“Believe me,” Jenny said. “Gentlemen like you don’t come around very often.”
In the morning, before leaving the truck center in Twin Falls, Hugh decided to top off with fuel before the long haul down to Las Vegas that day. It was a straight shot south down Highway 93, but it was through some of the most sparsely populated landscapes that could be found anywhere in the United States.
They would be retracing much of the route he had been on the first day he had picked up Jenny on Highway 6 out of Tonopah, Nevada.
Hugh pulled up to the fuel island and got out to insert his card to start the pumps. Jenny jumped out on her side and, with her fueling gloves on, stood by the satellite pump to begin fueling the tank on that side.
“OK. Go,” Hugh said over the catwalk behind the cab.
Jenny inserted her nozzle and started the diesel fuel going. With the high-speed fuel pumps at these truck stops, hundreds of gallons would flow in the same time it would take to fill a small car’s gas tank. Hugh was only topping off his tanks, however, so they were finished in less than a minute.
They both hung up their nozzles, and got back into the truck.
“Good. We got a little over fifty gallons. That means at least one of us gets a free shower.”
Jenny pointed at Hugh.
“Ah. I see how it is,” he said.
Both laughing, Hugh pulled onto 93 with the nose of his Freightliner Cascadia pointing south.
He told Jenny they were looking at a good eight hours of driving, more or less, allowing for headwinds, which can be strong in the desert. They’d had coffee and a couple of hard-boiled eggs for breakfast before heading out. Hugh planned to stop about halfway for sandwiches and a pit stop.
Coincidentally, that halfway point would put them right at the truck stop in Ely where Hugh had first attempted to ditch Jenny.
“Are you OK with stopping for a bite to eat at the truck stop in Ely?” Hugh asked.
“Oh, yeah. No problem. That first day was actually kind of fun. At least compared to some of the things we had to go through since then.”
Toward the end of the drive that day after they had left Highway 93 and had caught I-15, they were close to Las Vegas. He decided to pull into the truck stop north of the city and call it a night.
“We’re stopping here?” Jenny asked.
“Yeah,” Hugh explained his reasoning.
Tomorrow was going to be an easy six hours or so until their 4 p.m. delivery in Mesa, so there would be no point in pushing through Las Vegas this evening during commuter traffic time.
They could take their time getting started in the morning, miss commuter traffic and still make it to their delivery in plenty of time.
The Interstate 11 bypass of Hoover Dam cut a considerable amount of time off of the exit from Las Vegas to points south. Good thing, too, Hugh had told Jenny, because truck traffic is absolutely prohibited over the dam since the events of September 11, 2001.
A couple of Hugh’s mom’s frozen homemade meals were on the menu for dinner. Hugh liked to ration them out so he could enjoy them for as long as possible, but he was in the mood for something home-cooked this evening.
Bedtime routines were being established, and there was no awkwardness about who would be sleeping where.
On Interstate 10, driving into the setting sun through West Phoenix, Joe and the women were in their cars like before. Joe was looking for a likely target, a semi-truck, to get one more practice in before the real thing tomorrow.
“Remember,” Joe said into the speakerphone of his burner phone, “this is only practice. Do everything but hit your brakes. We aren’t ready for the trucker to tap your rear bumper. That’s tomorrow.”
“OK,” Joe heard the mother say.
Joe spotted a truck driving along in the middle lane, like yesterday, keeping a good following distance. He pulled up beside the truck on the left and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see the mother’s car do the same thing on the right.
Joe sped up, and timed it so he could pull into the truck’s lane a little ahead of the truck, leaving only enough room for the mother’s car to squeeze in.
“OK …” Joe started to say on the phone to let the mother know to make her move. But, before he could finish saying it he could see in his rear-view mirror the mother had made a perfect maneuver, and was jammed in tightly between Joe and the truck, effectively cutting the truck driver’s following distance down to zero.
“Careful,” Joe said while he sped up a bit to ease the pressure on the mother and the truck driver. “Be very careful to keep your foot away from your brake pedal. That was cutting it close.”
Joe sent the mother on her way with instructions to meet at her house early the next day to get set up for the real fake-crash later in the afternoon.
He glanced around to make sure no highway patrol cruisers were nearby then dialed the attorney. No hands-free setup on the burner phone.
“Hello,” Fishburn’s voice came over the speaker.
“It’s Joe. We finished a practice, and it went real good. We’re good to go for tomorrow.”
“That’s good news. Call me tomorrow to let me know when you are set up and ready to do it.” Then the attorney hung up.
Chapter Fifteen
Hugh and Jenny took their time with their morning activities.
One of the projects Hugh wanted to do was install his
