Page 96 of Guess Again

Lake Morikawa, Wisconsin Tuesday, August 5, 2025

ETHAN MANEUVERED THE brONCO AROUND THE FALLEN brANCHES that littered the road.

The rain came in sheets, and, had Maddie not been at the cabin alone, he would have pulled to the shoulder until the torrent subsided.

Instead, he twisted the truck around a large tree limb that blocked the eastbound lane, splashed through a twenty-yard-long puddle, and continued on.

He dialed Maddie’s number again.

On clear days, his phone rarely registered more than a single bar of service up at the lake. The storm was making things worse, and he gave up after the third time the call went straight to voicemail.

The fifteen-minute drive took thirty, and when Ethan turned onto the last stretch of road, he saw a vehicle pulled to the shoulder of the westbound lane.

The headlights were on, and the driver’s side door was open.

As Ethan drove closer, he recognized that it was Kai’s pickup truck.

Ethan bounced the Bronco onto the breakdown lane on the other side of the road.

The rain hindered his vision so he couldn’t see what the problem was.

He reached into the middle console and grabbed the flashlight he kept there, clicked it on, and opened the Bronco’s door.

The rain demarcated the beam of the flashlight as Ethan stepped into the storm and shined the light onto his friend’s truck.

He saw that the driver’s side tires were intact.

No flats.

He walked across both lanes of the road and checked the cab. Empty.

“Kai!”

Ethan yelled against the driving rain.

He was soaking wet.

Rainwater dripped from his chin and his T-shirt stuck to his chest.

Ethan shined his light into the bed of the F-150.

Also empty.

But when he walked behind the truck, he saw Kai lying in the embankment on the side of the road.

“Kai?”

Ethan said.

He ran to his friend and crouched next to him.

The rain mixed with the blood that streamed from Kai’s abdomen and mouth.

“Kai.

You okay, buddy?”

Kai’s eyes opened.

A bubble of blood formed on his nostril when he tried to speak.

What’s going on? Ethan said to himself as he examined Kai’s body.

Where’s the blood coming from?

On the side of the road and amidst a vicious storm, Ethan morphed back into an emergency medicine physician, looking for the source of the blood and the best way to stanch its flow.

But before he could make the full transformation, Kai spoke a single word that snapped Ethan back to his current role as an investigator.

“Francis.”

Ethan stopped his exam.

“What?”

“Go,”

Kai said, his teeth red with blood.

“Now! Maddie’s in danger.”

Off in the distance, in the direction of his cabin and through the pouring rain, a gunshot echoed into the night.