Page 84 of Guess Again

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Tuesday, August 5, 2025

THE TELEVISION WAS TUNED TO THE LOCAL NEWS AND PLAYED IN THE background as Maddie packed.

Ethan had spent the night.

He’d gotten almost no sleep, despite the officers posted outside Maddie’s apartment.

In total, four Milwaukee PD officers were assigned to keep tabs on Maddie’s home and act on anything suspicious they saw.

In addition to the cops, two DCI agents spent the night parked in the alley behind Maddie’s apartment.

The death of Dr.

Lindsay Larkin dominated the local news, and with the murder happening just miles from Maddie’s apartment, Ethan knew Francis was close.

He was taking no chances.

He stepped from the closet and saw that Maddie had stopped packing to watch the news.

On the television, the female reporter stood in front of Lindsay Larkin’s home, yellow crime scene tape visible behind her, along with the police cruisers and crime scene investigation vans.

Dr.

Lindsay Larkin, the founder of The Anonymous Client, a leading online counseling company, was found dead in her Lower East Side neighborhood home late last night.

Police have yet to offer details about Dr.

Larkin’s death, other than to say that it is an active homicide investigation.

There has been speculation that a former patient of Dr. Larkin’s has been implicated, but again, details are only just now coming in.

The Milwaukee Police Department chief offered a statement early this morning but refused to confirm a connection between Dr.

Larkin’s death and Francis Bernard, a high-profile inmate who escaped while being transferred from the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel.

Bernard was being moved to Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage when his transport van was ambushed and both guards were killed.

And Dr.

Larkin’s death comes on the heels of another homicide that took place yesterday in Nekoosa, north of Madison. Francis Bernard is still on the loose.

The news anchor sent things back to the studio, which transitioned to a weather report about the coming storm that would finally break the record heat wave that had consumed the Midwest all summer.

“Maybe we should shut it off,”

Ethan said.

Maddie turned from the television.

Her eyes were filled with tears.

“He’s close.

I feel it in my bones.”

Ethan tossed the clothes he carried from the closet into Maddie’s suitcase.

“That’s why we’re getting the hell out of here.

My cabin, through a loophole that’s been passed down through three generations, is registered in a trust tied back to my great-grandfather’s copper mining company that no longer exists.

No one’s going to find us there because no one knows I own the cabin.

Lake Morikawa is the safest place for you right now.”

Maddie nodded and continued to pack.