We met at a dim 24-hour diner on the edge of town, sitting in the furthest corner booth. Marsha looked like she hadn’t slept in years, her eyes sunken and red. I told her exactly what I had found beneath the bed of the truck.
“Was he a thief, Marsha?” I asked, my voice trembling with betrayal. She shook her head slowly, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. She reached into her bag and pulled out a tattered, leather-bound journal she had found.
She explained that twenty years ago, four men had hijacked the truck during a getaway. They forced my uncle at gunpoint to hide the vehicle and the loot in his barn. They told him if the truck moved, they would kill her.
The thieves had been caught for a separate crime shortly after and spent two decades in prison. My uncle spent those twenty years in a different kind of prison, waiting for the day they would come back for their prize.
He had died just weeks before their release, leaving the burden to me. “He wanted you to have the truck because he knew you’d know what to do,” Marsha whispered. We both looked toward the door, knowing the police were our only hope.
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