Trial & Tribulations

by Rachel Dylan

  “No problem. And please call me tomorrow and let me know how it’s going. And we can try to decide where to go on our document requests.”

  “Good night, Grant.”

  He walked out of her hotel room leaving her all alone. And even though she should feel afraid, a strong sense of determination washed over her. If this was how it was going to be, she would be ready the next time. This was a fight she was ready to take on.

  Chapter Three

  Nina Marie’s head pounded, and she wasn’t sure why. But she had a sneaking suspicion that Layton was starting to play games with her. She didn’t like it one bit. Would he really go after me personally? Of course he would. She’d stolen his precious technology and then broken off their sexual relationship. She tried to make him think that his efforts didn’t work on her, but that wasn’t true. He was very strong and while she was too, she wasn’t immune to his powers.

  Layton was so used to always getting his way—with his movie star good looks, strong jaw, blonde hair, perfect blue eyes, and stellar physique. But he’d never dealt with anyone quite like her before. She wasn’t one of his yes women like those he surrounded himself with.

  In a different place and time, she probably could have fallen for a man like him. But she’d committed herself to another. A greater and darker force than Layton could ever be.

  Of course she hadn’t been forthright with Olivia about Astral Tech’s full purpose. Yes, the business itself was based on straight forward New Age principles, but Astral Tech was much more than a company. Behind the company stood a group of believers who were united in their passion for New Age spirituality.

  Under Clive they’d been welcoming of those who were on what she would call the soft side of New Age. They’d formed sub groups or teams based on their interests. The most powerful team, the one she was on, served the evil one and took whatever he was willing to give.

  Clive didn’t want to run Astral Tech like the dictatorship that Layton ran at Optimism. He’d always said that it was better to have more members with diverse interests. Although if it was up to her, everyone would be united in their allegiance to the evil one. Unlike the fractured Astral Tech, the membership of Optimism was cohesive. She wanted that cohesion for Astral Tech.

  The lawsuit threatened her and for that reason she was intent on managing it. And the lawyer Olivia Murray. At first Nina Marie just got a strong and vibrant energy from her. But then it hit her—the stench of Christianity. This woman wasn’t just a Sunday Christian. No, there was something different about her.

  Although after further reflection, Nina Marie saw it more as a challenge than anything. She’d converted others. She could use Olivia’s drive and legal ambition to her advantage. If she could deploy Olivia’s gifts, then she could be unstoppable.

  Nina Marie couldn’t help but be jealous of someone like Olivia, who had such raw, natural talents. It bothered her that Olivia chose to use her gifts for the church. She had felt firsthand what supposedly godly Christians could do. That was a part of her life that she never wanted to revisit.

  A light knock on her office door had her wanting to scream at whoever was daring to bother her, but when she saw Olivia standing there with a deep frown pulling down her lips, she knew something was up.

  “Olivia, come on in.”

  Olivia walked in and took a seat across from her at the desk. “I need to tell you something.”

  “What’s wrong?” She could already tell this litigation was going to be a huge challenge for her to manage.

  Olivia looked down and didn’t say anything just yet.

  “You can tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.” Normally she wouldn’t be so accommodating, but this felt different to her.

  Olivia’s dark eyes met hers. “When I got back to my hotel room last night, my door had been vandalized.”

  Nina Marie sucked in a breath. “Oh, Olivia. I’m so sorry. Was anything stolen from your room?”

  Olivia shook her head. “No, I don’t think anyone actually went into my room, but that’s not the main point. In my opinion, this wasn’t just a random act of vandalism.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone had drawn a pentagram on my door.”

  Nina Marie’s stomach dropped. Layton wouldn’t dare send his people to harass Olivia would he? “Olivia, I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “I think it has to do with this litigation. Since I’m working for you and Astral Tech, I assumed that no one associated with this organization would want to make my life miserable.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Olivia leaned forward. “But what about Optimism?”

  Her voice didn’t waver. This was an accusation. Nina Marie tucked her hair behind her ear. How much did she want to share with Olivia? What would benefit her the most? “Unfortunately, Layton Alito has no qualms about playing dirty.”

  “That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”

  Nina Marie stood up and walked around to the other side of the table where Olivia sat. “I don’t want you to worry another second about this. Your job is the lawsuit. Let me handle Layton. I can protect you from him.”

  Olivia’s dark eyes widened. “Nina Marie, you’re the client, and I’m working as hard as I can on this lawsuit. But I do not want you taking any action to protect me that involves anything spiritually related.”

  Nina Marie laughed. “I can assure you that I know what I’m doing. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not comfortable with that.”

  Nina Marie decided it was better not to push Olivia right now. If she did, Olivia might go running back to DC. Nina Marie plastered a smile on her face. “I would never want to make you uncomfortable.” Lie. “But if there’s something you would like me to do to help you, please let me know.”

  “I just wanted to inform you of the situation. If they’re coming after me, they may be targeting other Astral Tech people as well.”

