Devil Mail Read Online Free PDF Page A

front of her, blocked lanes, drove too slowly for her liking, or slowed to let others cut in. Just wanting to get home after a tiring day at work was her justification for her annoyance.
    The minute she stepped into her apartment, the telephone rang. Katherine Craddock showed up in the caller ID display window.
    “Hi, Mom.” Her voice was stony.
    “Are you okay Ange l?” Her mother sounded concerned.
    “I’m fine ,” she sighed.
    “Then why do you sound so jaded? Rough day?”
    “Yeah, you could say that.”
    “Is everything okay otherwise?”
    “Yes. All is well.”
    “Nothing new to report?” Mrs. Craddock asked pryingly.
    “Nothing. What ’s Trey up to?” Her tone lacked real concern, and Mrs. Craddock was able to recognize it as the conversation filler and diverter that it was.
    Trey was Angela’s three-year-old nephew, the product of Julia’s shotgun wedding and short-lived marriage, entered into in defiance of everyone who cared about her. Adamantly in love, she had moved to Corning, California with her husband, Trent, where she was certain that she would lead a utopian life. No one could convince her otherwise.
    Emotionally drained and stricken, Julia had just endured an acrimonious divorce from this man, whom she described as a physically abusive monster. He vowed that she would leave the marriage with everything that she had brought into it – nothing.  When she left with Trey, she declared that she had left with the only good thing that came out of the marriage and the only thing worth having. She gladly relinquished any claim on the temporal chattels that Trent would have sadistically used to prolong the divorce proceedings and her pain.
    So, Julia, every bit the prodigal daughter, had returned to the family home in Orlando, to take advantage of her mother’s proffered support, and free babysitting services, until she was able to get back on her feet. Mrs. Craddock had taken the offer of early retirement from an aeronautics company for which she had worked for some thirty years. She was happy to have the time to spend with her grandson and to leave behind the constant training courses necessary for her to keep up with the latest technology.
    “You can always call Trey and speak to him yourself, if you’re really interested.” Angela was in no mood for this conversation, but knew better than to show any form of disrespect towards her mother. 
    “Okay, I will. I’m really tired, so I’ll call you tomorrow, Mom.”
    “See that you do. Love you.”
    “Love you too. Bye.” The guilt associated with effectively dismissing her mother so that she could check her mail on Christian Blend, lasted for a fleeting moment.
    Dinner would be a boxed meal of chicken parmesan, which Angela hurriedly threw into the microwave while she waited for her laptop to power up.
    Mounting curiosity prompted Angela to click on her new messages with haste. She hoped to see responses from the men she had sent messages to the evening before, but was obviously open to other prospects that were new or that she might have missed in her search.
    Angela let out a dishearten ed sigh upon finding only one new message. She clicked to view the profile of the sender of the standardized ‘ I think we’d be a match made in heaven ’ message, and her disheartenment deepened. A forty-eight-year-old, balding, overweight man with no discernible neck, fancied her. He was a corrections officer, a self-described chivalrous gentleman and hopeless romantic. Admittedly, he was a good-looking man, but he was still forty-eight, balding, and overweight. Angela preferred men with necks. Had he not read her match preferences? He was much older than her stated preference and she had made it clear that she was looking for someone of athletic build. Someone who shared her interest in fitness would be ideal.
    The beep of the microwave indicated that her meal was ready. She pulled it out and set it on the kitchen table to cool, pulled up her chair