Her small rented room held a low folding cot, two taped cardboard boxes of baby clothes by the window and a square laminate table.

“Did anybody follow your truck off the highway?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“I took three different back streets through Old East Dallas before I parked.”

Rebecca knelt beside the cot, lifted the edge of the thin mattress, and reached into a torn pillowcase tucked against the floorboards.

She pulled out a thick brown manila folder held shut with a worn red rubber band.

“I hid this under my mattress the morning Garrett locked me out of the house,” she said.