24. Day of Reckoning – Zoe
Chapter 24
Day of Reckoning
PLAYLIST: “THE DEVIL WITHIN” BY DIGITAL DAGGERS
ZOE
I stared down at the pages of Missy’s diary, unable to believe what I was reading as my eyes skimmed over the entries while I waited for her killer to arrive, preparing myself for what was coming.
Dear Diary,
A day of reckoning has finally come. The day I’ve been dreaming of, waiting for, and planning in secret. Today, I turned sixteen, and I finally made my move. I’ve wanted him for so long, and today I finally convinced him to kiss me.
The way his eyes lit up when he saw me dressed like a grown woman, the way his lips felt against mine, and the way my heart raced—it was all worth it.
He works at Twisted Creek Ranch now, like most guys around here, including my brother Michael, and every time I’ve gone to hang out with Zoe, I’ve been drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
I can’t help but feel that this is the beginning of something beautiful, something that could change my life… maybe forever.
But I can’t let anyone know about us, not yet. Not even Zoe. I need to keep this a secret, at least for now. I don’t want to risk losing him or causing any trouble for him at work. And God only knows how Michael would react if he knew. I know this is wrong, but I can’t help how I feel .
I just hope that one day, we can be together openly, without fear or hesitation.
Until then, I’ll cherish this moment and hold onto the hope that we’ll have many more like it.
Yours,
His,
Missy
The cheery tone of her words clashed with the undercurrent of manipulation and obsession woven into her thoughts. My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat as the image of sixteen-year-old Missy played in my mind, her bright blue eyes and confident smirk hiding something far darker than I’d ever realized.
The lipstick kiss pressed onto the page felt grotesque, a mocking echo of the girl I’d thought I’d known. My grip on the diary tightened, my knuckles whitening as I forced myself to read on, taking in a note stuck between the pages.
Missy,
Kissing you was the best mistake I’ve ever made, but it was still exactly that… a mistake. It can’t happen again, no matter how good it was, how much I want it to.
Stop creeping around the bunkhouse… please. You make it impossible for me to say no to you even though I know I should.
The hastily scribbled note stuck between the pages made my pulse spike. My chest tightened, the words sinking like lead in my stomach.
A mistake.
Whoever wrote this had known it was wrong, but they’d still let it happen. It was impossible not to wonder who this man was, how he’d gotten tangled in Missy’s web.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the storm of emotions swirling through me: anger at Missy’s recklessness, horror at what she’d done, and a creeping sense of pity that she’d been so lost in her own world that she couldn’t see how dangerous her choices had become.
When I opened my eyes, the next entry slammed into me like a punch to the gut.
Dear Diary,
I changed his mind when I told him he could take my v-card, and nobody would ever have to know. I told him it could be our little secret, and he folded like a house of cards.
I froze, the words stabbing into me like jagged glass. My stomach twisted violently, my breath coming in shallow gasps as I forced myself to keep reading.
Holy fucking shit, was he worth the wait, and worth giving up my v-card for, too. It was everything I ever dreamed fucking my older brother’s hot best friend would be like, and more.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, my voice hoarse as nausea surged up my throat. I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth, the raw, graphic description making my skin crawl. This wasn’t the girl I’d grown up with. This wasn’t the friend I’d shared secrets with or the person I’d fought with on that horrible day. This was someone I didn’t recognize, someone whose actions and desires were as foreign to me as a stranger’s.
The next lines made my blood run cold.
He doesn’t know it yet, but one day… he’s gonna marry me. Michael might be mad about it at first, but eventually he’ll suck it up and get over it. I just have to wait until I’m 18 and it’s legal for us to be together, then find a way to convince Cody that we can take our relationship public.
I’ll do whatever I have to… use whoever I have to… hurt whoever I have to… I’m going to make this happen. I’m in love with him, I’ve been in love with him for years, and I think he’s starting to love me too, even if he’s not ready to admit it out loud.
