Page 108 of Lost Trust

Marina’s more like her than she realizes.

Royce

The drive out to Moran is supposed to take about forty-five minutes, but I make it closer to an hour. Not because the road is bad or because I get lost. I just take my sweet-ass time getting there.

Having Marina beside me makes me in no particular hurry to reach our destination.

She sits in the passenger seat with the window cracked, her dark hair lifting in the breeze as the Wyoming landscape rolls past us. She is wearing the same pair of denim cutoffs she wore the day we were working on the bunk beds, a gray Texas Prison Rodeo T-shirt, and a pair of black calf-high cowgirl boots.

Every so often, she turns and catches me looking. “What?”

“Nothing. Just enjoying the scenery.”

She glances out the windshield. “The scenery is in front of you.”

“I know.”

The corner of her mouth lifts.

By the time we turn off the highway onto a narrow, rutted road that disappears into the trees, I’m glad I made time to bring her out here.

Because there’s no way in hell I’d have been comfortable letting her come out to this location alone.

The road winds through the woods before opening into a small clearing. A weathered trailer sits tucked among the trees, its rotting wooden porch crowded with potted plants and whatever odds and ends have accumulated there over the years.

And parked in the tall, dead grass is the truck.

A 2000 Ford F-150.

It’s an extended cab pickup with faded gray paint and a strip of red running along the lower body. The chrome grille is dull but still intact, the rectangular headlights yellowed with age. A black bug deflector stretches across the hood, and the front bumper has taken its share of abuse. The tires look like they’ve seen better days, and the truck sits slightly crooked in the uneven yard.

But underneath all the age and neglect, I can see why somebody might want it. It’s an old Ford. Those things can run damn near forever if somebody takes care of them.

The problem is, I’m not sure anybody has taken care of this one.

A big, burly man with wild yellow-gray hair and a full beard comes around the side of the trailer.

He’s wearing a dingy T-shirt stretched across his broad chest, his beer belly hanging out beneath the hem. His jeans are stained, and he wipes his hands on them as he walks toward us.

“You here for the Ford?” he asks hoarsely.

“That’s us,” I say.

He jerks his chin toward the truck. “Two grand. Got two hundred thousand on her.”

I look at the F-150 again. “Anything wrong with it?”

“Runs.”

Not exactly the answer I was looking for.

“AC don’t work no more. Neither does the radio.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a key ring, and tosses it to me. “Fire it up. Look under the hood. Check whatever you want.”

I catch the keys.

Then he points toward the trailer. “Knock on the door when you’re done.”

And just like that, he turns around and heads inside.