“You talk to me, or you don’t talk to anybody.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Michael said.

Travis pushed his hands back down into his coat pockets.

He stared at Michael for a long, silent moment.

Then Travis turned his back and walked slowly to his dark blue pickup without saying goodbye.

Michael watched the pickup’s red taillights vanish around the corner of the library lot.

He stood on the asphalt a long time.

The evening air felt a lot colder than it had ten minutes earlier.