Page 36 of Guess Again

Cherryview, Wisconsin Saturday, July 26, 2025

THEY CLIMBED BACK INTO THE 32 DEFIANT AND PULLED AWAY FROM The Crest.

Ethan continued to write in his notepad, adding to the timeline he’d created of Callie’s movements the night she disappeared.

“You said it was nine o’clock when Callie left The Crest?”

Ethan asked Lindsay over the hum of the boat’s engines.

“Yeah.

I remember the time because she made a ‘Piano Man’ joke when I mentioned that she was leaving at nine o’clock on a Saturday.”

“The regular crowd shuffles in?”

Pete said.

“Yeah.”

Lindsay nodded.

“Like that.”

“And Callie’s younger sister said she stopped home around nine fifteen,”

Pete added.

“She grabbed a sweatshirt before heading back out in the boat.”

Ethan had read in the case file that Jaycee Jones mentioned covering for Callie a few times that summer, when Callie snuck out late at night.

Jaycee didn’t know who Callie had been meeting up with, only that Callie had asked Jaycee to cover for her if her mother ever asked where she was.

“There it is,”

Lindsay said, pointing off to the right.

“That’s Callie’s old house.”

The Madison PD officer banked the Defiant and headed toward the shore.

He cut the engines as they approached the dock.

Ethan checked his watch.

“It adds up if she left The Crest at nine and headed home.

It took us fifteen minutes to get here.

Callie’s sister said she stopped home just to grab a sweatshirt and then headed right back out.

Five minute turnaround, let’s say?”

Lindsay and Pete agreed, and Ethan jotted a note on his pad.

He pointed at the driver.

“Take us back to North Point Pier.”

The Defiant’s bow rose as the engines dug into the water.

It took six minutes to make it back to the pier.

“Callie’s boat was found tied to the dock Sunday morning,”

Pete said.

“If she left her house at nine twenty and drove straight here, that puts her at this spot before nine thirty.

Where were her phone and blood found?”

They all climbed from the boat and walked to the end of the dock where the gravel path that led to the parking lot ended.

“Right here,”

Pete said.

“Her phone was on the ground, and blood spatter was found right about here.”

Pete pointed down at the gravel.

Ethan remembered the crime scene photos from the file.

“So Callie was on The Crest at nine o’clock getting ready to play a game of beach volleyball when she received a text.

She tells her best friend the message was from her mother.

But we know it was actually from the prepaid Samsung.”

Ethan looked around North Point Pier.

“She makes a brief stop home and then leaves again in the boat.

The next time the boat is seen is by a fisherman Sunday morning who can’t launch their Whaler because Callie’s boat is tied to the dock and blocking the boat launch.”

“Correct,”

Pete said.

“Cops showed up to tow the boat.

They ran the tags and gave the Jones’s a courtesy call.

That’s when Callie’s mom said she noticed Callie had never come home from the night before.

And that leaves one, big, fat question,”

Pete said.

“The one I’ve been trying to answer for ten years.”

Ethan cocked his head.

“Who texted her out on The Crest?”

“Bingo,”

Pete said.

Ethan had yet to tell Pete he’d discovered that Callie Jones was pregnant when she disappeared.

Or that she had decided, just the day before, to keep the baby rather than go through with an abortion.

Ethan had a strong suspicion that the text message Callie had received when she was out on The Crest had come from the baby’s father.

He looked across the lake.

Christian Malone’s mansion was barely visible in the distance.

He hoped the tech guru was making progress on recovering the text threads.