Page 80 of Guess Again

Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Monday, August 4, 2025

LINDSAY DROVE AWAY FROM PRESCOTT ESTATES FEELING SATISFIED, despite the lackluster sex.

It had taken a decade, but things had finally come full circle.

If Ethan Hall did his job, Blake would soon be behind bars.

If Blake Cordis didn’t want a life with Lindsay, then he would have no life at all.

As she drove through the night, her mind spun back to a decade earlier.

She could hardly believe so many years had passed since that summer, or that it had taken her so long to pull the trigger on a plan she had considered many times.

But Lindsay had lost her nerve back then, and couldn’t go through with it.

She naively believed that after Callie was gone she and Blake might still be together.

Despite the fact that he had rejected her in the months after Callie was out of the picture, Lindsay still thought there was a chance for them. But in the years since, Blake had never succumbed to her advances. Until tonight. But tonight was too late.

The long game had been in the works for some time, and Lindsay believed she had played it perfectly.

A light mist began to fall.

It smattered her windshield and blurred the headlights of oncoming cars, allowing her mind to wander back to the fateful day it all began.

Ever since they’d slept together he’d been distant.

She wondered if this was how all men acted after sex.

But hers was a unique situation, wasn’t it? It had to be.

Blake Cordis was the hot history teacher and new volleyball coach all the girls had a crush on, but he had chosen her.

They had flirted at practice until one day he offered to drive her home after she stayed late relining the courts on the gymnasium floor. But instead of taking her home, they had ended up at his apartment.

Lindsay was nervous when they went into his bedroom.

She would never forget the moment he unclasped the button on her jeans.

She knew then that there was no turning back, and she did her best to hide that it was her first time.

She was happy it had not been with a random boy on prom night, or a friend after too many drinks.

It had been with Blake Cordis, a man she was in love with.

But the things Lindsay expected to happen after that night never transpired.

There was no budding romance.

There was no courtship.

There was no secret rendezvous where a forbidden love was too electric to ignore.

Instead, Coach Cordis ghosted her. He told her it had been a mistake to get involved with one of his players and that they needed to end things and go back to a strictly player-coach relationship.

Lindsay was heartbroken and not ready to give up on them.

She decided to talk to him in his office Saturday morning after practice.

It would ultimately become the Saturday Callie Jones went missing, although Lindsay didn’t know that at the time.

She gave no warning.

Lindsay simply waited until practice was over and her teammates were gone.

Then, she walked to his office.

“Hey, Lindsay,”

Blake said after she knocked on the doorframe.

“What’s going on?”

“We need to talk.”

“Okay.

Does this have something to do with the team?”

“We need to talk about us.”

Blake stood from behind his desk and glanced over her shoulder, looking out into the hallway.

His voice was lower when he spoke again.

“I thought we agreed to keep our relationship straight up.

I’m your coach, you’re my player.

Remember?”

“I actually don’t remember, because that was never my plan.”

It was his, and he expected her to go along with it and ask no questions and make no trouble.

He expected to take her virginity and never talk to her again.

“Look, Lindsay.

We could both get in a lot of trouble for what happened.”

“It’s not fair.

What you did,”

she said as she walked into his office.

“Coach?”

Blake looked to the doorway and saw Curt McGee, Cherryview’s athletic director, standing in the hallway.

“Hey Lindsay,”

Curt said.

Lindsay smiled.

“Mr. McGee.”

Curt looked at Blake and cocked his head.

“We’re supposed to go over the budget.

Meeting’s getting started now upstairs.”

“Yeah, of course,”

Blake said.

“Lindsay and I were just talking shop.”

Blake turned and pointed at Lindsay.

“Great job today at practice.

I’ll see you Monday?”

Lindsay forced a smile and nodded.

“See you then.”

Blake walked out with the athletic director and left Lindsay standing alone in his office.

When he was gone, tears came to her eyes.

Her soft sobs were interrupted by a chirping noise.

It was the muffled sound of a cell phone ringing.

Lindsay listened for a moment and then walked to Blake’s desk. She pulled the top drawer open and saw a Samsung flip phone lighted up with a recent text message.

She looked briefly at the open door to Blake’s office, and then reached for the phone.

A name glowed across the caller ID screen.

Callie

She opened the phone and read the text message.

I’m going to a party out on The Crest tonight.

But I want to see you.

I’ll call you when I leave.

I love you.

Lindsay stared at the phone.

She could hear her friend’s voice echoing in her ears.

I love you.

Lindsay’s stomach roiled.

She slipped the phone into her pocket and, with tears streaming down her face, ran out of Blake’s office.

Summer 2015

Cherryview, Wisconsin

LINDSAY STOOD IN THE SHADOWS OF THE RESTAURANT.

