Forbidden Boy

“Would you believe an unfortunate drywall accident?” Remi asked gamely.

“Not particularly,” his father barked back.

“Well, that’s a shame. Because that’s exactly what happened. I was completely covered with powder and I figured it was better to clean up and change now, rather than walk around all day looking like I’d been caught in a freak snowstorm.” Julia

“Remington, that’s a pathetic excuse,” Mr. Moore responded icily. Julia

Moore was being unduly harsh—it wasn’t like he’d 104

Forbidden Boy

walked in and found Remi playing Wii on the job. He was cleaning up after a work accident and heading back to his crew. Clearly there was some precedent for this sort of thing; why else would these trailers include showers in their bathrooms?

“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir,” Remi replied.

Julia

“Listen, Remington,” Mr. Moore continued. “It’s about time you grew up and learned to handle responsibility. How am I going to trust you to take over my business when you can’t stay on top of one project crew?”

“But—” Remi began to protest.

“But nothing.” His father charged on. “Are you on the site supervising your crew, or are you hiding in this trailer like some spoiled celebrity?” Julia

“You can’t expect your crew to respect you,” Mr.

Moore concluded solemnly, “until you give them a reason. I challenge you to earn their respect, Remington.

And mine.”

105

Hailey Abbott

“Yes, sir,” Remi answered. Julia

Julia

tyra

! ! !

When Julia

Forbidden Boy

local children’s book authors, and Chloe had left a note saying that she’d be home from the hospital around ten o’clock.

Julia

After a few minutes of distracting herself with home-made bags, prints, and jewelry at etsy.com, Julia

As Julia

“recon” of “the subject,” she got a little twisting feeling in her stomach. Was she taking this too far? The guy on this MySpace page wasn’t some sort of teenage Donald Trump. MySpace Remi listened to good music, and read good books, and had lots of fu

Consciously, Julia

assault against her family and their beach. But the tiniest of tiny pangs at the bottom of her gut kept complicating 107

Hailey Abbott

things. Julia

She knew what side she was on. She needed to do what was right for her family, and nothing was going to get in her way. She logged out of MySpace quickly. But, before she could clear her head, she clicked into Google and entered the search term “Barton Moore.” 108

Chapter Ten

!

Julia

She tried to shrug off the last few weeks of confusion.

It was all she could do to keep focused at work with Remi around every corner. And, as every super spy 109

Hailey Abbott

knows, being undercover is exhausting. The hardest part for Julia

But today the light was perfect, and it was like Julia

She cranked up her iPod and laughed at the absolute perfection of it all. Keeping her eyes on her canvas she stood up and stretched her arms out to soak in the glorious day.

Then a deafening noise erupted, making her wheel around, terrified that it might have been a car crash.

But the real cause of the ruckus was even worse.

Julia

house. The confrontational-looking fencing erected around their sprawling property had multiplied and was now nearly blocking off all access to the beach. Behind them, a parade of huge shiny bulldozers and backhoes were lined up like enormous, angry hornets. One by one they rolled out and started leveling the entire area.

Julia

Leaving her things on the ground, she crept closer to the action, trying to put her newly acquired spy skills to 110

Forbidden Boy

good use. She turned off her iPod, leaving the earphones in, so that anyone who saw her would think she was just enjoying an afternoon on the beach—or what was left of the beach—with a sound track. Ducking down near the fencing behind one of the many towering dunes created by the bulldozers, Julia