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lot.”
    Mom frowned and put her hands on her hips. “I’m a little more than ‘concerned.’”
    â€œCan you just tell me what’s going on?” I asked. “Are there more protestors at the site?”
    Dad shook his head. “As of five minutes ago, no. Brie, I should have told you and your mom about the controversy around this job before now. I completely understand if going to work there would make you uncomfortable.”
    â€œI’m not afraid of them,” I said. But my heart rate increased a little. What if Jack McCoy was there and he and Dad started fighting again? I tried to push away the question forming in my brain, but I couldn’t stop it. What if
Logan
was there?
    â€œHon, you don’t have to go,” Dad said, looking into my eyes. “Are you sure?”
    â€œTotally,” I said. “After all, I am your secretary and webmistress.” I paused, and grinned. “Plus, I need money.”
    Mom and Dad laughed.
    â€œOkay, okay,” Mom said, throwing up her hands. “But you
both
better come home and let the police handle the situation if it’s out of control.”
    â€œPromise,” I said, hugging Mom with one arm. “I’ll be back for lunch,” I called. Dad had already strapped my bike to the rack. The job site wasn’t far from home and I didn’t want to work all of Dad’s long hours.
    After Dad said another good-bye to Mom, we grabbed our stuff and headed for the Explorer.
    â€œYou’re in
trrroooouble
,” I sang teasingly.
    Dad sighed and shook his head. “I am most definitely in trouble. Your mom was not happy that I didn’t tell her about the protestors before we got here.”
    I clicked my seat belt and put my coffee in the cup holder.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell us?” I asked. Dad turned on the engine, backed the SUV around a concrete birdbath and eased it over the little bridge, and started down a bumpy, barely paved road toward the site. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows. I reached down to my Fossil messenger bag—a gift from Kate—and found my pair of Dollar General sunglasses. “We always talk about
everything.
”
    Outside my window, a giant herd of black cattle grazed calmly. A tangled barbed-wire fence choked with weeds ran along the road. Chunks of the fence were missing, and I wondered why the cattle didn’t escape through the fence holes. I kept expecting to see someone either jump out at us with a sign or start following us to the site. But the road was eerily quiet.
    â€œHonestly, hon, the real-estate agent did speak to me about the possibility of all this. But I didn’t expect anything to really happen—especially not at our
home.
I just hope you or Mom don’t need to deal with that when one of you is home alone.” Dad sighed again. “I’m sorry that you had to wake up to that. I never want you to feel vulnerable in your own space.”
    He eased up on the gas pedal as the single-lane road changed from concrete to a black-tarred road. We hadn’t passed one car yet.
    â€œI don’t,” I said. “They aren’t showing up to
hurt
us.”
    â€œI know, but I don’t want you around them again. Brie, you have to promise that you
will
go home if that idiot McCoy and his merry men show up at the site,” Dad said. He put the turned-off Bluetooth device in his right ear and pressed it. The light turned from orange to green.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “But, Dad, I would worry.”
    He looked over at me, then back at the road. The Explorer eased up just a notch.
    â€œWorry about what?”
    â€œYou. What if McCoy and those people get
really
mad? They probably all have guns or bear tranquilizers or something.”
    The corner of Dad’s mouth curled up and he laughed.
    â€œUm, what’s funny?” I asked. “I was talking about people possibly hurting