“I don’t understand,” she said. “What is it you guys do for a living?”

She didn’t want to know. But she knew anyway. Maybe she’d always known.

“You remember those houses we drove past this morning? Up in the hills looking down on Lake Tahoe?”

She remembered him pointing them out. High in the pines, broad expanses of glass flashed in the sun, making her think of poolside cocktails and magazine models. She’d craned her neck for a better view, wondering at the golden lives of the people who lived there. They were never lonely or scared. They had food in the fridge and more money than they could ever spend.

“They’re all owned by wealthy jerks who live somewhere else,” Roy said. “They might only visit once or twice a year. But those houses are filled with wonderful things, the kind of things that you and I could work two jobs and save our whole lives and still never be able to afford. Designer watches and fine jewelry. Giant entertainment systems. High-end firearms that have never been cleaned. Power tools that have never been used. Jet Skis and dirt bikes and vintage cars. Just sitting there, all of it. It’s a damn shame. It’s a crime, really.”

He gave her the warm smile that soaked into her bones.

“So Frank and I, along with a couple others, we rob them. Very carefully. We take only the most valuable stuff. We keep the things we like and we sell the rest.”

In each town where she’d spent the night on this trip, she’d walked the outskirts looking up at the houses set on the surrounding mountainsides like jewels in the trees. She turned back to Roy.

“That’s where my green coat came from,” she said. “Not from a resale shop. You stole it.”

“Yes.” His voice was soft, almost a purr. “But it’s a lot warmer than your old coat, right? Isn’t it nice not to be cold? Or hungry? And stay in a nice hotel, with some cash in your pocket?”

She thought about the money Roy had given her, tucked into the bottom of her bag. It made her feel safe, knowing she could take care of herself, at least for a little while. She thought about the money she’d taken from the register at the Gas and Grocery. She’d told herself Bogaloosa owed it to her. And he did, didn’t he? He’d held back her paycheck. He owed her that money and more.

She frowned at the long chest freezer. “What’s in there?”

“These big houses, sometimes they have a bunch of meat in the freezer, slowly going bad. Really good meat. Elk, venison, grass-fed beef. We take that, too. We can’t sell it, but we can grill it ourselves, back home. And we can give it away to people like us, who maybe don’t always have enough to eat.”

She stepped inside the trailer and tugged on the freezer’s lid. It didn’t open.