Page 32 of Guess Again

Chicago, Illinois Saturday, July 26, 2025

“I KNOW THIS GIRL,”

CHERYL SAID, HOLDING UP THE PHOTO OF CALLIE.

“She came to our clinic.

It was years ago, but I remember her.”

“How?”

Ethan asked.

“Because . . .”

Cheryl choked back tears.

“She came back to thank me.”

“Thank you for what?”

Cheryl took a deep breath and stared at the photo.

“This girl came in and was clearly in turmoil.

She told me she didn’t want her parents to know she was pregnant, or that she was going to have an abortion.

I could tell she was scared and unsure about her decision.”

“Her decision to have an abortion?”

“Yes.

She told me she was a star athlete of some sort.”

“Volleyball.”

Cheryl nodded.

“Yes, that’s it.

And she had just been accepted to college.

Or it was college and medical 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.