Free Devil Mail by P. V. Edwards Page B

would ultimately fade.
    She turned again to the message he had sent to her.   He wrote about his gratifying day at work, inquired about how her day went, and added a paragraph about the job security of court reporters. He went into an analysis of the effect technology was having in the court room, as many court districts were now opting  to install digital court recorders, which were more cost-effective than having a court reporter physically sitting through every single hearing. He assured her that she need not worry, though, as some courts and other organizations favored tradition over technology, resulting in the expectation that the number of court reporter jobs would increase by 14% by the year 2020.
    Such a message , which confirmed his inimitability, needed consideration before sending a reply. It was a lot to take in. Angela would answer before going to bed, after her guests had left.
    Julia arrived first. Angela refused to give her the update that she pleaded for, stating that she had to wait for Judith’s arrival, because she was not going to repeat the whole story twice. Judith arri ved soon after with chicken fried rice, kung pao shrimp and hoisin pork stir-fry. The three sat around the kitchen table; Julia and Judith with bated breath.
    Angela was not able to relay the magically events of her day without disclosing the fact that she took the day off work to spend it with Aiden.
    Judith’s astonished response came first. “Have you lost your mind? You met up with this guy, who you don’t know from Adam, and spent the day with him instead of going to work?”
    “Angie, don’t you think you should have gotten to know each other better before going on a date?” It was just like her sister to be a little more sympathetic in the face of Judith’s harshness.
    Angela f ound herself back-peddling and defending her actions, saying things like, “But I drove my own car” and “we met in very public places”. However, neither her sister nor her best friend was convinced of the sagacity of her actions or purported precautions. Any cautionary advice from either of them would be futile at this stage, like closing the gate right after the horse had bolted.
    “I’ll be careful.” Angela sounded almost defeated. All the details that culminated into a special day, with a very special man were never fully expressed, due to their interruptions and statements of disapproval.  Marginally upset that the evening hadn’t turned out the way she had planned, she refused to allow it to be a damper on the memorable day. No one would ever be able to rob her of those memories.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    C HAPTER SIX
     
    A t six thirty the next morning, Angela woke up with a pounding headache, a huge lump in her throat and aching limbs. Casting her mind back to the previous day, she couldn’t recall being severely beaten, then run over by a truck, but it certainly felt like that was what had happened to her.
                  “I can’t afford to be sick; not today,” she muttered in her painfully raspy voice. Lacking the strength to even reach for the telephone, her prediction of Sharon’s icy tone at the prospect of having to find someone to cover the trial again, added to her reluctance to call in sick for the second day in a row. The longer she procrastinated, the shorter the time she would give Sharon to find someone, hence, the more likely she would be to incur Sharon’s frustration.
                  Sharon’s sympathy surprised her. “Oh, Angela, you sound terrible. It’s best that you rest and get rid of that thing, instead of passing it around the office or the courtroom. Liz covered the trial for you yesterday, so I’ll ask her to cover for you again today, although it’s likely that we’ll have a verdict today.”
                  “Oh, I really wanted to be there for closing arguments and the verdict.” Angela had worked the trial from the