Wrong Number Read online

  Wrong Number

  By Lucian Bane

  By Lucian Bane

  © 2020 by Lucian Bane

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Lucian Bane or his legal representative.

  To all the readers, fans, and or reader’s clubs. Thank you for supporting my work.

  Also, if you need a different format, please contact me, the author.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my family. Thank all of you for putting up with me, for believing in me, for loving me.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Oh thank God, thank God you answered! I was thinking you’d closed and then I remembered you don’t close, you stay open twenty-four hours for people like me.”

  David sat up in bed, blinking the sleep and confusion from his mind while trying to place the gushing female voice. “Who… what…”

  “It’s Becky!” She said it like some dreadful confession. “I’m so sorry. I mean I’m not sorry. No apologies, I remember. I think I overdosed.”

  David shot out of the bed, ready to grab hold of this stranger’s hand and save them. Who Becky was or how he knew her was irrelevant.

  Still his brain cycled through faces at a staggeringly slow pace while she rattled on in near hysterics. “Slow down,” David injected. “Take a breath. What did you take?”

  “Ibuprofen and Tylenol,” she wrenched out with dread.

  “How much?”

  “Like… twice the dose of a child! Which is a lot for me, I’m only a hundred and twenty pounds and my heart is racing.”

  “Wait… a child? You overdosed on children’s Ibuprofen?”

  “AND Tylenol!” she cried. “Together! You’re supposed to wait like two hours and I-I took it like… fifteen minutes apart.” She shot out three quick breaths. “My heart is clenching. I can’t tell if I’m having a panic attack or a heart attack. Oh my God, I’m pacing, I’m pacing, and I’m trying to walk it off like you said. What if it’s a heart attack this time?”

  Like he’d said? David’s mind somersaulted with particulars now—who was Becky, children’s Tylenol, and why she’d possibly have a heart attack. “Do you have a heart condition?”

  “And then I drank a lot of water,” she went on, not hearing him. “Like a gallon. And I remembered about water intoxication and thought I should make myself vomit, do you think I should? Please help me.” The tiny words squeaked out as desperate as they could get and David was back to the ‘fix it’ point, whatever the problem was. Only he wasn’t sure how in this case.

  “Have you called 911?”

  “What?” she cried horrified. “No! No of course not! Why?”

  Why? “Because you think you overdosed,” he explained carefully, suspecting this woman might not be playing with a full deck of cards.

  “You’re saying to call 911?” Her shrill tone indicated a sharp increase in panic. “Oh my God, oh my God. You think this is a heart attack this time?”

  “Becky, Becky,” David called out, pacing before his bed. “Who did you want to call? When you called me?”

  “What do you mean? What are you saying? Oh my God, I have dots. Blue dots. I’m dizzy with blue dots, what does blue mean?” she rattled in frantic doom.

  “Where are you?” David thought to ask in case he was wrong and she was in actual danger.

  “I’m home,” she wailed. “Alone. My cat is acting weird.” She panted at a hyperventilating pace. “She senses something is wrong, they can sense when things are wrong with their owners!”

  “Becky, you’re scaring the cat, try to calm down.” By now, David was wide awake and torn between perturbed and amused, because clearly this Becky was under the assumption he was somebody he wasn’t. Best guess, she’d meant to call some hotline and mis-dialed in her panic. “Becky, take some deep breaths. What’s your address?”

  She sucked in a measured deep breath and let it out, repeating the procedure, half crying on every exhale.

  “Becky what’s your address, do you have a neighbor?”

  “I have neighbors but you know I can’t go to them. Are you new?” she shrilled, like she’d lose her shit at the idea.

  “Okay, okay, stop… stop breathing so much.”

  “But I’m supposed to breathe!”

  “Becky, that’s not breathing, you’re drowning on air,” David said louder so she could hear around her panic. “Would you like me to call an ambulance?” A clonking noise filled the phone and he pulled it away, looking at it. Call was still going. He pressed it back to his ear, alarmed. “Becky? Are you there?” Banging sounds erupted with her wailing in the background.

  “I’m here,” she suddenly said in the phone, loud crunching in his ear. “I have my ice.” She sucked and smacked loudly. “I’m chewing. I’m chewing it now. I have my ice.”

  Dear God. “Becky, why don’t you give me your address, and--”

  “Why do you keep asking me for my address?”

  The sudden clarity and extreme offense in her tone halted David right in his tracks. It was like she’d been sleepwalking and had woken up, wondering who he was and why he was talking to her on the phone. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “But the suicide hotline doesn’t ask for addresses,” she said, guarded. “Even if you’re new, you should know that.”

  David let a single laugh go at how normal she suddenly sounded. “You’re right. I should know that. And would if I… worked at the hotline.” David held his breath in the silence, imagining the look on her face as she figured out she’d just dumped her issues on a complete stranger.