He keeps saying he doesn’t want to hurt Michael, doesn’t want to damage their friendship by being in an actual relationship with me that people are aware of when we can keep having fun just like we are and keep this secret all to ourselves.
My hands shook so violently the pages blurred in front of me. This wasn’t love—it was obsession. A calculated, relentless pursuit of a man who clearly didn’t want anything more than a secret fling with her. My heart twisted painfully, the truth dawning on me with a clarity that made my breath hitch.
Missy wasn’t just reckless—she was dangerous… but so was her killer.
I gripped the diary tighter, my nails biting into the worn cover. She’d been willing to hurt anyone who stood in her way, anyone who threatened her fantasy. Was that why she’d kissed Roman in front of me? To use him? To push Cody into action?
When I finally read her closing line, a cold wave of dread washed over me.
One way or another… I’m going to change his mind, even if it takes me years to do it.
Yours,
The Future Mrs. Cody Jacobson
Her determination was terrifying, her delusion chilling. She’d convinced herself of a future that didn’t exist, built on the back of manipulation and lies.
I slammed the diary shut, clutching it against my chest as though I could keep the horrifying truths it contained from spilling out into the world. My breathing was ragged, my chest rising and falling as I tried to process what I’d just read.
What the hell were you doing, Missy?
For a moment, I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. My mind reeled with questions, theories, and the dawning realization that this diary was a powder keg waiting to explode. If Barton or Landon got their hands on it, it would rip apart everything—the fragile truths we were clinging to, the life I’d built with Roman, the shaky foundation of Cody’s so-called friendship with Michael.
My stomach churned again, but this time it wasn’t just nausea. It was anger. Anger at Missy for dragging all of us into her chaos, for using Roman as a pawn, for leaving behind a mess we were being forced to untangle ten long years after her death.
But underneath the anger was something softer. A pang of sadness that I couldn’t quite shake.
Why didn’t you tell me, Missy? Why didn’t you let someone help you before it came to this?
I took a shaky breath, clutching the diary tighter. There was no time to dwell on the past—not when the present was hurtling toward me like a freight train.
My heart pounded as I waited for Cody to join me in the barn. I couldn’t afford to falter now.
I stood where I knew I’d be dead center in my phone’s video frame, clutching Missy’s diary like a shield. My breaths were shallow, my legs shaky, but I didn’t let myself stop. Not now.
“I’m ready for you,” I whispered, my voice trembling but resolute. “Let’s end this.”
I stood tall in the barn, forcing every ounce of steel I could muster into my voice as Cody stepped over the threshold and joined me. I clutched Missy’s diary tighter to my chest. My heart pounded against my ribs, but I kept my gaze locked on Cody, refusing to let him see my fear.
“You can stop lying, Cody,” I said, my voice steady and unrelenting despite the chaos roaring inside me. “I know about you and Missy.”
Cody froze for a second, his eyes widening before narrowing into a defensive glare.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped, his tone panicked.
“Oh, I know everything,” I countered, letting the words slice through the air like a blade. I held up her diary for him to see. “It’s all here in her diary, your secret affair that started on her sixteenth fucking birthday. And you… you were twenty-three goddamn years old at the time… plenty old enough to know better?—”
“You don’t understand! You don’t know how determined she was, how persuasive she could be when she really wanted to get her way?—”
“She trusted you! She was in love with you and wanted to take your relationship out in the open once she turned eighteen, and it was finally legal. And you strangled her to keep her quiet when she wanted to go public. You killed her, Cody.”
His face twisted, his desperation morphing into something darker—fury. He took a step toward me, and I braced myself, my fingers curling into fists at my sides as I fought to keep my composure. The phone was tucked into the hay behind me, its camera angled perfectly to capture everything. I prayed it was doing its job.
“You don’t know what it was like!” Cody shouted, his voice cracking under the weight of his emotions. “She was going to ruin everything—my friendships—especially with Michael. He was my goddamn best friend, still is to this day. She was going to ruin my family, my whole future! I didn’t mean for it to go that far, but she wouldn’t stop!”