MUSIC BLARED from inside the bar as those who had ventured out to The Crest started their night of drinking.

She looked toward the volleyball courts and saw Callie standing on the sidelines.

The stadium-style lights that allowed volleyball to be played well past midnight on summer nights were bright as they fought against the coming darkness.

Lindsay pulled Blake’s flip phone from her pocket and saw that Callie had texted several times. She sent a reply text to Callie.

What’s wrong?

I need to see you.

Where are you?

The Crest.

You okay?

I need to talk to you about the baby.

I’m keeping it.

Lindsay stared at the phone.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she didn’t inhale again until her lungs burned to the point of snapping her back from her trance.

She paused before she typed back.

You didn’t go through with it?

No.

I want this baby WITH YOU.

I want to start a life with you.

I need to see you tonight.

Do you have your parents’ boat?

Yes.

Meet me at North Point Pier.

I’ll be waiting on the dock.

I love you, Blake.

Lindsay didn’t hesitate when she typed her response this time.

I love you, too.

Lindsay dropped the phone into her pocket and walked from the shadows.

Her hands were shaking, and her breaths were shallow.

Callie was pregnant.

Blake was the father.

He’d slept with both of them.

He was in love with Callie.

Lindsay walked up behind Callie, who was still staring at her phone.

“Who was that?”

Callie looked up from her phone as she turned.

“Oh, um, my mom.

She wants me home.”

Lindsay squinted her eyes and did her best to look disgusted.

“It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday.”

“The regular crowd shuffles in.”

Lindsay saw Callie push a smile onto her face.

“There’s an old man sitting next to me . . .”

Callie crinkled her nose. “No?”

“We’re playing next.”

“I can’t, Linds.

My mom’s all over me about something.”

“Why is your mom such a buzz kill?”

“You think anything my mom does makes sense? She’s probably having a breakdown about something.

I’m going to take the boat home.

Be back in an hour.

Then we’ll play those guys.

Kick their butts.”

Lindsay was amazed at how easily her friend was able to lie.

She saw a tear run down Callie’s cheek.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Callie quickly wiped it away.

“Yeah.

All good.

I’ll see you later.”

Lindsay watched her hurry off.

She stood on the sidelines of the sand volleyball court and watched Callie climb onto her boat and pull away from the dock.

She turned and walked quickly toward the back of the restaurant.

She knew from her guy friends on the football team who worked on The Crest that there was a fleet of five Polaris Ranger 4x4s they used to haul supplies along the small, unpaved access road that ran out to The Crest from the mainland.

Once she was beyond the crowd, she took off in a sprint.

She hopped into one of the 4x4s.

The key was in the ignition, and she cranked the engine to life.

The Ranger took off, bouncing along the narrow road as she raced to beat Callie to North Point Pier.

Lindsay killed the Ranger’s headlights as she pulled into the parking lot at North Point Pier.

The pier was where those who did not own homes on Lake Okoboji launched their boats for a day on the water.

On any given morning, the lot was crowded with pickup trucks and trailers.

But they typically pulled their boats from the lake before dark.

Tonight, the place was empty.

Lindsay pulled the Ranger into the shadows on the side of the parking lot and climbed out.

In the storage unit on the back of the 4x4 was a Callaway 9-iron golf club.

Lindsay had seen the football players driving golf balls off The Crest, attempting to hit a wooden raft that floated a hundred yards off the dock.

With little thought, she grabbed the club and hurried along the side of the parking lot to the boat launch area and the dock that ran out into the water.

Far out in the middle of the lake she saw The Crest and the lights of the volleyball courts. The occasional lyric bounced across the lake, and she could hear an old Tom Petty song playing from where she hid in the darkness. She waited only five minutes before she saw a boat approaching. It had to be Callie. Lindsay had beaten her here.

She stepped deeper into the woods near the end of the dock and watched as Callie approached in her parents’ boat.

Cloaked by darkness, Lindsay stood in the shadows as Callie tied off the boat and stepped onto the pier.

Callie looked toward the parking lot, surely anticipating Blake’s car being there, and slowly walked down the dock.

Once she stepped onto the gravel at the end of the pier, Lindsay emerged from the shadows.

A twig snapped under her foot, but before Callie could spin around, Lindsay lifted the 9-iron and, in one swift motion, brought it down on the back of Callie’s head.

The thud was sickening as she felt the club insert itself into her friend’s skull.

She pulled it out, expecting Callie to fall to the ground.

Instead, Callie turned around and locked eyes with her.

Lindsay lifted the golf club again and struck Callie in the crown of the head.

The blow seemed to turn Callie into a statue, until she reached up and touched the blood that poured like lava down her face. Lindsay lifted the club and struck her a third time. This time, her lifelong friend and teammate—and the girl who had stolen Blake from her—collapsed in a heap.