Chapter 5 - Unraveling Madison
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon by the time I left the school building and walked toward the student parking lot. The crisp autumn wind rustled the golden leaves overhead, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and impending rain.
Madison Cruz was sitting inside her white Range Rover, parked near the perimeter fence, her phone pressed tightly to her ear as she chain-smoked a menthol cigarette with the window rolled down two inches.
She was waiting for someone. Or perhaps she was trying to gather the courage to run away.
I walked up beside the driver's side door and tapped my knuckles twice against the tinted glass.
Madison jumped violently, nearly dropping her phone into her lap. She rolled the window down a crack, her face mottled with red blotches from crying.
"Go away," Madison snapped, trying to sound fierce, though her voice shook uncontrollably. "I'm calling campus security if you don't step away from my car."
"Go ahead, Madison," I said, leaning down so my face was level with the narrow opening of the window. "Tell security that Emma Vance is harassing you from beyond the grave. Let's see how the board reacts when they realize the girl they declared dead is standing right outside your door."
Madison swallowed hard, her fingers white-knuckling the steering wheel. "What do you want, Emma? Chloe already called me. She said... she said you have the video."
"I have more than the video, Madison," I replied, pulling a folded printout from my blazer pocket and sliding it through the crack in the window. "I have your bank statements from the past three months."
Madison’s eyes dropped to the paper. Her breath hitched.
"Three thousand dollars wired from an offshore account registered to Lucas Vance’s family foundation," I continued, my voice steady and cold. "Payment for services rendered. Specifically, payment for organizing the smear campaign against Emma, hacking her school portal, and locking her out of her locker on the day she died."
"It was just a prank!" Madison shrieked, her voice cracking. "We were just supposed to scare her! We didn't know Chloe was going to... we didn't think she would actually push her!"
"Ignorance isn't a legal defense when conspiracy to commit aggravated assault is on the table, Madison," I said, tapping the window frame. "You helped them hunt her. You watched her break. And then you stood by while they wrote a false narrative to protect your precious social standing."
"What are you going to do?" Madison whispered, tears spilling over her eyeliner. "Are you going to go to the police?"
"The police are already reading the file," I lied smoothly, watching her face pale further at the bluff. "But before they issue the arrest warrants, I wanted to give you a choice. You can either go down with Chloe and Lucas as an active accomplice... or you can help me dismantle the rest of them from the inside."
Madison stared at me, the arrogance that had defined her entire high school career completely burned away into ash.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Tomorrow morning during assembly," I said, stepping back from the car and adjusting my blazer, "you’re going to stand up in front of the entire student body and read a statement. A statement detailing every single lie you, Chloe, and Lucas told about my sister."
"They'll expel me!" Madison cried.
May you like
"They'll expel you anyway once the indictments drop," I replied, turning my back on her car. "At least this way, you get to choose whether you do it standing up or in handcuffs."
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