“Drive carefully,” I said.

Twenty minutes later, Damon turned his car into my parents’ driveway — and stamped on the brakes so hard I imagine the whole frame lurched.

My father was standing on the front lawn.

Beside him stood Everett Brennan and Nolan Weaver, two men Damon knew on sight from years of industry events, two men whose presence together on a suburban lawn on a January morning could not possibly mean anything good.

The color went out of his face all at once.