Page 78 of Guess Again
Cherryview, Wisconsin Monday, August 4, 2025
ETHAN WATCHED OVER CHRISTIAN’S SHOULDER AS THE TECH GURU typed at a mindboggling pace while three computer monitors blinked and registered white code against a black background.
“Ah, I see,”
Christian whispered as he raced through the computer code.
“That’s sort of clever, but not terribly sophisticated.
Definitely something learned at a university and not in the real world.
There’s a workaround .
.
. that. I. Think . . .”
His fingers were like lightning strikes against the keyboard and Ethan would not have believed the violence could possibly produce anything intelligible but for the fact that the computer responded every time Christian’s fingers touched the keys
“Yep, here we go! Voilà!”
Christian pushed his hands against the desk and sent himself wheeling away on his chair again.
“All yours, big boy.”
Ethan pulled a chair over and sat in front of the computer.
“What am I looking at?”
Now it was Christian who was standing over Ethan’s shoulder.
He pointed at the screen.
“These are all of Dr.
Larkin’s consults in the last three months.
They’re listed by patient number and used to be encrypted and protected, but all you have to do now is click on the link and it’ll show you everything you need to know.
Do you have the date of the anonymous confession?”
“July thirtieth,”
Ethan said, scrolling down until he arrived at the correct date.
There were several consultations listed that day.
Ethan clicked on the ID number of the final patient of the day.
Immediately, white letters appeared against the black background.
Blake Jaxson Cordis
DOB: September 4, 1993
IP: 192.458.177.296
Ethan shook his head.
“What’s wrong?”
Christian asked.
Ethan ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip as he stared at Blake’s name.
Perhaps, he considered, being away from investigative work for so long had dulled his instincts.
“Not what I was expecting to see.”
“I figured it wouldn’t be,”
Christian said.
“I just wanted to make sure Mr.
One Hundred Percent was on the right track.
Move over.”
Ethan slid his chair to the side so that Christian could take control of the computer, which he did in the swiftest of manners.
“Whoever Blake Jaxson Cordis is,”
Christian said, “he’s not the client who logged in on July thirtieth.”
“No?”
“No.
But someone wants you to think he is.
Someone with some chill computer skills, too.
But I see what they did.
They reverse populated the IP address and then ran it through the online portal’s encryption software so that if you looked but didn’t dig too deep—or even if you did dig deep but didn’t know what the hell you were doing, which most people don’t—it would appear as if the video originated from Blake Cordis’s computer.”
“It didn’t?”
“No.”
“So where did it come from?”
Christian looked at Ethan.
“Ever seen the movie When a Stranger Calls?”
“No.”
“Really? It’s good.
You should check it out.”
“Christian, I’m in a time crunch here.”
“Sorry, I digress.”
Christian attacked the keyboard again until the actual video of the session appeared.
The patient’s face was blurred beyond recognition, while Lindsay Larkin’s image appeared in a small window on the top right of the monitor.
A triangular “play”
button was transposed in the center of the screen.
“It’s about a stalker who terrorizes a woman with harassing phone calls,”
Christian said.
“What?”
“The movie.
When a Stranger Calls.
But the twist is that when police trace the calls, they figure out that they’re coming from inside the house.
Anyway.
This reminded me of that movie.”
Christian clicked the button so that the video played.
Lindsay Larkin spoke: “Does, uh .
.
.
this girl have a name?”
“Yes.
You know her.”
The patient’s voice was muffled and distorted into the digital, artificial intelligence tone.
“Her name is Callie Jones, and I need you to help me forgive myself for what I did to her.”
Christian pushed himself away from the desk one more time.
He pointed at the monitor.
“Press the escape button,”
he said, “and the filter will disappear.”
Ethan looked at Christian for a moment before turning back to the keyboard.
He pressed the button, and the encryption filter disappeared.
The anonymous patient’s image came clearly into focus on the screen.
Ethan blinked a few times to clear his confusion.
He was looking at Lindsay Larkin confessing to herself about having killed Callie Jones.