  Nina Marie nodded. “Very good point. I’ll also get some extra building security.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to get to work.” Olivia stood up and walked out of the office.

  Nina Marie immediately picked up the phone. “Clive, get down here. We have a problem.”

  Less than five minutes later, Clive walked into her office, his green eyes full of questions. “What is it?”

  “Layton is attacking us.”

  “How so?”

  “He went after Olivia last night. Or he sent his members to do it.”

  Clive raised an eyebrow as he stood leaning up against the wall. “I need details. What happened?”

  “Olivia’s hotel room door was covered in a pentagram.”

  “Isn’t that a warm and tacky welcome for her.” He huffed. “This is not good.”

  “You’re telling me. We need to fight back immediately.”

  Clive took a seat and rubbed his chin. “This was his plan all along. A two pronged attack. Legal and spiritual. Get us to put our energy into the legal problems to take our minds off of our real battle. I used to think that the two groups could co-exist. But I underestimated Layton’s desire for power. He won’t rest until he destroys us and poaches our members.”

  She knew what they had to do. “We will fight back.”

  “Obviously. Let’s gather everyone at my place Sunday night. We will make him pay.”

  **

  Grant waited for his phone to ring to get word that Olivia was doing all right. Maybe he really needed to be worried about himself. Not only had he taken on the role of Olivia’s defender, something he had no right or business doing, his entire worldview was being warped by the recent events.

  Last night when he’d gotten home, he’d fallen asleep from exhaustion. But he felt like he hadn’t slept at all. While he couldn’t remember exactly what happened in his dreams, he felt like he’d been in the middle of some huge fight. All that talk of New Age stuff and pentagrams had gone straight to his he
ad.

  He prided himself on his reliance on logic and science. Thirty six years of believing what he believed—simply that there was no God or devil or demons or anything. That was what science told him, and that’s what he chose to believe. He wasn’t about to fall down this rabbit hole. No way, no how.

  As he had told Olivia, he was in an unknown area right now. The lawsuit—that he could handle. But he started to have second thoughts about his client. Grant didn’t believe for one second that any actual spirits or demons were involved in what happened to Olivia’s hotel room door. But humans? Definitely a possibility. What if Layton wanted to welcome the opposing counsel to town by trying to shake her off her game from the start? It might seem like a good strategic move, but it was illegal. Grant refused to support something like that. His reputation was at stake.

  Maybe a phone call to Layton would put his mind at ease. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything—like the police said. He certainly wasn’t going to jump into the spiritual explanation because to him that just seemed impossible. Even in the face of Olivia’s ardent speeches about everything.

  He picked up his office phone and dialed Layton’s number and his secretary transferred him.

  “Layton Alito,” he answered.

  “Layton, it’s Grant.”

  “Ah, how are things going? I want to hear all about it.”

  “Everything with the lawsuit is still fine. I had a meet and confer yesterday with opposing counsel, and of course I’m following your direction to stand firm on our requests.”

  “A meet and confer?”

  “That’s a fancy lawyer term for us meeting and talking about the discovery requests. The court requires that you talk to the other side and try to resolve as many disputes about documents as you can before you bring anything to the court.”

  “Okay, that makes sense to me.”

  “But that isn’t exactly why I called. There’s something else I want to talk about.”

  “What is it?”

  “Olivia Murray, my opposing counsel, remember me telling you about her yesterday?”

  “Of course. I did some recon on her and the firm for my benefit. Quite a large law firm. I think you were right. It shows that Astral Tech is worried about this lawsuit if they’re spending that type of money on an elite firm.”

  “I agree. But this is about Olivia. Last night her hotel room door was vandalized. And while this isn’t my area of expertise, they’re talking about it being related to some type of demonic activity or something.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Layton said flatly.

  “Layton, I’ve got the legal aspects of this case covered.”

  “And that’s what we’re paying you for.”

  “But if there is something going on that is beyond that…” How in the world did he ask this question?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Is it possible that any employee of Optimism could’ve been responsible for what happened to Olivia.”

  Layton laughed. “Of course not. That’s absurd.”

  “Because tactics like that would not go over well in front of a judge. Especially given the nature of the work of the companies. We want the judge to take your technology seriously and the fastest way to lose credibility is to start pulling stunts.”

  “You can calm down, Grant. I give you my word that I have no idea who was responsible for the vandalism, but I can tell you it wasn’t one of my employees.”

  “Good, good.” He felt better hearing the specific words come out of Layton’s mouth. “I’m your lawyer. I always need you to be forthright with me so I can best protect your interests.” He paused. “I’ll keep you posted on case developments.”

  “And, Grant, I want you in court on this as soon as possible. The more we can disrupt their business the better.”

  “Understood.”

  Then he hung up. Now he had a good reason to check in with Olivia and to ease her mind about his client’s involvement. He couldn’t even begin to imagine her going to a judge and claiming that his client was harassing her, especially with such crazy tactics. He needed to squash this now before it got out of hand, so he dialed her cell and waited.

