Sherry slowed down even more and turned into a street with more potholes than Madison could count. Between various high spruces emerged tiny trailer houses, wooden and mostly with concrete foundations. There were no street lights, and the farther they drove into this trailer park, the more run-down the place appeared in the dark.

Trash lay around most of the ramshackle huts. The buildings, if you could call them that, had seen better days with peeled-off paint, street art, and at least one broken window. How could anybody live like this?

Sherry turned into another street, which actually wasn’t more than a dirt road. Old, mostly run-down trailers formed a huge U. No cars were parked in front of them.

Between two trailers, Sherry stopped the car and stepped out.

This was where she lived?

Only one trailer had lights on. Madison swallowed against the lump in her throat. She didn’t even have a taser.

Not really able to see anything in the darkness, she hesitated before leaving her car. On shaky legs, she closed her door and marched toward Sherry, who glared at her while closing the car door very carefully, as if afraid to make any noise.

Maybe that was exactly what Madison should have done. What if someone had heard them and came out to rob her? As fast as she could, she fished some bills out of her pants pocket and counted a hundred bucks. She pressed the money into Sherry’s hand. “Here. Throw the money and the car keys in his mailbox, get your stuff, and let’s go.” She squinted into the dark. “Um, if he has a mailbox.”

“I’m on it,” Sherry whispered. She seemed to be just as eager that nobody found out they were here.

Sherry hurried to a trailer set in the bend of the U, one without any lights on inside. When she put the money and the car keys into a little metal box beside the door, the clanking was loud enough to wake up the dead.

Sherry ignored the noise and rushed back to Madison to point toward the only trailer, which still had the lights on. “My best friend lives there. She has Jake’s pajamas. We’ll go there first, then to my trailer, the one beside it.”

Compared to the other trailers in this corner of the trailer park, it was obvious that Sherry and her neighbor kept their homes clean and tidy. At least Sherry wasn’t messy.

The sound of a dog barking from one of the shabby trailers made Madison flinch.

“Shut the fuck up over there!” someone shouted from a direction opposite where the barking had originated.

Another bark was followed by a smoky laugh and a fierce coughing.

Madison glanced over her shoulder, making sure that nobody was trying to sneak up on them. “Let’s keep this short.”

Sherry nodded without turning back to her and knocked on her friend’s trailer door.