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parents—excuse me, Matt and Laurel—have drug arrests stretching back into the seventies. That makes them career offenders. Career offenders with a grow operation in the basement. And this isn’t the seventies anymore, in case they haven’t noticed. The law takes drugs a lot more seriously. A lot more. At a minimum, they can be charged with maintaining a dwelling for the purpose of manufacturing marijuana, possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of selling or delivering, felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance, manufacturing marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Not to mention child endangerment.”
    He paused, but I didn’t say anything. The list was overwhelming. Under the table, I clenched my fists so hard I could feel my fingernails cut into my palms. How could my parents have been so stupid?
    Richter stood up. “If you help us, we’ll make you a deal. We’ll drop the charges against your parents for lack of evidence. Otherwise, they will be looking at a long stretch of jail time.”
    “So if I spy on MED for you, my parents won’t have to go to jail? And I won’t have to go to a foster home?”
    He nodded. “If you help us, we’ll help you.”
    I told myself there was no way that the MEDics could be what Richter said. I thought of Coyote, of how much it had hurt him when his grandfather had shot the deer. If he got that upset over a deer, he would never do anything to a person. No matter what Richter says, I know Coyote, at least, can’t be involved in anything violent.
    So even if I did what Richter asked, probably nothing would come of it. They wouldn’t find anything, and my parents wouldn’t get in trouble. Still, I tried to think of another way out, tried to find a place to look other than in Richter’s eyes.
    But finally I had to speak.

CHAPTER SIX
    “We won’t tell Matt,” Laurel murmured into my hair as she held me close.
    Richter had let Laurel in only after I had signed a long form that I had been too exhausted to read. The one detail that caught my attention was that my mother had already signed it. It seemed like a betrayal, but the thought flew from my mind when she pushed passed Richter and hugged me.
    It was only after Richter left that I finally allowed my tears to fall. I hadn’t let Laurel hug me like this in years, but now I felt like a child again.
    When I finally calmed down, I put my lips next to her ear. “They want me to spy for them.”
    Her reply was no louder than a sigh. “We’ll figure out something.”
    She let go of me and opened the door. I wondered if it had ever been locked. How could I have been so cowed by Richter’s threats? In math class, I could solve any problem—why couldn’t I have figured out something that would have gotten Richter off my back and saved my parents?
    Laurel’s plan not to tell Matt was tested right from the beginning. He was waiting for us in the lobby, and as soon as we were on the sidewalk outside the police station, he unleashed a whole bunch of questions. Was I all right? Why were we being released? Had we gotten a lawyer? Had we paid bail?
    Laurel held up one hand. “Calm down, Matt,” she said in a weary voice. “Nothing bad happened. They were in the middle of questioning me when another cop barged in, and they ended up having this big, angry discussion. It turns out there was a mistake in the warrant.”
    “What?” Matt looked dazed.
    “It wouldn’t have held up in court. And I started telling them about how we have a friend who’s a lawyer—you know, that guy Mike Callinan at Legal Aid—and about how he could sue their asses, and suddenly they decided the best thing was to let us go. Act like it never happened.”
    Laurel went on, constructing her lie in midair, adding more details about how the police had apologized, until her story seemed more real than what had happened. The more Laurel talked, the less Matt seemed to listen. It was like he just checked out.
    Because the