Road Test by David Wickenhauser (most read book in the world .txt) 📕

Hugh did his pre-trip, which gave Jenny a chance to drink her coffee. Then she hopped down to do her windshield and mirror-cleaning chores.

All that out of the way, they pulled out of the truck stop and got onto 90/395 heading south toward Twin Falls, Idaho.

Jenny had the newspaper and Hugh’s laptop in her lap in the passenger seat of the truck.

She started with the newspaper, turning to the article about them.

It was on the front page of the Features Section, C-1, topped by a photo of Hugh and Jenny together sitting at the table in Charlie’s room at the Carriage House.

“I don’t remember her taking that photo,” Jenny said.

“She must have done it on the sly with her cell phone,” Hugh said. “It’s easy enough to snap a picture with those things without being noticed.”

Jenny skimmed the article to get a sense of what it was about.

When she had finished, she told Hugh, “The headline is, ‘Hero trucker goes above and beyond to subdue hijackers and save Idaho trooper’s life.’ The subhead was ‘Details of harrowing event exclusive to the Times.’“

She read the whole story out loud to Hugh. When she finished, she said, “That’s not bad at all. A lot better than I was expecting.”

“Yeah, it’s straightforward and accurate, which is a bit of a surprise.”

The reporter had quoted what Hugh and Jenny had told her word for word. Then she had built up the piece, filling in blanks with background from the police reports she had acquired.

“Don’t you find that suspicious?” Hugh asked. “I mean. She spent the whole time grilling us for details about your relationship with your uncle and the hijacking gang. The newspaper spent an awful lot of money getting her up there to interview us. Then she goes back and writes what is basically a puff piece about us?”

“I agree. My gut feeling is she’s softening us up because she’s hoping to meet with us again,” Jenny said.

“I think you’re right, Jenny. Now read the emails from her.”

Jenny did, then said, “My impression of the first email is ‘thank you for the interview,’ and she was finished with us. My impression about the second email is she wants to meet with us again.”

“Same here,” Hugh said. “The second email definitely had softer wording this time. Could be she wants only to broaden the article and possibly learn more about trucking.”

Hugh kept the truck pointing south on 90/395. Destination, Twin Falls, where they would park for the night. On to Las Vegas for the next stop. Then to their delivery in Phoenix in two days.

Hugh and Jenny had no way of knowing they weren’t getting the whole story – literally. That’s because the early edition of the newspaper, the one they had read, was the first press run, which went to press about ten the previous evening so it could get shipped to outlying regions like Spokane as a morning paper.

That’s the version Hugh and Jenny had read, the original version of the article written by Charlie.

A revised version of the same story that had run in a later edition that same morning, one that Hugh and Jenny hadn’t seen, had a slightly different ending to it.

It advised readers to watch the newspaper for an announcement of a bigger “hero trucker” story, as the newspaper’s reporter, Charlie Shields, would be riding with the trucker to get a real-world glimpse into the daily life of a truck driver on the road.

That announcement had come as a surprise to Charlie. She had read the later edition and had seen the changed article first thing when she sat down at her desk in the morning.

She stormed over to the news editor’s cubicle and threw the newspaper onto his desk.

“John, what the fuck is this about? I didn’t write this!”

John half-rose from his seat, and peered up over his cubicle dividers to see if Charlie’s angry tirade had attracted attention. Then he sat back down.

“Listen, Charlie, this came from upstairs,” John said. He pointed with his chin toward the managing editor’s glass-walled office situated against a wall on the other side of the large open room.

“He’s furious about the amount of money we spent on that interview with the trucker, and all you came back with was this.” That last part he emphasized with his index finger jabbing the newspaper article against his desk.

“Don’t you remember my warning about coming back with a big story, and not coming back blank?” John said. “This is pretty close to being blank.”

Without saying a word, Charlie started walking toward the managing editor’s office.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” John said as a warning.

She was as much angry at herself as she was at the editors for changing her story and making that ridiculous claim she would be embedding with the trucker. She knew she had been wrong to soft-soap the story. It was her fault for letting her sympathies get the better of her instincts, and it infuriated her she was going to have to pay for her mistake.

But the managing editor was her boss, two levels above, in fact, so she tempered her language as she crossed his threshold.

“Rick, I can’t do this. That trucker and his little fiancé will never let me interview them again, let alone take me on as a ride-along. I burned that bridge. I could tell I did by the way they left the interview.”

The managing editor, whom Charlie despised, looked directly at her.

“You pitched a great story to us. We spent a lot to finance that interview. You brought back nothing,” the managing editor said.

“Yes, but …” Charlie started to say.

“Make it