I barely had time to throw on a hoodie before Melendez pulled up in an unmarked black SUV. He didn’t smile. He didn’t make small talk.
He motioned for me to get in.
We drove in silence, the kind of silence that tells you whatever you’re about to see isn’t just bad.
It’s ridiculous.
Ten minutes later we turned down a set of winding back roads I didn’t even know existed behind our subdivision. Trees crowded the edges. The pavement cracked. The place felt like the neighborhood’s forgotten back alley.
Then we stopped in front of a rusted gate behind an HOA maintenance shed I’d never noticed before.
Melendez got out and walked up to the keypad, then pointed at the padlock hanging open like an afterthought.
Someone had cut it.
Inside was a fenced-off lot overgrown with weeds.
Cones.
