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Chapter 1
The day was new, and the sun was in Amalie Lincoln’s eyes.
She was driving eastbound on the Tulsa Crosstown Expressway, coming up on a pretzel loop of rebar and concrete, also known as the Interstate 244 and Highway 169 junction, when her very normal day turned into chaos.
Suddenly, the car a few yards in front of her swerved, overcorrected, spun sideways, then overcorrected again, and broadsided Amalie’s car. It sent her into a spin before hitting her again, then slamming her car into a concrete abutment. When everything finally came to a stop, the ensuing pileup had traffic at a standstill.
Amalie was dazed, bleeding, and trying to unbuckle her seat belt when her car suddenly burst into flames.
“No, no, no,!” she cried, then began screaming for help, still trying to unbuckle her seat belt as smoke rolled up around her.
She kept screaming and screaming, trying to open the door even as the first fingers of fire were licking at the legs of her slacks, then the arm of her jacket, when all ofa sudden, the door came open! She could hear voices shouting, and the whoosh and hiss of fire extinguishers, and then some man’s voice in her ear, telling her, “I got you, lady. I got you,” and a voice whispering inside her head…You’re going to be okay.
Then everything went black.
The time afterward was a blur. Amalie went from an emergency room to a burn unit in Hillcrest Medical Center and ensuing days and nights of living hell. Time was measured by recurring debridement, the administration of pain meds, and wrapping and unwrapping the burns, and complete isolation.
It was a week before Dan Worthy, her across-the-hall neighbor in her apartment building learned what had happened to her.
He was an accident lawyer. He knew she had no family and called the burn unit, asked a nurse to deliver a message to her, and said he’d wait for the answer.
The nurse listened, wrote down what Dan Worthy said, and headed for Amalie’s room, gowned up, then moved to the side of Amalie’s bed.
“Amalie, can you hear me?”
Amalie moaned, opened her eyes, and then nodded.
“Do you know a man named Dan Worthy?”
“Neighbor,” Amalie said.
“He says he’s an accident lawyer. Is this so?”
Amalie blinked. “Yes.”
“He says he just heard about what happened to you, and if you say the word, then he’s going to sue the pants off the drunk who hit you.”
Amalie chuckled, but tears were rolling.
“Tell him yes and thank you.”
“Consider it done,” the nurse said. “Oh, and by the way, your next round of pain meds are on the way.”
Tears were still rolling when Amalie closed her eyes.
The nurse went back to the phone. “Mr. Worthy, are you still there?”
“Yes, ma’am. What’s the verdict?”
“She says, ‘Yes and thank you.’”
“Awesome,” Dan said and disconnected.
After that phone call, Dan went into action. He had the accident report. The man’s blood alcohol level was off the charts when he was arrested, and it wasn’t his first DUI. Dan filed a lawsuit on Amalie’s behalf against the man and his insurance company for all they were worth, suing for loss of wages, emotional distress, criminal intent, all medical costs, legal fees, and the list went on. He was fighting for Amalie as she was fighting for her life.
The first wave of condolences from her colleagues at the CPA firm where she worked came in the midst of her worst days, and then as she began to heal, they dwindled to no contact at all.
In the months she spent healing, her job had been filled, her so-called friends had moved on, and then ones she happened to see either couldn’t stop staring orlooked away. She didn’t look like she had before. There was a white streak in her hair that had never been there before. From shock, the doctors said. She had pink healing scars and grafts on the left side of her neck, shoulder, arm, and hand, and down the left side of her lower leg.
