. We shut this whole thing down. Now.
Francis: You mean, shut it down as in no more girls?
Henry Hall: That’s exactly what I mean.
Francis: That’s not happening, Hank. You know it and I know it. Neither of us can exist without this.
Henry Hall: You don’t know how these people work. The forensic teams, the detectives, the psychiatrists. They’ll pick that girl’s body and mind apart until they find what they need. And by the time they’re done, she’s going to lead them back here. You need to leave town. Get far away from here.
Francis: I’m not going anywhere.
Henry Hall: Yes you are! We’re done! No more girls.
Francis: I don’t want any more girls. I want the one that got away.
Henry Hall: That is not happening. I won’t allow it.
Francis: It’s not up to you.
Henry Hall: The hell it isn’t. My life is on the line here and—
BANG!
Despite the fact that Ethan had listened to the recording hundreds of times, he still jumped at the sound of the gun being fired. The recording continued for another hour, although Francis never spoke again. It was left to Ethan’s imagination to fill in the details of what he heard. But he knew enough to paint a realistic picture of what was happening during the recording.
Francis shot his father in the face and then spent an hour packing up the basement where they had brought their victims to torture them and brand them each with a black heart. Then, with Ethan’s father dead in the front foyer and the video and audiocassettes packed up for Ethan to find thirty-two years later, Francis lit his home on fire to erase any evidence of what had transpired there.
Ethan finished his beer in one, long swallow. Then, he rewound the tape and listened again.
CHAPTER 109
Lake Morikawa, Wisconsin Monday, July 13, 2026
IN THE EARLY EVENING, ETHAN FIRED UP THE GRILL AND COOKED THEwalleye he’d caught, along with potatoes and onions. He popped the top on a can of Schlitz, which he purchased at the small convenience store in town. The Schlitz was a salute to his father, and a trip down memory lane. Schlitz had been the maiden beer he and his dad shared together when Ethan was sixteen years old and his father brought him up to the cabin for the first time. It tasted as bad now as it had then, but Ethan discovered that if he drank enough of them, they dulled the reality of his father’s new identity that had taken root in his mind.
He finished the beer in a few long gulps. Foam covered his bushy beard. He took the fish and potatoes off the grill and brought them inside. Sitting at the kitchen table, he popped the top on another beer and was about to eat when he heard the distinct sound of an amphibious floatplane approaching. He stepped out of the cabin and stood on the front porch as he watched the plane approach from the south. The Cessna 182 touched down in the middle of the lake before taxiing to the dock in front of Ethan’s cabin.
The cargo door opened, and Mark Jones stepped from the plane.
CHAPTER 110
Lake Morikawa, Wisconsin Monday, July 13, 2026
“WANT A BEER?” ETHAN ASKED WHEN THE GOVERNOR MADE ITup the long flight of stairs to the cabin’s front porch.
“No thanks. But I need a word.”
“I figured. But you could’ve called. The whole landing on the lake and all that is a little dramatic.”
“Ihavecalled. Eight times since Friday. No answer. And I’ve left a message every time.”
