Page 99 of Wicked Pickle

“No, but here’s my number in case you hear from Diesel.” I grab a bar napkin and scribble my number on it.

Jake sticks it in his pocket. “All right.”

A hulking biker in a hot pink skull cap approaches with an order, and Jake moves farther down the bar.

We sit there as more customers come in. An old man, shirtless beneath a fraying denim vest, whoops at the sight of Marietta. “I remember you, sparkle tits!”

Marietta leans in close to me. “I don’t think I want to stay here without Diesel and Merrick. I’ve caused too much trouble.”

She’s right. I slide off the stool. “I don’t want to wait on Vicki, anyway. Jake has my number. Let’s go.”

When we’re out in the sun and dust, I toss the keys to Marietta. “Drive me to Diesel’s house. I’m going to try texting him again.”

She opens the driver’s side door. “It won’t help if he can’t use his phone for some reason.”

“Or he’s blocked me.” It’s hard to think that could be true.

“He wouldn’t.”

“He might if he thinks I’m in on this.”

Marietta gets inside. “He doesn’t.”

I sit in the passenger seat. “Maybe he didn’t before, and now he does?”

She cranks the engine. “I refuse to believe that.”

As we roll along the highway, I review everything we’ve said to each other since I told him Bailey had given up the location of the Leaky Skull.

He was responsive. Mad but talking to me. We both blamed Bailey for the betrayal.

The last thing we said to each other was yesterday, hours before the Pickles came.

Diesel: Good morning. I trust you slept naked?

Me: With legs wide open in case you snuck in.

Diesel: That’s my good girl.

I glance out the window at the passing landscape. Those aren’t the last words of a man who is about to ghost you.

Marietta cranks the A/C, the cold air blowing her hair back. “Any luck?”

“I’m reading over what we’ve said to each other, trying to figure out why he’d be mad enough to ignore me.”

I type and delete and type and delete until I come up with a message.

Me: Got worried, so I stopped by the bar. Marietta and I aren’t speaking to Bailey. What she did was wrong. I’m upset. Where are you?

I consider my words one more time, then delete theWhere are you?

I don’t want him to not reply to avoid telling me where he is. I just want a response.

I send it.

The phone is heavy in my hand as we head the same way we drove that crazy night when Marietta went wild. I haven’t been there since. Diesel has always come to me.

“You going to let me know where to turn?” Marietta asks. “I was a little incapacitated last time.”