  “You… I can’t…” she barely squeaked. “You asshole!”

  David blinked several times. “What?”

  She gave an incredulous gasp. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

  David matched her shock. “Because you were having an episode!”

  “But you’re not a hotline worker!” Like he’d crossed some forbidden line of no return.

  “I think I know that. I’m David. A man woken in the dead of night to a woman who I thought overdosed. Only obviously you haven’t. Obviously, you had a panic attack over taking children’s medicine, which you seem suddenly… over.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, her voice echoing like she’d lowered the phone. “I dialed the wrong number!” Huge gasp. “Holy heck, did I ever dial the wrong number! Who are you? Are you even in this state, I don’t recognize the area code!”

  He sat on his bed, sliding a hand over his face, ready to pass out in the sudden absence of an emergency. “I am. Although I don’t understand why you’d call the suicide hotline for something like that.”

  A moment of silence. “Well, it’s not like I can call the hospital for every panic attack I have. The hotline understands what I go through, Jerry understands and he helps me, he-he walks me down.”

  “Walks you down.”

  “Tal
ks me down, whatever.”

  “And Jerry is working there every time you happen to have an attack?”

  “Of course not! Sometimes I get Amelia. But… I seem to have attacks at night more times than not, and Jerry works the night shift.”

  “Why not call a friend?”

  “Because I don’t… want to,” she stammered, sounding defensive.

  “You don’t want to call your friends?”

  “That’s right,” she said, like she dared him to challenge her. “And what do you mean suddenly over it? Are you implying that I was faking all this?”

  He flopped back onto his bed with his eyes closed even though he was no longer tired. “You’ve talked me wide awake, thank you.”

  “Well… you’re welcome. I mean, I’m… sorry. Thank you.”

  “You’re making me dizzy.”

  She gave several snorty chuckles. “Jerry will get a good laugh over this.”

  “I’m sure he will. Is Jerry your hotline boyfriend?”

  “What?” she cried. “Jerry is like… fifty!”

  “He told you that?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me, but I can tell!”

  “You can tell.” He decided he found Becky entertaining if nothing else. “How can you tell?”

  “Well… I mean I’m… his voice is… I picture him as a fifty-year-old,” she blurted. “Obviously I’m not sure as I don’t meet hotline workers, but I’m usually spot on when it comes to guessing people’s age by their voice.”

  “Really,” he said, grinning. “So, how old am I?”

  “Well… I did mistake you for Jerry soooo… judging by the tenor and accent… I’d say… sixty-three.”

  David erupted in laughter that lasted for a good half minute.

  “Or Forty. Seven. Maybe forty-three,” she corrected, bringing a fresh round of laughter from him. “Definitely no younger than thirty-five! That’s my final.”

  “Oh God,” he finally managed. “You’re funny. And you’re getting warmer.”

  “Aha! Thirty-eight?”

  “Colder.”

  “Colder! No way! Thirty-two?”

  “Almost hot.”

  “Thirty?” she cried, incredulous.

  “Still very hot.”

  “There is no way you’re a day under thirty,” she assured.

  “Thirty-one,” he said. “And judging by your voice and tenor, I’d wager you’re… twenty-four.”

  She gave a huge ha. “So cold, mister.”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Oh very funny. Ice-Ice baby.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re an old spinster.”

  “I am not old! And what makes you think I don’t have a boyfriend?”

  “You do?”

  “I never said that.”

  “So you don’t.”

  “I never said either!”

  “Would you know if you did?”

  “Of course I would,” she said, his joke going right over her head. He couldn’t imagine her having a boyfriend, not with those kinds of issues unless he was a saint. Or just as troubled. Or… like Jerry.

  “So you’re dating Jerry the hotline worker?”

  “Look here, mister. Back up. I dialed the wrong number. So, I should at some point say oops, wrong number, hang up, and be done.”

  “Yeah, but now is not that point. Now is when you indulge me for this huge, awkward, inconvenience.”

  “Inconvenience? Oh my God, do you even know what it’s like to have an anxiety attack?”

  “Well, judging by your adamancy, it’s a serious issue.”

  She gave a light gasp. “And now you’re mocking me? Ridiculing me?”

  “Oops,” David said.

  “You’re not sorry,” she called him out, making David laugh.

  “How perceptive.”

  “Are you still mocking me? You think I’m stupid,” she seemed to realize.

  “I think you’re troubled. And quite hilarious.”

  “What do you mean troubled?”

  “You sound offended with that term.”

  “I am. I’m not mentally challenged, David, I have an occasional… panic attack. Many normal people do.”

  He smiled at the derogative way she said his name. “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “How many panic attacks do you have? On average?”

  “I don’t keep track, there’s no average. It’s totally random.”

  “But mostly at night.”

  “Random nights, yes,” she admitted. “Very random. And seldom.”

