Chapter Fifteen
When Atticus pulled into the trailer park, a flood of memories hit him as he navigated through the potholes and cracked concrete, passing the rusted metal houses. This place felt eerily similar to the trailer park his grandmother had lived in when he was a kid.
Most of these were in desperate need of repair, some likely should’ve been condemned already. Every sixth one looked as though someone cared for it enough to add some homier touches, such as the bright yellow flowers in a homemade window box or mulch around a skinny tree in the yard.
He wondered what it had looked like when Decker lived there. The same? Or was it now rundown from time and lack of interest or means?
“You see any numbers?” Atticus asked Archer.
Tesha’s head popped up between the seats as though she was going to be the one to give him direction.
“A couple. Keep going.” Archer scratched Tesha’s head. “Based on what I’m seeing, it’ll be at the end of this street on the right.”
They could’ve walked the neighborhood easily.
All three streets ran parallel to one another, roughly ten houses on each side, for a total of fifty to sixty trailers.
Maybe less because there were a few empty lots sprinkled in.
Or perhaps they weren’t empty, and the grass was just too high to see what was buried within.
“According to what Luca found the other day,” Archer noted, “Decker’s father passed away two years ago. The house shows to be in Decker’s name now, and it looks like someone’s paying the rent on the lot. Trailer is paid for.”
Was Decker paying for it? Did he have a sentimental attachment? Or just didn’t have time to get by and clear it out?
Those were questions Atticus didn’t think they would get answers to. Decker Bromwell did not seem like the forthcoming type.
“This is it,” Archer said, pointing toward a freshly painted trailer with cream-colored siding and maroon trim.
This particular single-wide mobile home was considerably newer and not metal.
By considerably, Atticus figured it had been new sometime in the late 90s, while the majority of the others would’ve been constructed in the early to mid-80s.
“Looks like someone’s keepin’ up with the place,” Archer said. “And keeping the yard mowed.”
There weren’t any homey touches on this one, but the yard was mowed, the shrubs—what few there were—had been trimmed.
Was Decker doing that? And why bother when the rest of the neighborhood looked like the weeds were attempting to swallow it up?
The driveway was wide enough for two cars, but there weren’t any parked there. The concrete was stained from years of leaking oil. Beside the driveway was a mailbox that looked like it had been replaced recently.
Archer got out first, helping Tesha out of the back seat. Atticus moved more slowly, glancing at the trailers across the street, wondering if any of the current occupants had lived there when Decker was a kid.
When he joined Archer and Tesha on the path to the door, he said, “Let’s knock. Maybe he’s rentin’ the place out.”
Archer remained on the path with Tesha while Atticus walked up on the small wooden deck that passed as a porch. The storm door looked new. Cheap, but new. There was no doorbell, so he opened the screen and knocked on the front door.
After a minute, it became evident that no one was going to answer.
“We’ll check the back,” Archer said, slipping around the side of the house with Tesha prancing at his side.
Again, Atticus looked around, attempting to act as though he was supposed to be there. A short time later, the front door opened, and Archer appeared.
“Definitely vacant.” Archer stepped back so Atticus could join him.
“Did you pick the lock?”
“Well, I wasn’t crawling through the window.”
That particular mental image made Atticus smile. He could just see Archer stuck in the window, giant shoulders wedged, his ass hanging out.
Closing the door behind him, Atticus stepped into the dimly lit room.
New blinds covered the windows, keeping the sun at bay.
Or maybe they’d put them up to keep prying eyes from checking out the place.
There was new carpet in the living room, and new laminate wood flooring in the kitchen and hallway. It smelled like fresh paint.
“Not much to it,” Archer said from somewhere off to the right. “Two bedrooms, one bath. There’s furniture back here.”
Atticus made his way down the narrow hallway, past a bathroom which looked like it had been gutted and redone, and a small, recently carpeted bedroom on the right.
At the end was another bedroom, likely considered the primary in a house of this size.
It had been painted, and the new carpet extended in there as well.
The furniture was new: a full-size, white lacquer bed, a matching dresser, and a nightstand.
On the dresser, a black jewelry box sat on top of a white doily.
On the nightstand, there was a pink, wind-up alarm clock and a lamp with a frilly shade.
The plush white comforter and pillows decorating the bed still had creases from the packages they’d been in.
