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kitchen and the garage. In his black-gloved hand, he held a gun. POLICE was spelled out in yellow letters on his black baseball cap. “Don’t move!” he barked.
    On the other side of the house, I heard shouts, orders, questions. Laurel cried out. It sounded like someone had hurt her. I tried to run to her, but the policeman grabbed my arm.
    “I said don’t move!”
    “What’s going on?” My voice shook.
    He didn’t answer.
    A minute later, more cops marched my parents into the kitchen. Their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs.
    “You’re under arrest,” one of the cops told them.
    “For what?” Matt said defiantly, but he looked scared. He was breathing in big gulps, like a swimmer who had just escaped a rough sea. His face was red and blotchy, shiny with sweat.
    “Drug dealing. We can talk about it down at the station.”
    “What about our daughter?” Laurel asked.
    The cop holding my arm said, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her.”
    I could not believe this was happening.
    As I watched Matt and Laurel being led outside, I couldn’t breathe. When I went to the kitchen window, no one stopped me. After a cop came back in to grab a pair of shoes for Matt, they were taken to separate squad cars. A few of the neighbors had gathered on the curb, watching.
    Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped. It was the cop who had grabbed my arm a few minutes before. “Come on, Ellie,” he said. “I have to take you in, too.”
    It felt all wrong that a stranger knew my name. “Can’t I just stay here?” I managed to whisper. It was hard to force words out past the empty space in my chest. “I’m sixteen.”
    He shook his head. “Sorry. We’ve got orders. Everyone in the house has to go down to the station.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    They put me in a small, dreary room, square and windowless. It held only a scarred table and two orange plastic chairs. The cop had left me there after promising that “somebody” would be by “soon” to talk to me. There was nothing to read, nothing to look at except the graffiti scratched into the table. With one finger, I traced the deepest of them. It read THE 5-0 ARE SCREWED.
    I hadn’t even thought to grab my purse, so I didn’t have my cell phone. I didn’t know who I would call, anyway. Marijean? She wouldn’t know what to do any more than I did. Coyote? How could he help me?
    At first I did nothing but cry, leaning over to wipe my nose on the knee of my jeans. What was going to happen to me? To my parents? I guessed it could be pretty bad. Finally I forced myself to choke back the tears. I hadn’t seen a camera or a tape recorder, and the room didn’t have one of those two-way mirrors, but I had seen enough TV to know that someone must be watching me.
    After a while, I rested my head on my folded arms and tried to sleep. The best I could manage was a feeling like I was floating, not anchored to anything.
    When the door finally opened about three hours later, I started. Quickly, I composed my face, hoping that the man walking into the room hadn’t noticed. I didn’t want to look vulnerable or weak. He wore a suit instead of a uniform, but his dirty-blond hair was so short he still looked like a cop or a soldier. He was older, but not as old as Matt, tall and muscular, with fine lines at the corners of his bright blue eyes. In his suit and with his short hair, he looked kind of like the TV father I sometimes daydreamed about.
    “Hello, Ellie.” He gave me a nod.
    I didn’t like that he already knew who I was.
    “And who are you?” I said.
    “I’m Special Agent John Richter. Federal Bureau of Investigation.” In one hand, he held a briefcase. With the other, he reached out and shook my hand, squeezing the bones.
    Richter sat down in the other chair, set the briefcase on the floor and regarded me calmly. A minute passed. Then another. I looked anywhere else but at him—the floor, a corner where the walls met the ceiling, the toes of my shoes. Whenever I