He headed down the hall, pulling his shirt over his head as he stepped into the shadows. A moment later Savannah heard the bathroom door close and the shower turn on.

She crossed to the television and shifted the rabbit ears again. The signal didn’t improve, so she turned it off. Her eyes went to the framed pictures hanging above the TV. One was a faded color photo of a young man wearing a cap and gown, the number 73 hanging from the mortarboard’s tassel. The man’s complexion was darker than Cole’s, his eyes a little closer together, but the resemblance was obvious. Another frame held a black-and-white photo of the same man in full military dress. The contrast between the two pictures was dramatic. Comparing the dates, she realized that they were taken just a few years—and a tour of duty—apart.

A picture of Cole wearing a Dallas Cowboys tank top hung between the two portraits. One of his front teeth was missing. He was holding a cane pole, a tiny perch dangling from the line. Cole’s father beamed proudly behind him, shirtless, in a pair of cutoffs. Seeing as how the man was a drunk who’d skipped out on his family, Savannah was surprised by how much of a presence he still held in the house.

She took her cell phone out of her pocket. She was halfway through dialing her dad’s number when her curiosity got the best of her. She closed the phone and headed down the hallway.

The trailer shifted with every step across the creaky floor. She moved past the bathroom door on her right and peered into the darkened room to her left. She couldn’t make out much more than a carpeted floor strewn with skirts, wadded tops, hose, bras, panties, and shoes. The room smelled of cheap perfume and aerosol hairspray.

She moved on to the closed door at the end of the hall, turned the knob, and stepped inside. Something squished beneath her sock. She was standing on Cole’s wet Levi’s, the waistband still stiffly upright where he had stepped out of them moments before. A shudder passed through her. She stepped over them and moved farther into the cramped room.

Gym socks, jeans, T-shirts, Fruit of the Loom briefs, magazines, and dumbbells cluttered the floor. Every inch of wall space was covered. To her right, posters of Axl Rose and Eddie Vedder hung on either side of Pamela Anderson in a ski suit unzipped to the navel. A life-size cutout of Brett Favre hung on the opposite wall, a football tucked under one arm, the Vince Lombardi Trophy under the other. The edge of a creased Playboy curled from under the mattress on the floor.

None of what she saw surprised her much. What did surprise her was that she felt fascinated rather than repelled by it all.