“I don’t get it,” Atticus said, slowly spinning to take it all in. “Why furniture in here?”
“Looks like it’s girl’s furniture, at that,” Archer noted. “And I already checked, the kitchen’s empty. No dishes. There’s some toilet paper under the sink in the bathroom and a set of towels—new with tags—hanging on a bar. Other than that, nothing. No soap or toiletries.”
Why would Decker keep this? And why would he furnish only one room?
“Do you think this was his room when he was a kid?” he asked Archer.
“Could’ve been. If his dad was on the road all the time, maybe he got the big room.”
Atticus could see that. But it didn’t explain the furniture. He doubted this was the style Decker had when he was a kid, so he likely wasn’t trying to recreate memories.
Archer went to the nightstand, opened the top drawer. Atticus watched as he reached in and pulled out a picture frame. After glancing at it, Archer passed it his way.
“That looks like Meredith,” Atticus said, studying the image of a woman holding a baby. “Why does he have a picture of her holdin’ a kid?”
“Only one she had?” Archer mused.
Yeah, maybe. When Kylie or Jessie were babies? Maybe Decker wanted a picture of her, and that was what she opted to give him? Seemed odd, but so did a lot of other things about this case.
And this room.
“Check the back of the picture,” Archer suggested. “See if there’s a note on it.”
It took only a second to pry the photo from the frame. He flipped it over. “Someone noted the year as 2006. And there’s a name. Cicily Rose. Three months,” he read.
“Definitely not Kylie or Jessie.” Atticus looked up at Archer. “Is that…?”
“Decker and Meredith’s kid?”
“Yeah.” Could it be?
“2006 would’ve been the year after she left,” Archer stated. “And that would make the kid about sixteen now.”
Atticus looked back at the photo. “Decker would’ve been what? Twenty-one, twenty-two when the kid was born?”
“Something like that,” Archer confirmed. “But we didn’t find anything about a kid.”
No, they hadn’t. And they’d done a reasonably thorough investigation on Decker and Meredith. At least he thought they had.
Atticus looked at the room. “Surely he isn’t keepin’ this house for her.”
“I’ll send the information to Evan and Becs,” Archer stated. “See if they can talk to them about the girl.”
Nodding, Atticus took a quick picture with his phone before putting the photo back in the frame and into the drawer before closing it. He texted the image to Becs so she would have it.
“If he has a kid, do you think he’s been in her life?” Atticus mused, not expecting a response. “Did Meredith raise her? While on the run?”
“Maybe she wasn’t on the run,” Archer said, following him as they made their way to the front door.
“You think she ran away to have the kid?”
“A question we should probably ask her.”
Yeah. At least with the photo, maybe Evan would have some leverage to make the woman talk.
“Come on, girl,” Archer said to Tesha as he pushed open the front screen door. “Let’s see if anyone in the neighborhood’ll talk to us.”
“I’ll go across the street,” Atticus told him. “You take this side.”
They went their separate ways, but their attempt to talk to people proved futile. Either no one was home, or they simply didn’t want to be bothered. Atticus tried four houses before giving up. When he returned to the truck, Archer was giving Tesha water.
Archer stood when he approached. “How’d it go?”
“Nothin’.”
“Same here.”
Atticus looked around one more time, swearing he saw a curtain move in the trailer across the street. He stared until he assumed his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He made a mental note to swing back through if they didn’t come up with a better lead to follow.
“Where to now?” Archer asked when they were back in the truck.
“I want to drive by the high school.” He started the engine, began navigating the bumpy road again. “Get a feel for where those two met.”
“You’re a visual guy, huh?”
Atticus glanced over, smirked. He was proud of himself for not popping off the first thought that came to mind. I prefer to be the watchee, not the watcher didn’t seem like the appropriate thing to say to your new partner. No matter how hot the guy was.
And damn if Archer Halligan wasn’t fucking hot.
Evan walked out onto the front porch when he heard Becs’s car pull up.
He had called her half an hour ago and asked if she wanted to go with him to talk to Meredith Prescott.
With Slade off helping Luca, he would’ve had to go solo otherwise.
While he wasn’t opposed to working alone, he found that they could cover more ground when there were two of them.
And in this case, it would likely work in his favor to have a female with him. Becs might put Meredith at ease.
“Hi, Mr. Vaughn,” Carly, Becs’s nine-year-old daughter, said as she skipped by him into the house.