Page 5 of One Bad Idea

"Mostly, she was calling for a ride."

Obviously.

And hadn't we covered this already?

Desperate for more information, I said, "And…?"

"And what? You got my message, right?"

I froze. "What message?"

She gave a loud sigh. "You don't seriously expect me to repeat it?"

My jaw clenched. "Well, since I didn't hear it the first time, yeah, that would be really nice."

"Well, this is just great," she said. "I go to all the trouble to call you back, and you just ignore the message."

"I wasn't ignoring it," I told her. "My phone was dead, so if you left a message, I didn't get it."

"Itcouldn’tbe dead," she shot back. "You called me like a million times."

Somehow, we'd gone from a dozen to a million in the blink of an eye.Talk about exaggeration.I hadn't even meant to callher. Rather, I'd been trying to reach my friend.

I wasstilltrying, not that I was having any luck.

But arguing the details would only waste time. Working like hell to stay calm, I explained, "Yes. Ididcall you – from a truck stop in Alabama, where I took five minutes to charge my phone.That'swhen I left those messages."

"So, why didn't you answer when I called back?"

Wasn't it obvious?"Because my phone died like ten minutes later."

Again, her tone grew snippy. "They sell chargers at truck stops, you know."

"Iknowthey do," I said. "But my vehicle doesn't have a charging port."

"Oh come on, they all do." She gave a little snicker. "Unless your vehicle's older than dirt."

The vehiclewasold, vintage actually, and it wasn't even mine. But none of this was important. I sighed. "Just tell me the message, okay?"

"Why?" she said. "It's too late now."

Oh, no.That sounded bad. "What do you mean?"

"What do youthinkit means?"

What was this? A trick question?

I shoved a hand through my long blond hair and tried to think. This wasn't as easy as it should've been. I'd been awake for over twenty hours, and half of those hours had been spent on the road, driving a semi-stolen pickup across unfamiliar terrain.

Into the silence, she said, "Itmeans, you should've followed my advice."

"What?"

"Yeah," she said. "And if you didn't bother to listen, it's notmyproblem, sodon'tcall me again."

And with that, she hung up.

More confused than ever, I pulled the phone from my ear and studied the display.