  David turned on his side. “You’re like an intriguing puzzle I want to solve. We should go on a date.”

  The phone suddenly disconnected and David narrowed his gaze, looking at it. He dialed her number back and put the phone to his ear while it rang. Did she hang up on him? The idea had him on the edge of laughter.

  “You’ve reached Lizzy Hammons. I’m not home, but I guess you’ve gathered that. I’m either at work, or at the library looking for another good book, even though I read every one of them. Any who, leave a message after the beep and I’ll likely get back with you. Maybe. Bye.”

  Wow. David hung up and redialed. Lizzy Hammons. So she gave him an alias. Because she thought he was the hotline.

  “What,” she cried, answering the phone.

  “Becky?”

  She gave a huge sigh.

  “Or is this Lizzy?”

  Silence filled the line as he grinned. “How did you get my name? Who are you really, Mr. So Called David?”

  Okay, it was official. He liked her. He couldn’t remember the last girl who’d been genuinely… well genuine. And honest. She was both, to a fault, and that was obviously a turn on to him. “You gave me your real name.”

  “Ohhhh, we have a liar,” she called out. “I certainly did not tell you my real name, Mr. whoever you are.”

  “Well, not personally but on your answering machine.”

  More silence in the phone. The poor girl’s ego would need serious therapy after tonight.

  “Look, I’m tired,” she said.

  “Okay,” David conceded, ready to cut her some slack. “So you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And can I call and check up on you tomorrow? Or will you be at the library checking out re-run books?” David couldn’t resist his grin.

  “Ahhhh, message machine. And no, I happen to have a job. Do you?”

  “I do,” he said, smiling at how defensive she was. He liked her spunk. It wasn’t often he met anybody brave enough to stand up to him, but then, she had no idea who he was. And he liked that a lot.

  “And?”

  “And what?” he smiled, entertained with her unorthodox thought process.

  “Aaaand where do you work?”

  “You feel you’re entitled to know that?”

  “You dangled the bait and I’m simply wondering why you’re making me beg for it like a puppy. You like making people beg for little bits? Are you a professional circus trainer?”

  “I could be. Are you trainable?”

  “Ohhhh, you’re a comedian. And I actually don’t care where you work.”

  “I think you actually would care, but it’s not important.”

  “There you go again, dangling your bits.”

  “Do you always talk about men’s dangling bits?”

  “Ooookay, we have a perv here,” she called out to some invisible authority. “That’s the end of the line.”

  “I’ll give you a hint. I lie for a living.”

  “Ohhhhh you’re a con-artist. Goodnight.”

  “No,” he laughed, “I’m not a con-artist. People actually pay me to lie for a living.”

  “You’re a politician?”

  David laughed more at that. “Wow, I clearly haven’t thought about how many lying jobs there are.”

  “You’re an actor?”

  “Uuuuuh kind of. And you may have paid me to lie for a living.”

&nbs
p; “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t… are you a lawyer?”

  “Not a lawyer.” His chuckles renewed.

  “A doctor? Not all doctors lie you know.”

  “No, I’m sure they don’t,” David said.

  “A mechanic?”

  “Dear God,” he mumbled. “I’m a writer.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Writers don’t lie they…”

  “Figure of speech.” He waited in the sudden silence.

  “Wow. What… kind of writer are you?”

  “You probably don’t want to know.”

  “Horror?”

  “No. I’m actually sure you don’t want to know.”

  “What kind of writing could be so bad? Obituaries?”

  David laughed again. “Noooo.”

  “Like… technical data?”

  “Not technical data. Stop asking, I won’t tell you.”

  “Okay, fine, you want to dangle your bits, you want me to beg? You win. Please tell me what you write. I’m on my knees. Begging. As a bonus, I’ll… tell you something about me.”

  “Are you really on your knees?” And there he went, imagining things he shouldn’t.

  “What? No! It’s a metaphor, surely you know what that is.”

  He gave a huge sigh, knowing it would be a mistake to tell her. Or maybe not. “Romantica.” David couldn’t stop the mischievous tilt in his lips at the mixed term he’d once heard his line of work called. He had to agree though. His books weren’t erotica like many understood it, even if sex did drive his stories. His books had far more than just fucking in them. “I do believe this is our fourth moment of awkward silence we’ve shared.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I’m not awkward. Why would you think I’m awkward,” she muttered, clearly awkward.

  “Well the silence,” he said, still smiling.

  “I was trying to recall that term before. Pretty sure that’s not even a genre?”

  “Well, not technically but it does define it perfectly.”

  “I assume it means romance with erotic elements?”

  “That works. Have you read any?”

  She sputtered loudly before mumbling, “Unless you wrote 50 Shades of Grey, I haven’t read your work.”

  “I did not.”

  “No, you did not because you’re clearly not a woman.”