I spent the next hour crawling under the chassis with a high-powered flashlight. Every inch of the undercarriage seemed standard for a truck of this era. I was starting to think Marsha had let her grief turn into paranoia.
Just as I was about to give up, my light caught a glimmer of silver behind the rear bumper. It was a small, recessed metal lever, polished smooth by years of secret use. My heart hammered against my ribs as I reached for it.
I gave the lever a firm tug, expecting nothing but a click. Instead, the entire floor of the truck bed groaned and began to pivot upward. It was a hydraulic compartment, perfectly integrated into the frame of the vehicle.
The space revealed was packed tight with hundreds of small, weathered cardboard boxes. They looked like vintage matchboxes, gray with dust and brittle from two decades of sitting in the dark. I reached in and pulled one out.
The expiration date on the side confirmed these had been hidden since the late nineties. My hands shook as I slid the first box open, expecting tools or perhaps old documents. What I saw inside made the air leave my lungs in a rush.
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