Chapter 3
The kettle sang softly on the stove, steam curling upward. Luke listened as Amayah apologized for the hot chocolate packets—homemade was better, she insisted. Then she poured the boiling water into two matching ceramic mugs.
He watched her as she worked, noting the casual but stylish outfit she wore—black jeans with a burgundy sweater and black boots. He’d known before meeting her face-to-face that she was beautiful and that the camera loved her. But she was even more stunning in real life.
Not that this changed anything. Not that her attractiveness should give her a pass on living a lie and facing the consequences of that.
Other influencers had been caught in their deceit. The woman who’d faked cancer. The mother who’d claimed she was kidnapped but wasn’t. The fitness guru who didn’t actually use the dangerous supplements he pushed.
There were no gatekeepers to the information they put out there, which gave these people free rein to push whatever narrative they desired.
But maybe Luke could be that gatekeeper—not just to make a name for himself, but to protect innocent, vulnerable people who were buying what these people sold.
As Amayah finished stirring the hot chocolate, he remained alert, scanning the room as if trouble might suddenly appear again.
Then Luke’s gaze swept over the table, and he squinted.
Papers sat in a folder in the opposite corner. They ordinarily may not have caught his attention, but one of them . . .
He leaned closer.
One paper poked out, the corner showing. It almost looked like a real estate contract. In fact, he recognized that logo on the top corner as that of a local agency.
His heart pounded harder.
Maybe the rumor was true. Maybe Amayah really was pretending to live in paltry circumstances while she was secretly building her dream house.
Disappointment flooded him. For a moment, he’d hoped he was wrong. He’d hoped that Amayah was the real deal—someone who’d forgone luxury in favor of a personal mission.
If he could only get a better look at that paper . . .
It could be the evidence he needed for this article.
“All done!” Amayah finished the drinks with a flourish—whipped cream on top sprinkled with crushed peppermint—before carrying the mugs to the small kitchen table and setting his drink in front of him.
At once, the aroma of the hot chocolate and peppermint filled him with comfort, the feeling a sharp contrast to the rock still lodged in his chest.
Luke thanked her, and for the first time since he’d gotten here, he took in her house—really took it in. Not looking for trouble but as a way of learning more about Amayah.
The space was beautiful and warm. It felt layered. Earnest. Almost reverent.
Everything was decorated beautifully for Christmas, mostly using natural garlands and handmade bows. The Christmas tree glimmered with colorful lights near the couch in the other room. It was far from perfect with its mishmash of ornaments, many appearing as if they’d been made by a child.
Near the far wall, an old wooden door—stained in oak—leaned upright. Its paint was faded, touched with time, and squares of paper covered its surface. He’d glimpsed it earlier when he searched the house, and he’d noticed handwritten prayers on the papers.
Amayah had probably done that for one of her videos.
Beside the entryway stood a narrow display of vintage doorknobs, polished brass and worn iron, each mounted like relics on the wall. She’d hung her coat on one as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Luke glanced back at the table—his eyes lingered on that folder a moment—before looking at his notebook. He pulled it closer. “I guess we should start from the beginning. From what I understand, your background was in marketing?”
“Yes.” Amayah smiled faintly as though remembering a former version of herself. “After college, I landed what I thought was my dream job. I was a strategist for a luxury real estate brand. Custom homes, designer staging, curated lifestyles. I helped sell the idea of perfection.”
“Then you walked away.”
Her gaze flicked to the prayer-covered door in the other room. “I realized I was helping people polish the outside of their lives while ignoring what was falling apart on the inside. I started to feel like I was building facades instead of meaning and truth.”
Luke’s pen hovered over his questions. “So how do doors fit into all this?”
A soft breath left her, almost like a laugh.
“They started as a metaphor I couldn’t escape.
My life felt like it was falling apart, even though it looked perfect on the outside.
But nothing was perfect. I started taking walks after work so I could sort my thoughts.
While I did, I kept noticing doors everywhere—boarded up, freshly painted, cracked, abandoned.
And I started thinking about how many times doors had closed on me.
Jobs. Relationships. Dreams I thought God had promised but didn’t happen the way I expected. ”
“Keep going.”
“As I was thinking about that, a Bible verse came to mind. Matthew 7:7–8, which says, ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.’”
“Fitting.”