“Wouldn’t be a good little girl and stay quiet like you asked her to, you mean,” I shot back, my tone sharper than I intended, anger bubbling to the surface. “She wanted the truth out there, and you couldn’t handle it.”
His expression contorted, a storm of guilt and rage swirling in his eyes. I could see the moment he snapped, the split-second before he lunged.
“That’s not what did it, you know… that’s not what made me snap. You’re fucking wrong.”
“Oh yeah?” I challenged, taking a half-step toward him. “What was it, then? What pushed you over the edge and made you take my best friend’s life… what was so bad it pushed you to end your best friend Michael’s little sister’s life, asshole?”
He moved fast, his hands closing around my neck before I could react. The breath was forced from my lungs as his grip tightened, and the world tilted violently as we crashed against the hay. My phone jostled, landing facedown, but I prayed it was still recording.
I clawed at Cody’s hands, gasping for air as his voice roared in my ears.
“She wouldn’t shut up! That was bad enough,” he bellowed, his words raw and chilling. “But what was over the line is when she had the gall to go and kiss Roman York in front of me.”
I choked, staring up at him in wordless, breathless horror as his hands tightened around my neck and he kept raging at me.
“She told me that if I was going to keep her a dirty little secret, she’d just have to move on with somebody who wouldn’t feel the need to hide her, and just about any other cowboy in the world would do.”
I clawed at his hands again, desperate for relief, but he pressed on, oblivious to me clawing at him.
“But no… she had to pick that high and mighty asshole who thinks he’s better than everyone else just because he works harder and he nailed the boss’s daughter.”
I coughed and tried to suck in a breath, but it was impossible with his hands wrapped around my throat.
Cody leaned close to my face, his voice a feral growl. “Kissing him… choosing him… that was the last goddamn straw. She didn’t give me a choice!”
My vision blurred, black dots dancing in the corners of my eyes as I struggled against him. My mind raced, desperate for something, anything, to break his grip. The weight of him pressing me down was suffocating, but I refused to give in. Not here. Not now.
I kicked out with my legs, my boot catching his shin, and he yelped, his grip loosening just enough for me to suck in a ragged breath. With every ounce of strength I had left, I brought my knee up sharply, slamming it into his stomach. Cody doubled over, cursing, and I shoved him off me, scrambling to my feet.
“Missy didn’t deserve what you did to her,” I spat, my voice hoarse but defiant. “You think you didn’t have a choice? You’re wrong. You had a choice, and you chose to kill her.”
He staggered back, clutching his stomach, his face a mask of fury and regret.
“You don’t understand!” he shouted, his voice cracking again. “She—she would’ve ruined everything!”
“Everything,” I echoed bitterly, backing toward the door, trying to put distance between us. “All you cared about was your reputation. Your friendships. Your family. But what about Missy’s life? What about the fact that you stole it from her?”
Cody’s eyes darted wildly, his panic rising as he realized how much he’d said. I took another half step back, and my back hit the barn wall. My heart sank. He came at me again, his face a mask of cold fury.
“I’ve spent the last ten years covering my tracks, and I’m not about to slip now. Coming here and confronting me all by yourself was really fucking stupid, you know that?”
He pinned me to the barn wall, his hands closing around my neck again, harder and more secure this time, using the barn wall as leverage to help him cut off my air supply. The edges of my vision turned black as he got right up in my face and kept right on talking.
“But I’m grateful to you for being such an arrogant, high-handed bitch. You’ve just made it easier for me to eliminate you as part of the problem. All I have to do after that is find a way to hang this whole mess on Roman and I’m free. Knowing he’ll rot in jail for what I did is just a bonus.”
His face was twisted into an almost inhumanly gleeful snarl by the time he finished. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought he was harmless, even for a second.
I prayed that my phone was still recording, still gathering evidence. Prayed that Roman and Landon wouldn’t arrive too late to stop this and save my damn fool life. My head pounded, my pulse roared in my ears, and the whole world faded into an eerie, cold black abyss right in front of my eyes.