Free Spies and Prejudice by Talia Vance

“It’s fine, Dad. It’s about time you went out and had some fun.” My brain believes this statement completely. It’s just going to take a while to convince my heart.
    “I could say the same thing about you. It wouldn’t kill you to get out more. And not for work.”
    “I hang out with my friends.”
    “Building spy gear at Mary Chris’s house doesn’t count.”
    “We’re going to Homecoming next weekend.” It’s not even a lie. Mary Chris is making me go in exchange for the new portable scanner she’s building for me.
    Dad smiles so big, that I’m actually glad it’s not a lie. “You’ll need a dress, right? Shauna wants to take you shopping Saturday.”
    “Please don’t make me go.” It’s one thing for Dad to date her. It doesn’t have to involve me. The less I know the better.
    “You’ll go. It’ll be fun.” Dad gives me the look that says there will be no further argument on this.
    A direct attack isn’t going to work. “So I was in the storage unit today.” I let the sentence hang in the air, waiting to see if Dad takes the bait.
    “Saturday,” he says, not letting me distract him.
    “I found this box of Mom’s work papers.”
    I finally have him. Dad looks worried. “Why would you want to look through those?” He tries to keep his voice even, but it raises at the end.
    Does he know? He doesn’t look me in the eye even though I’mstaring at him. He has to have seen the threat. He packed the boxes. “Did you know that Mom received a death threat before she died?”
    Dad’s face goes from worried to angry in about two seconds. “What are you talking about?”
    “It was in her papers. There was a note.”
    Dad’s hands are shaking. His fingers tremble as he covers his mouth with his hand. Oh no. Did he not know? What am I doing to him? I take it back. I’ll go shopping with Shauna Waterson. I’ll let her buy me a ridiculous dress and I will smile and laugh and pretend I’m the kind of girl who loves being stuffed into a tube of taffeta.
    When he drops his hand all I see is fury in his eyes. “You went through her things? You should have asked me. Her work was confidential.”
    “I know. But I found—”
    “Stop. Right now.”
    I close my mouth.
    Dad walks past me into the kitchen. I stand frozen in the living room. Afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.
    He comes back with a bottle of water and takes a sip. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Berry, but you have to promise me you will let this go.”
    “What? But what if something bad happened to her?” What if this was not her fault? Not mine.
    He shakes his head. “It was an accident. It had nothing to do with that note.”
    That note
. He did know. “You don’t know that.”
    Something flashes behind his eyes. In a second I’m taken back tothat horrible year when I didn’t have a mother or a father. The pain is back on his face, only this time, I’m the one who’s putting it there. This is coming out all wrong.
    He blinks. When he looks at me again, there’s a wall in place. “You think I haven’t turned over every stone? There’s nothing to find, Berry. You have to promise me that you will not try to chase this down.”
    “But what if it’s true? It can’t be a coincidence that someone threatened her and then she’s dead? What if the person who killed her is still out there?”
    Dad looks like I’ve punched him the gut. He actually winces. “It’s a dead end. I’ve checked it out. The police checked it out.”
    The police? “The same police who decided she killed herself? You don’t believe that? You never believed that. How can you trust them on this?”
    Dad’s face is bright red.
    A new panic floods me. “You don’t believe she killed herself.” As if saying it will make it true. “You told me you didn’t.”
    Dad doesn’t answer. Water splashes from the lip of the plastic bottle in his hand.
    “Tell me.”
    He turns his back on me. “You have to let this go, Berry.”
    I