Page 41 of Guess Again

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Sunday, July 27, 2025

MADDIE DID SOME SLEUTHING AT THE STATION AND FOUND THE name of Portia’s fiancé, who had initially reported her missing.

She and Ethan decided to start there.

It was late afternoon when they found the address on Clement Avenue in the Bay View neighborhood and walked up the steps to the apartment.

This was Maddie’s jurisdiction, and since she was sticking her neck out by going behind the back of the detectives who had the case, she took the lead on their stealth operation.

Maddie knocked on the door and a man answered.

He looked to be about thirty.

“Nicholas Brann?”

Maddie asked.

“Yes?”

“Maddie Jacobson with the Milwaukee PD.”

The Bell’s palsy that drooped the left side of her face came out in full force when she was under duress or involved in stressful situations.

And sneaking around a case that was not hers qualified as such.

Smiling made the paralyzed facial muscles more obvious, but offering a stoic face void of expression was not conducive to obtaining information.

She pressed her lips together and settled on a soft grin.

She held out her badge.

“This is my partner, Ethan Hall.”

Ethan held up his DCI badge.

“Did you find her?”

“Not yet,”

Maddie said.

“We need to ask you a few questions.

Can we come inside?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Around the kitchen island a moment later, Maddie asked, “You’re the one who reported your fiancée missing, correct?”

”

Well, no.

I mean, yes I reported Portia missing, but she’s not my fiancée.

Portia and I used to be engaged.

We broke it off a few months ago but had decided to give it another go.

So technically, she’s not really my fiancée. That’s what I meant.”

“Start from the beginning.”

“I already spoke to the police and gave a statement to another detective about all of this.”

“We know.

But there’s been a new development in the case, and we need you to start from the beginning again and tell us everything.”

“Have you found .

.

.

something?”

Maddie glanced at Ethan.

“Maybe, but we need to understand the situation better.

So help us out.

When was the last time you spoke to Portia?”

“Saturday morning.

June twenty-eighth.

She spent Friday night here at my place.”

“Was that unusual?”

“Not back in the day.

But it was the first time we’d .

.

.

you know, the first time she’d stayed over since we decided to get back together.”

“How long had you guys been engaged before you broke it off?”

“A couple of months.

But we’d dated for three years before that.”

“Why did the engagement end?”

Nicholas shook his head.

“Stupid stuff.

Her family lives down in Florida and she wanted to have the wedding down there, but my family lives here so that was an issue.

Just silly things that we couldn’t agree on and that got blown out of proportion.

Then we thought maybe we were rushing things, so we decided to take a break.”

“When was that?”

“Three months ago.”

“So you guys were broken up for the past three months and had just gotten back together.

She stayed over Friday, June twenty-seventh.

And you saw her Saturday morning?”

“Yeah, briefly.

She left early.

Said goodbye and that was it.

I was still in bed.

I waited for her to call me because, you know, it’s that stupid thing you do. See who’s going to call first. But when I didn’t hear from her after a couple of days, I called her. I couldn’t reach her, and she never returned any of my texts. Sometimes we connect through social media, but when I saw that she hadn’t posted anything all week, I called her parents and then we called 9-1-1.”

Maddie changed angles.

“Back to the breakup.

Was there another woman involved?”

“No, it was nothing like that.

Like I said, it was just stupid stuff.”

“Was she maybe seeing another guy?”

Nicholas took a deep breath and exhaled it.

“Not while we were together.”

“But after you broke up?”

“Yeah.

Portia told me that she had a brief thing with a guy.

We were on a break, so I let it go.”

Maddie squinted her eyes.

“You know this guy’s name?”

“That she was seeing?”

Maddie nodded.

“Yeah.

I told the other detective about him.

Guy’s name was Blake Cordis.”