Chapter 6 – THE DIARY UNDER THE MATTRESS

The house was a crime scene.

Police officers were bagging the steel pipe wrench and taking photos of the shattered coffee table.

Mom was sitting in an ambulance outside, wrapped in a shock blanket.

Tyler was talking to a detective, holding an ice pack to his shoulder.

I slipped away and ran upstairs to Madison’s room.

It looked exactly the same as it had for ten years.

Pink curtains, stuffed animals, perfectly organized bookshelves.

I went straight to her bed, lifted the mattress, and pulled out the thick, leather-bound diary.

I unlocked it with the silver key.

I expected to find teenage secrets. Boys she liked, complaints about Mom.

Instead, I found newspaper clippings.

Dozens of them, carefully glued to the pages.

They were all articles from ten years ago.

“Local Couple Perishes in Tragic Highway Accident.”

“Foul Play Suspected in Hit and Run.”

“Police Search for Blue Ford Truck.”

My breath caught in my throat.

Madison had known.

I flipped the page.

There was a drawing. A child’s crayon drawing.

It showed two cars crashing in the snow.

One was red. The other was blue.

Beneath the blue truck, a nine-year-old Madison had written: “Mr. Carter drives a blue truck.”

I stared at the handwriting.

She had suspected Grandpa since she was a little girl.

I kept flipping.

The entries became more recent.

“October 12th. Olivia started fixing the truck today. I want to throw up. Every time I hear the engine, I hear the crash.”

“May 3rd. David and Mom are fighting again about money. I know David is blackmailing Grandpa. I found the bank statements in his office.”

Then, I reached the final entry. It was dated yesterday.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. I can’t stay in this house anymore. I found out what David really did to Joey Russo. The police won’t believe me without proof, but I know where David hid Joey’s wallet. If Olivia finds the key, she’ll know I went to the cabin.”

The cabin.

Grandpa’s old fishing cabin by the lake.

I closed the diary, my heart racing.

Madison hadn’t run away in shock. She had run away on a mission.

I ran downstairs, bypassing the police.

Aunt Linda caught my arm as I headed for the door.

“Olivia, where are you going?”

“Madison went to Grandpa’s cabin,” I said. “She knows where Dad hid Joey Russo’s wallet.”

Linda’s eyes widened. “Olivia, you can’t go up there alone. David’s associates might be looking for her.”

“I’m not waiting for the police,” I said.

I ran down the street, back to the abandoned grocery store.

The blue truck was still sitting in the shadows.

I climbed inside, the smell of old leather making my stomach turn.

This truck was a tomb. It had destroyed Madison’s family.

But right now, it was the only way to save her.

I turned the key. The engine roared to life, loud and powerful.

I threw it into gear and sped out of the alley.

The drive to the lake took forty-five minutes.

It was pitch black, the winding roads heavily lined with pine trees.

As I pulled up to the dirt driveway of Grandpa’s old cabin, my headlights illuminated something terrifying.

A black SUV was parked near the porch.

The engine was warm.

The front door of the cabin was kicked open.

I killed the engine and grabbed the heavy flashlight from my glove compartment.

I crept toward the cabin, my boots crunching softly on the pine needles.

I heard voices inside.

“Where is it, kid?” a gruff voice demanded.

I peeked through the shattered window.

Two men in dark jackets were tearing the cabin apart.

Madison was backed into the corner near the fireplace, clutching a small metal lockbox to her chest.

“I told you, I don’t have it!” Madison cried.

“Don’t lie to me,” one of the men sneered, pulling a knife from his belt. “Your father owes the Vieri family a lot of money. We know he kept his blackmail leverage in this cabin.”

They weren’t looking for Joey Russo’s wallet.

They were looking for the Vieri family’s money.

I had to cause a distraction.

I looked down at the porch. There was an old can of kerosene sitting near the firewood.

I picked it up, unscrewed the cap, and poured a heavy trail across the wooden porch steps.

I pulled out my pocket lighter.

I lit a piece of paper from my pocket and dropped it onto the kerosene.

Flames erupted instantly, shooting up the wooden steps.

“Fire!” one of the men shouted from inside.

They rushed toward the back door.

I smashed the remaining glass of the front window with my flashlight and climbed through.

Madison screamed, but I grabbed her arm.

“It’s me! Come on!”

We scrambled out the window just as the smoke alarm blared.

We ran to the truck and jumped inside.

I threw it in reverse and slammed the gas, tearing down the dirt driveway.

“Olivia!” Madison sobbed, clutching the lockbox. “You came.”

“Of course I came,” I said, speeding down the dark highway. “I’m your sister.”

She looked at me, her eyes filled with ten years of pain.

“You know what this truck did,” Madison whispered.

“I know,” I said. “And I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head, tears falling fast.

“Olivia… Grandpa didn’t kill my parents.”

I slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded to a halt on the empty highway.

“What?”

Madison opened the metal lockbox she had protected.

She pulled out a worn, silver rosary.

“This was hanging from the rearview mirror of the blue truck that hit us,” Madison said, her voice shaking.

I stared at the rosary.

It wasn’t Grandpa’s.

It was a rosary Mom had given to Tyler for his sixteenth birthday.

“Tyler was driving?” I whispered, horrified.

“Yes,” a voice said from the darkness of the backseat.

I turned around, screaming.

Tyler was sitting in the back of the cab, pointing a handgun directly at us.

Share