The Living Room (61 page)

“I will. Thanks so much for calling.”

Amy hung up the phone.

“Ian, go outside, please,” she said.

“No,” he replied. “I want to hear.”

“Outside!” Jeff commanded in the voice that left no room for debate.

Ian grudgingly got up from the table and shuffled out of the room. Amy waited until she heard the door close before telling Jeff and Megan what Dr. Simmons said. Megan’s eyes widened.

“Will I have to go to court or something?” she asked.

“Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Amy’s cell phone vibrated. It was an unknown caller.

“I don’t know who it is,” she said.

“Take it,” Jeff said. “I want to talk to Megan alone in the family room.”

Amy answered the call.

“Amy, it’s Chris Lance. I came to work this morning and went by your office looking for a file. It looks like a tornado hit in here.”

“I was there last night.”

“Just because you were fired doesn’t give you the right to trash—”

“Have you seen the local paper?”

“No.”

Amy told him what happened. When she mentioned Lawrence Kelly, he interrupted her.

“Wait. You’re not talking about the doctor.”

“No, no. This man was one of my daughter’s teachers. I heard the name in a dream and thought it was Dr. Kelly. I was wrong.”

Chris was silent for a moment.

“But you were also right,” he said.

Tears suddenly flooded Amy’s eyes.

“Yes, I was.”

“Mr. Phillips needs to know about this,” Chris continued. “He’s made a huge mistake. Once he realizes what happened and how your dream—”

Tears rolled off Amy’s cheeks onto the kitchen floor. She shook her head.

“Not now,” she interrupted. “We’ll talk later.”

“Are you crying?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” Chris paused. “Is your daughter okay?”

More tears cascaded down Amy’s face.

“Yes.”

“Whew! I’m glad to hear that.”

“Please don’t say—”

“I won’t,” Chris responded immediately. “But is it okay if I tell Laura? She’s super upset that you got fired.”

The fact that a woman she’d never met cared about what had happened to her caused another wave of emotion to roll over Amy.

“Yeah, that would be fine,” she said.

“Bye.”

Amy sat at the kitchen table, put her head in her hands, and sobbed. Megan was going to be okay. A deeper tragedy that would have horribly scarred her daughter for the rest of her life had been avoided.

Because of a dream.

Amy dabbed her eyes with a handful of tissues and left the kitchen. Jeff and Megan were sitting on the green couch. Amy headed toward the stairs.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Megan asked.

“It—it hit me,” Amy said, sniffling. “All at once.”

She continued up the stairs, not stopping until she was in the writing room. She collapsed in her chair and buried her face in her hands. Time passed. Finally, she raised her eyes, her vision blurry. She wiped her eyes. Her chest stopped heaving. There was no more water behind the dam. The lake of anxiety and relief had been drained. A moment later she heard footsteps on the narrow stairway leading up to the attic. There was a gentle knock on the closed door.

“Come in,” Amy responded.

The door slowly opened. It was Natalie.

“I should have called,” she began. “But I couldn’t wait to be with you.”

“Good timing,” Amy said. “I’m all cried out for now. We can sit and talk without a bucket nearby to catch my tears.”

Amy was able to share the events of the past twenty-four hours. Natalie, whose dam still held a lot of water, listened, nodded, and cried.

“I know every disaster in life can’t be avoided,” Amy said when she finished. “Terrible things happen to good people every day. But what hit me after breakfast this morning was not how bad this was, but how good God was to keep it from being worse.”

“Yeah, that probably happens more than any of us realize,” Natalie said and smiled slightly. “You know, you sound like Ms. Burris.”

“Oh.” Amy’s eyes brightened. “I went by to see her after I was fired. Let me tell you the rest of the story about her and Sonny Dominick.”

Follow-up articles in the newspaper confirmed Greg Ryan as an alias used by Lawrence Kelly. Because of her age, Megan’s name wasn’t printed, but an ongoing investigation by the police confirmed that more girls were affected by the scandal. Molly Prichard and two girls in the eleventh grade came forward with stories consistent with being drugged by the teacher. Tragically, Kelly sold pictures of the girls that were posted in dark corners of the Internet. The photos would be evidence at Kelly’s trial if he refused to plead guilty. The deeds of darkness would be brought to light.

Students and staff at the high school and people from the community rallied around the victims in an overwhelming outpouring of sympathy and support. When evil raised its head, good people rose up, too.

