Lara had a thing for vintage pickup trucks—the kind they made into Christmas ornaments, embroidered onto winter pillows, or put in front of businesses to make them old-timey. When she was a kid, they’d had an old truck just like this among the battered old circus equipment. One day it had been hauled away for scrap in one of Audrey’s reorganizations, the dead-grass outline of it remaining for several years like a scar. “It’s a 1948 Chevy.”

“A 1948 Chevy 3100 five-window,” he said. “Straight-six manual. I know how you like that.” He walked around the truck and pointed past the body. About ten feet from the truck she spied a dusty pile of brown metal that looked like mechanical guts that he’d tossed out. “Wait till you see what’s in store for her. Come with me.” Todd led her around the truck to a wooden work space, rolling up his sleeves and pushing his hair back, completely focused on the plans and notes he’d drawn that were sprawled across the space. He placed his hands down on the bench and scanned the photos and sketches.

After he’d left college, failing out of the engineering program at Virginia Tech, Todd had returned to Kerrigan Falls and, on a whim, started a classic car restoration business with a man named Paul Sherman who’d owned an old garage. Over the past two years, Sherman & Sutton Classic Cars had become one of the most sought-after vintage car restoration specialists along the entire East Coast, mostly due to Todd’s reputation as a muscle car restoration expert—Corvettes, Camaros, GTOs, Chevelles, and Mustangs. Lara would never have thought that an obsession with ripping apart car engines in his teens would turn into a livelihood he loved, let alone one that was so lucrative.

“You see here”—Todd pointed to a photo of the very same Chevy with missing headlights and mismatched paint that resembled patches—“the fenders had rust all over.” Lara saw from the photo that the entire truck had been a dull weathered brown when he’d found it. So engrossed was he in shaping this metal puzzle into a work of art and seemingly unhappy about some detail, he appeared to be lost in his own world, his arms folded and the line of his square jaw pulsing.