  She picked up after a few rings.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s Grant.”

  “Hi, sorry I haven’t called you. It’s been a whirlwind around here today.”

  “First off, are you doing all right?” He hoped her answer was going to be yes.

  “Yes. Just a busy day but nothing like last night obviously.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I called. I spoke to Layton Alito. He assured me that no one at Optimism was involved.”

  She sighed loudly. “Grant, I appreciate you asking him. I really do. But you can’t believe that he’d actually admit to you that he was doing something like that.”

  “Why not? I’m his lawyer.”

  “Yes, and that means you deal with his legal issues. The rest of his type of work is up to him and his people at Optimism.”

  “I think we all just need to take a big step back from this and try to be rational.”

  “I know what I know. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit with your view of the facts. I guess it’s to be expected that we’d disagree about this just like we disagree on everything else.”

  “I wasn’t trying to upset you.” He could hear the tension dripping from her voice. “I’ll send you over a letter today outlining my view of the meet and confer from yesterday.”

  “Look forward to it.”

  She ended the call before he could say anything else.

  **

  Olivia turned around in the conference room after feeling a light tap on her shoulder. But there was no one there. A chill shot down her arm as she surveyed the room and was clearly the only person in there. Was she imagining things?

  She looked over at the clock and saw it was nine a.m. on Sunday morning. She’d been there two hours, having come in early to get some uninterrupted work done, since no one else would likely be there. But now she knew what she needed to do.

  She wanted to step away and find a church service to attend. She did a quick search for churches near the office and found one that was only a couple of miles away. Before heading out, she wanted to touch base with Lizzie. She knew Lizzie wouldn’t be going to church for another hour so she gave her a call.

  “Olivia, I’m so glad you called,” Lizzie said.

  She immediately knew something was wrong. “What happened?”

  “Pastor Paul had a heart attack.”

  She gasped. “Oh no. Is he okay?”

  “Thankfully, yes. But he’s taking an extended leave of absence. And since the associate pastor is also out with a back injury, they’re looking for a temporary visiting pastor. I think they’re going to be emailing out something to the congregation today after the service, but I’m glad I was able to tell you.”

  “Wow. I just can’t believe it. Paul is in such great shape.”

  “I know. Puts everything into perspective doesn’t it?”

  “That’s actually another reason why I called you. I really need your prayers right now. Things are getting a bit crazy here.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Someone drew a pentagram on my hotel room door.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Unfortunately so.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Yes, they are saying it’s an act of random vandalism, but I think it has to be connected to the work I’m doing here.”

  “Olivia, I think you need to come home. This is getting dangerous.”

  “I know, but I feel like I can’t leave. I’ve been praying on it a lot, Lizzie, but I need your continued prayers.”

  “Are you going to try to find a church there?”

  “Yes, actually I just looked one up that is close to the office. I’m going to leave right after we get off the phone.”

  “I
f you need anything, please call me. And keep me posted on what is going on.”

  “I will.”

  She closed up her computer and headed out. She arrived at Windy Ridge Community Church a few minutes later and let out a deep breath. It was like going home.

  When she walked through the church door, she was immediately greeted by warm, smiling faces.

  A man in a dark suit walked up to her. “I’m Pastor Dan Light. Feel free to just call me Dan or Pastor Dan. Welcome to Windy Ridge Community Church.”

  “Great to meet you. I’m Olivia Murray. I’m here in town for work, and I really wanted to find a church I can attend while staying here.”

  “You’re welcome here for sure. Come on in, we start in less than five minutes.”

  She looked up into Dan’s light blue eyes. His dark hair was cut short and had only the slightest thread of gray at the temple. She figured he was in his forties.

  The church wasn’t too large or extravagant, but it was nice. Brightly colored stained glass adorned the chapel and rows of dark oak pews filled the room. And what Olivia noticed most was that it was over half full. Knowing church attendance was in decline these days, she saw the turnout as a positive sign.

  She took a seat in the middle of the church on the right side and readied herself for worship. Pleasantly surprised at the blend of traditional and contemporary worship music, she sang her heart out, finding strength in the words of the songs.

  At some point, a man had taken a seat beside her. His eyes were dark brown and his blond hair hung loose touching his shoulders. There was something almost magnetic about him, pulling her toward him—but not in a romantic way. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen him before, but she couldn’t place him.

  Pastor Dan stood up and delivered a sermon about forgiveness that resonated with her. She was glad she’d attended Windy Ridge Community Church today. After Pastor Dan concluded the service in prayer, she looked over ready to say hello to the mystery man beside her. But he was gone. How could she have missed him getting up?

  What she really needed to do was to talk to Pastor Dan. And she hoped he’d be able to talk now after the service. She walked down to the exit door where he was greeting people, but she hung back until the last person had shaken his hand.