“It is. Those verses are a message about the assurance that God will respond to prayers that are made with faith and persistence. I’d forgotten that for a long time.
” Her voice trembled slightly. “I used to think that walking through one wrong door meant everything was ruined. That if I trusted the wrong person or chose the wrong path, God’s plan for my life would disappear.
But I’m learning He doesn’t work like that.
Even when we choose badly—even when people aren’t who they say they are—He still finds ways to lead us to something honest.”
Luke looked up at her fully now, waiting for her to continue.
“One evening, I stopped in front of this old, abandoned church that had two red doors at the front. The doors were chipped and unremarkable—but I felt this strange pull, like I was supposed to pay attention. While I stood there trying to understand why that door might matter, the pastor who used to work there walked by. I apologized for staring, of course.” A faint smile touched her lips.
“But I asked a few questions. About the church. The door. Why that color.”
“And?”
“He told me a woman at the church insisted on painting it. She was a two-time cancer survivor who’d become one of his top volunteers. She told the pastor that the door reminded her of every prayer God had answered and every one He hadn’t—and how both had shaped her life.”
Luke took a sip of his hot chocolate as she continued.
“That conversation stayed with me. I went home and made a video that I posted on social media. I didn’t plan for it to become anything.”
“And it went viral,” Luke finished.
“A hundred thousand views in the first day.” Amayah still sounded faintly amazed by the number. “People started sharing their own door stories. Their closed doors. Their open ones. The way God had redirected them.”
“I didn’t realize there were so many door stories out there.”
She let out a soft chuckle. “Neither did I. But I wanted to tell all those stories. Soon the sponsorship offers started coming in. Monetization. Partnerships. I never chased those things, but they do help me continue doing what I love. So I keep telling the stories.”
He shifted in his seat. “Were you still applying for other jobs when all this happened?”
“For months. I didn’t trust my success at first. I thought the attention and popularity of it all was temporary—a distraction from real responsibility.” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “But eventually I realized what was happening.”
He waited.
“A door had opened,” she said simply. “And I walked through it.”
Silence settled over the room, heavy in a way that felt reverent instead of awkward.
Luke glanced again at the door with the prayers. At the doorknobs. At the woman who spoke about redirection like it was holy ground rather than loss.
He opened his mouth to respond when—
Crash!
Amayah jolted upright, the cocoa in her hands sloshing dangerously close to the rim. “What was that?”
She set down the mug, and they rushed into the living room in time to see fractured glass spiderwebbing across the lower pane of the front window.
Luke peered through the broken glass, pulse ticking faster.
Then his gaze dropped to the area rug in front of her couch.
An object lay on the floor that hadn’t been there before.
Amayah saw it at the same time. “That’s . . . a baseball.”
Before he could stop her, she pulled on her coat and stepped outside.
He followed, scanning the street as cold air sliced through the doorway. All her Christmas decorations—wooden reindeer, evergreen garlands, colorful lights winding around trees and porch railings—were in place.
A chorus of guilty voices rose from the neighboring yard.
Six kids stood frozen mid-game, bundled in mismatched coats and knit hats, a crooked bat in one boy’s hand. The smallest girl clutched a glove twice her size.
“Sorry,” a lanky boy, probably twelve, said. “The ball wasn’t supposed to go that far.”
Another kid added, “The snow makes it slippery. Like . . . extra aerodynamic.”
Luke huffed a surprised laugh before he could help it.
Amayah crossed her arms, trying—and failing—to look properly stern. “You guys can’t play baseball this close to the house. Someone could get hurt.”
“We’re sorry, Ms. Door Lady,” a young girl piped up. “We wasn’t trying to break nothin’.”
Luke glanced at Amayah. “Ms. Door Lady?”
She smiled despite herself. “That’s what they call me.”
“Hey, you Crump kids!” a voice across the street shouted. “Get away from the nice lady’s window!”
The kids groaned in unison.
“Sorry, Mr. Grumpy!” the oldest yelled.
“That’s not really his name,” Amayah whispered.
“I figured.” Luke drew in a breath before saying, “I’ll board up the window. You can’t leave that open overnight.”
“You’re right, I can’t. I’ve got some plywood in the shed. If you don’t mind . . . I could use the help.”
“Not at all.” And for reasons Luke hadn’t fully sorted through yet, the last thing he could imagine right now was leaving Amayah to deal with this mess on her own.