"Okay, every five minutes I'll check in with you," said Gertie. "Just a quick one-word text. People are on their phones all the time when they walk, so I don't think that will scare him away if he sees me doing it, but I also don't want him to think that I'm in the middle of a conversation where somebody will notice right away if I stop responding."

"That works. You get thirty seconds of grace period. If I don't get a response by then, I'm calling 911."

"Let's make it at least a minute."

"Why?"

"Because thirty seconds is too short."

"Why?"

"Because if I notice that somebody is watching me, I don't want to spook him by suddenly taking out my phone. There may be a situation where I have to play it cool, and having a thirty-second ticking clock could mess everything up."

"If it's him watching you, don't you want the police to be on their way as soon as possible?"

"What if it's not him?"

"Then don't shoot him."

"I don't want you to call in a false alarm. Give me five extra minutes if I don't respond."

"No. In five minutes you could be in an alley with your ribcage cracked open."

"Two minutes."

"I get what you're saying, but I will be haunted forever if I go along with this plan and you get abducted or killed or both. So I am not going to just wait if something seems to be wrong. If that's a problem, I'm out."

Gertie stared out the window for a moment. "All right. You're the one giving up her evening for me. I will make every effort to respond in thirty seconds, and if you have to call 911, that's fine. Anyway, we both know that there's almost zero chance that I'll actually encounter this guy."

"I knew that. I'm glad you know that."

Gertie lowered the visor and checked herself out in the small mirror. "Does this look work for me?"

"You look better as a blonde."

"Yeah, I think so, too. Actually, the color is fine, but hair this straight doesn't work with my face." She raised the visor again. "I'm not sure if I mentioned this yesterday, but this whole idea terrifies me. I may have given the impression that I'm brave and casual about it, and that's wrong. I'm scared shitless. So unless you think it's really rude, I'm just going to sit here with my eyes closed and do deep-breathing exercises until we get there."

"That's totally cool."

"Thank you." Gertie closed her eyes.

Charlene wondered if this was a bad idea. Then she wondered why she was wondering—of course this was a bad idea. It was a terrible idea. It was a ridiculous idea. The fact that this was a bad idea was never in question. It was the kind of thing a guy would do hoping to get laid.