Instead of answering outright, Floyd asked: Just Jeremys room. Right?

For now, Barnes said with some skepticism. Thanks, Floyd.

Barnes escorted Kate and DeMarco to the trailer. As they walked up the rickety porch, Kate looked back out at Floyd Branch. He was walking back into his shed, seemingly unaffected by the exchange.

He wasnt nearly as bad as you were letting on, Kate said.

Apparently hes getting a late start on drinking today.

They walked inside the trailer and Kate was surprised by what she saw. She had been expecting it to be in a state of disrepair, cluttered and messy. But Floyd apparently owned very little, including anything that could consist of clutter. The place was fairly clean, though it had the same sort of smell Kate had experienced at his sons trailer earlier: stale beer and something slightly pungent that was probably old pot smoke.

The hallway was thin and only held three rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, and a smaller bedroom near the back. Kate and DeMarco entered Jeremys room while Barnes hung back.

Im here for any support you need, he said. But theres barely enough room for the two of you in there, much less the three of us.

He was right. The room was very small, taken up mostly by a twin mattress sitting on the floor and an old desk that was piled up with DVDs and CDs. A small television and dusty DVD player sat on the floor at the foot of the mattress, their wires and cables snaking around the floor. A cell phone sat on top of the television, hooked to a charger that ran to a multi-outlet adapter that also powered the TV, DVD player, and the small box fan in the window.

Kate picked the phone up. It was an iPhone, about three models behind the most current. When she pressed the Home button, the screen instantly popped up. No password needed. The home screen showed only a few apps: a few games, settings, photos, and clock. She figured this was just a passed down phone, one with no service but still used for games. She had a few friends who had eased their older kids into owning a cell phone this same way. Before gifting them with a full-service phone, they had allowed their kids to have a hand-me-down without full services, capable of only texting selected users and playing games that did not require Wi-Fi.

Behind her, DeMarco was flipping through the movies. Floyd really wasnt kidding about his son watching porn back here. Half of these are amateur porn titles. The other half are Cinemax-style sex stuff.