Page 71 of Guess Again

Ithaca, Wisconsin Monday, August 4, 2025

MONROE TOOK HIS EYES OFF THE WOMAN WEARING THE SHORT shorts and sporting a sexy tattoo on her leg to look at his partner.

He smiled and arched one eyebrow.

But before his partner could smile back, his face disappeared in a plume of red.

Monroe blinked a few times until his brain processed the situation.

Only then did he notice the hole in his colleague’s forehead, just above his right eye. When he cocked his head back to the woman, he was staring down the barrel of a Sig Sauer P365, a stream of smoke spiraling from the barrel.

“If you even think about reaching for your gun, I’ll kill you like I killed your partner,”

the woman said.

“Now get out of the van.”

Monroe lifted his hands from the steering wheel.

“I already called it in,”

he said.

“Backup is on the way.”

The woman smiled.

“Better hurry then.”

She pulled open the van door and gestured for him to exit.

He did, and she grabbed his gun from his belt.

“Turn around.”

Monroe did as he was told.

“Open the back of the van.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t do that.”

Without hesitation, he heard the Sig discharge and felt a searing pain in the back of his left leg.

He collapsed as his knee exploded, howling in agony as he rolled on the ground.

The woman stood over him.

“There will be no more negative answers this morning.

You will open the back of this van, or I will shoot you in the forehead and figure out how to open it myself.”

The woman pointed the gun at his face and Monroe held up his hands.

“Don’t shoot.”

“Open the van!”

“Keys are on my belt.”

“Give them to me!”

He reached for his belt.

The pain in his knee had sent his body quivering.

With trembling hands he found the key ring and pulled it from his utility belt.

He held the keys up, noticing that his hand was covered in blood from grabbing his wounded leg.

The woman took the keys and hurried to the back of the van.

When she was out of sight, he rolled onto his stomach and used his elbows to army crawl for the driver’s seat.

If he could manage to get himself into the van, he’d gun the engine and run for his life.

He grunted with each pull of his arms, snot and saliva pouring from his face.

He reached the open door and started the painful rise to his feet.

His body dripped with perspiration—partly from the heat of the morning, mostly from fighting the misery.

Lightheadedness threatened to topple him back to the ground as his vision constricted.

He grabbed the seatbelt and used it to pull himself up. Just as he managed to get his chin over the driver’s seat, he looked across the console. The passenger’s side door opened, and the woman leaned over his dead colleague.

She reached into the van, pressed the ignition button to kill the engine, and lifted the key fob from the dashboard.

“You didn’t think I was going to let you leave without Francis getting a chance to say goodbye, did you?”

Over the woman’s shoulder, Francis Bernard’s face appeared.

The woman had removed the transport helmet and Francis’s expression offered neither anger nor concern.

It was simply matter-of-fact serious.

And then he smiled.