Chris Lance called Amy twice more to check on her. There was a tenderness in the young lawyer’s voice that signaled a change in his heart.

“Oh, and it doesn’t look good for Natasha in the Dominick case,” Chris said toward the end of the second call. “The treating neurologist refused to completely disagree with Dr. Kelly, so Mr. Phillips is going to meet with the lawyers for Mr. Dominick’s children and begin settlement negotiations. They may even toss a decent bone to the illegitimate children once paternity is established.”

“You shouldn’t be telling me about this. I no longer work at the firm.”

“But you’re still bound by the rules of confidentiality for what you do know.” Chris paused. “And I thought maybe you could pray that it will work out. There’s plenty of money for everyone.”

“It’s not always about winning.”

“No, it’s not.”

Midweek Amy went to see Ms. Burris. They walked into the sun-room. The spring birds were thick around the multiple feeders in an explosion of color.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Amy said as soon as they were seated.

“You’re special,” Ms. Burris replied. “To the Lord and to me.”

The elderly woman’s words made Amy think about the trip to the living room where she heard again about her place at God’s banqueting table. She told Ms. Burris about it.

“The following day I was so happy. Then the situation with Megan blew up our world more than anything else could have.”

She told Ms. Burris about the photographs, a fact left out of the newspaper articles. The older woman shook her head sadly.

“The timing of it all makes me wonder.”

“Maybe you needed the dream before Megan’s ordeal,” Ms. Burris said, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

“Why?”

“So you could face it with strength and faith because of what you’d heard from the Lord.”

“I don’t think so,” Amy said doubtfully. “I was in total panic mode.”

“In your mind and emotions,” Ms. Burris replied, then pointed to Amy’s heart. “But not in there.”

Amy started to object but stopped. Scenes from the law office and the hospital flashed through her mind. She’d not recognized it at the time, but within her spirit was a seed of confidence in God’s goodness. Hidden, she’d not acknowledged it.

“You may be right,” Amy admitted. “But I wish I’d known about it.”

“Next time you will.”

“Will there be a next time?”

“There always is, and we’re going to start talking to the Lord about it in advance.”

Ms. Burris bowed her head and began to pray.

Driving home from Ms. Burris’s house, Amy felt encouraged. Her phone vibrated. It was Bernie Masters.

“Have you been praying for me?” the agent asked as soon as Amy answered.

“Uh, no. I’ve been receiving prayer myself.”

“You should have included me, but I got through the operation okay without your help. A doctor who looked about sixteen years old put stents in a couple of places where some hot dogs with chili, onions, and mustard piled on them got stuck in my arteries. He wants me to give up hot dogs, but I can’t do it. Instead, I’m going to cut back to mustard only.”

“Maybe you should switch to tofu dogs. I didn’t know you were sick.”

“What? I told my niece to call all my clients. That’s what you get when you don’t pay someone who’s working for you. Speaking of payment, did you get that monstrous check from the publisher for
The
Everlasting
Arms
?”

“Yes, and it came at a good time. I lost my job at the law firm.”

“Don’t tell me the details unless you need a shoulder to cry on,” he said.

“I’m all cried out.”

“Good, then get back to work as a writer. Dave Coley has been bumped up the ladder at the publishing company. They’ve given him one of those jobs with a fancy title, but all he’ll do is go to meetings and listen to other people who are actually doing the work. Anyway,
Cecilia called, and she wants to talk about the
Deeds
of
Deception
book.”

“It’s
Deeds
of
Darkness
.”

“Okay, but you know the title may change. The publishers like to control that stuff. Cecilia looked at your proposal and wants to know if you’re willing to do something with the main character that shows how God can be with someone in the midst of a horrible tragedy. She thinks you’re a fantastic talent and wants to keep on working with you. If you’ll consider her suggestions, she thinks there’s a shot they might want to exercise the option. Basically, she wants you to up the God factor a few notches.”

“I can do that. I know exactly what surviving a tragedy feels like.”

“Don’t we all? Put something together and get it to me while the iron is in the fire. They haven’t named Dave’s replacement, which gives Cecilia a window of opportunity to do something on her own before another bean counter takes over.”

“Will the end of the week be soon enough?”

“Tomorrow would be better, but if that’s the best you can do, I’ll have to take it.”

Amy turned into her neighborhood. Natalie’s street was on her left.