Hear My Plea by Diana Deverell

Author:Diana Deverell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Sorrel Press
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

20

Nora

A croaking bullfrog roused Nora to semiconsciousness. She was lying down, all covered up. Patting the surface beneath her, the soft feel of cotton sheets told her she was in a bed. She let her eyelids slowly rise. Her bed. Inside her apartment. Daylight edging the blind over the window.

The bullfrog croaked again, louder.

He was so annoying. She should change her ringtone.

She squinched her eyes tight shut. Maybe she was having an auditory hallucination?

Nobody who loved her would make her phone clamor for attention this morning. Her nearest and dearest knew that she’d driven more than eleven hundred miles in two states so she could file yesterday. If she ignored the sound, her brain would stop manufacturing it.

The racket came again, louder.

“I hate you,” she told the croaker.

The bullfrog shut up. At least it understood who was boss.

She sighed and snuggled deeper under her sunbonnet-girl quilt, enjoying the smell of familiar detergent and the soft music of sleeper sofa springs.

Home. Her lovely cocoon. And she had no reason to crawl out.

Not one blessed thing on her schedule this weekend.

Kent was entertaining Luke and Jackie. She’d told him she was too tuckered out to keep up with two kids under the age of five.

She might feel perkier by the time he dropped them with their mother on Sunday. He could stop by and check. Could be worth his while.

Turned out, he was booked on Sunday evening, staking out a softball game somewhere in the east valley. Maybe she’d like to join him in the surveillance van? He could sure use a second pair of eyes and ears. He’d make it worth her while.

Tempting. Though less tempting than sleep.

Her cellphone chimed, alerting her to the arrival of a text message.

Man, somebody was hot to get through.

Groaning, she rolled over and plucked her cell off the bamboo TV tray she was using for a combination bedside-and-end table. The lit screen named the message sender.

Hugo Sanchez. The Parma journalist.

She felt a zing of excitement and unlocked the phone.

His message read, “USA will issue statement in ten minutes. Read it on our website.”

USA was Hugo’s shorthand for the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. The feds were poised to make an announcement.

She read the time off her cellphone. Eight-fifty.

Only twenty-one hours since she’d filed her motion.

My, my, that was a swift reaction. She gave herself a mental pat on the back.

Yesterday, as soon as she’d gotten confirmation from the federal court that they’d received the motion, she’d phoned Hugo and told him she’d filed. He’d asked a few questions, absorbed her answers, and invited her to phrase a quote he could attribute to her.

The Parma newspaper had featured Hugo’s story online last night. She’d liked how it read.

No one in the office of the US Attorney had been available to speak with Hugo.

However, the defendant’s attorney had praised Dr. Mukherji’s “impeccable reputation” and referred to “the solid data supporting his well-reasoned analysis.”

The same story should be in this morning’s print version. At this very moment, subscribers were reading the front page headline.

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