Page 118 of Weight of Guilt

Nash took off the lid. Receipts filled the box, packed upright and tight together.

He worked out a stack and squared it against his palm. They were all gas receipts from the same station.

He checked the dates, then pulled another handful from deeper in the box.

Wren glanced over from the counter. “Can I ask you something?”

Paige looked at her. “Anything.”

Wren hesitated, one hand still resting on the grocery bag. “Did Roy ever talk about Christian after he disappeared?”

Paige’s face changed. “Not much. But sometimes I’d come over and find him in that chair with the television off. Just sitting there, looking like a haunted man.”

Wren stayed quiet.

Paige rubbed her thumb along the edge of the table. “I always figured he was thinking about something he didn’t want to talk about.”

Wren’s throat tightened. “Maybe he was.”

Nash kept working through the receipts as they talked. He’d expected them to go back six years. That was when Roy had supposedly started hauling extra gas for Faye.

But the dates kept going.

Seven years.

Eight.

Nine.

The paper near the bottom had gone soft with age, the print faded enough that he had to angle each receipt beneath the kitchen light.

Then he stopped.

Ten years.

He checked the date again.

September.

Nash laid the receipt flat on the table.

Wren immediately noticed. “What?”

He kept his eyes on the paper. “Roy bought gas at that station going back ten years.”

The room seemed to quiet around them.

That meant . . . Roy had been driving that road four years before he ever started visiting Faye.

Which meant the extra gas had started long before her.

Nash looked at Paige. “I’d like to take these.”

She waved toward the box. “Take all three if they’ll help. I need to start clearing that room out anyway.”

“You’ve got somebody helping you with that?” Wren asked.

“A couple of cousins are coming to help.” Paige gathered the mail off the legal pad and squared the stack against the table.