Mike climbed into the cruiser with a hundred questions, asking who it was who called and what they said and where they were going. Preston scanned the parking lot and streets, ignoring the questions. “Any of those reporters follow you?” “No, sir, I made sure.” “You talk to anybody?” “No, sir, not even the wife.” He drove into the night without speaking, running the scenario through his head, windows open. Preston hated using the air conditioner. He made a few turns to make sure no one was following them, then headed east on Route 60 until they hit Dogwood, passing the old elementary school. His family had lived here in his childhood, before moving west of Huntington. His father had brought him to the redbrick building on the left when he was little. His dad called it the Feed Store, though it said Dogwood Farm Implement Company on the front. It was a place with a thousand smells of freshly ground corn and molasses and sweet hay and new machinery. His father always let him get a bottle of pop from the refrigerator and a candy bar, and as they passed where the building used to stand, now replaced by a tiny strip mall with a place to have your nails done and a dry cleaners, he could almost taste the Zagnut bar and Mountain Dew, a sweet communion of the past.
