Page 37 of Guess Again

Boscobel, Wisconsin Sunday, July 27, 2025

ETHAN MADE IT THROUGH SECURITY AND STARED THROUGH THE GLASS at the empty seat in front of him.

He worked to hide his frustration that he was in the position of needing information from his father’s killer.

A loud beep sounded.

The light on the wall above the entrance blinked, followed by a long buzzing noise as the lock disengaged.

The door opened and Francis shuffled into the visitation area with his hands cuffed in front of him and his ankles shackled. The man’s ice-blue eyes seemed out of place against his impossibly pale skin.

Ethan lifted the phone and placed it to his ear when Francis sat down.

Francis did the same.

“You need a tan, Francis.

You’re looking deathly pale.”

“That’s because they leave me in my cell for days at a time, despite the fact that state law dictates that inmates spend two hours each day out of confinement.”

Ethan crinkled his brow in confusion.

“You’re not expecting me to get choked up, are you?”

“No.

I’m just laying the groundwork.”

“For what?”

“Did you find my package?”

“Yeah, and I want to know how you knew the phone was there.”

“So I can assume that Special Agent One Hundred Percent did some research on that phone?”

Ethan nodded.

“So you know it is the prepaid burner phone your DCI friends could not locate in 2015 during their original investigation.

And you know that little Callie Jones called its owner many times.”

Ethan had done the math and worked the angles in his mind.

Francis had been in prison for thirty-two years, since 1993.

Callie Jones went missing in 2015.

There was no earthly way for the man to have been directly involved in her abduction.

“Francis, how do you know anything about Callie Jones?”

“We’ve already covered that.”

“How did you know where that phone was located?”

“Oh, Ethan,”

Francis said with a curl of his lips.

“I know much more than the location of the phone the girl was calling.

I know who the owner of the phone was, and where the girl is today.”

Ethan forced himself to stay calm.

“How? You were in prison for more than twenty years when Callie went missing.”

“How I know is immaterial.

What I know is crucial.

And most importantly, what I want in exchange for that information.”

Now Ethan smiled.

“You’re not so stupid to think I’d actually negotiate with you, are you?”

Ethan leaned toward the glass, close enough to see the folds of Francis’s translucent irises.

He anticipated that Francis would try to leverage whatever he knew about Callie’s disappearance for some favor he believed Ethan could help him with.

But in just a short period of time Ethan had turned up enough new information about the Callie Jones case to feel confident that with more time and continued determination, he’d figure the rest out on his own.

Who the father of Callie’s baby was, and whether that person had anything to do with her disappearance.

Francis had overplayed his hand, and he could go to hell with whatever request he was about to make.

“You can keep whatever information you’ve gathered,”

Ethan said, “from whatever demeaning ways you’ve gathered it, to yourself, Francis.

I’ll never give you a thing, other than the promise of a lifetime in that little, lonely cell of yours.”

“Go back to the warehouse, Ethan.”

Francis held Ethan’s gaze without blinking.

“High in the rafters is a footlocker,”

Francis said, a restrained urgency to his tone.

“Go there, Special Agent Hall, and see what’s waiting.

Then come back here and see if you can keep the promise you just made.”

Francis hung up the phone and stood from the chair, keeping his unblinking stare on Ethan until the guard took his arm and led him away.