Page 52 of Weight of Guilt

Wren’s hands came off her elbows and went behind her.

Nash fit the key into the lock, lifted the handle using the rag, and opened the door.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

The cab was a working man’s cab, Nash mused. There was a travel mug in the holder. A phone charger in the cigarette lighter. Three foam cups on the passenger floorboard, church bulletins folded on the dash, and reading glasses in the door pocket.

Nash had searched a lot of vehicles. The ones that were lived in always told you the most.

He cracked the garage door open and then turned the key partway. The fuel needle came up past half. He turned it the rest of the way, and the engine caught on the second try.

Wren glanced around the interior. “Sixty-eight years old, and he kept his truck better than his blood sugar.”

Nash smiled. “Most men do.”

Then she went quiet.

Nash looked over at her. She was staring at the dash.

“What?”

“The radio’s off.” Wren’s arms had come down at her sides. “I’m not sure if that’s truly important or not. But Paige seemed to think it was.”

Nash left the engine running and opened the glovebox, still holding the rag.

Owner’s manual, still in its plastic sleeve. Insurance card. Tire gauge. A church directory from 2019 with a rubber band around it.

Jammed underneath all of it was a wad of gas receipts thick enough that it had stopped lying flat.

He worked it out with two fingers.

“That’s a lot of paper,” Wren said.

“He was a car guy. Car guys keep receipts.” He squared the stack against his palm and started through it.

Each one had the same four lines of thermal print, already going gray at the edges.

“Fuel Stop,” he said. “Same station on every one of them.”

He squinted.

“What is it?” Wren asked.

“This truck can hold twenty gallons. But he’s been buying thirty.”

“What? How . . . ?”

“I don’t know.”

“How far back do these receipts go?” she asked.

“These go back three months. But if I had to guess, there are more somewhere, and they go back even longer.” He turned the top receipt toward her. “Where is this?”

Wren took it by the corner and leaned closer to see the faded letters. “Route 9. Past the county line. It’s probably about forty-five minutes from here—and in the opposite direction of his work.” She didn’t lower her arm. “There’s nothing out there that way. That’s not me being dramatic—there’s nothing. Hunting leases. Three or four trailers. A camp that’s been shut since before I was born.”

“Ninety minutes each trip, plus whatever he did when he got there,” he muttered. “That’s a man giving up most of a day, over and over, and coming home and lying to his niece about it.”