He clutched his face, reeling backwards. Pepper spray! Where did the murdering bitch get that?

Fullerton scrambled out from under him. Not a second later, he felt a sharp kick in his groin.

This time, he was the one who cried out. He lurched toward her, but she was already running full tilt toward the clinic. He knew he had no chance of catching her; he could barely see. The smartest thing he could do was get out of here fast, before she returned with friends.

He limped away, heading toward the side street where he had parked his car. Damn everything! How could he let her get the drop on him? And what was he going to say when he got back home?

One thing was certain. His friend would not be pleased.

“You stupid bastard!” Manly’s friend slapped him across the face. “Couldn’t even keep control of a woman?”

“I didn’t know she had the spray,” Manly mumbled. “I didn’t see it comin’.”

“You couldn’t handle one lousy piece of ass in the dark. You probably outweigh her by two to one.”

“She was fast. She must’ve had it in her purse.”

“That’s no excuse!” Another slap, then another, and then another. “Do you think Jesus made excuses when he went to Gethsemane? Did Abraham make excuses when he was told to sacrifice his son?”

“You don’t know what it was like.”

“And I don’t want to know, you sorry sack. Don’t make your excuses to me. Get down on your knees and pray to your God.” Manly’s friend shoved him downward.

Manly did as he was told. He folded his hands and prayed for his soul. It was a full five minutes before he got up again.

“I’m so sorry,” Manly said, hanging his head low.

“That much is certain.”

“Will you forgive me? Will you still help me?”

“I shouldn’t, you know. I should find someone else. Someone competent.”

“Please!”

His friend considered for a long moment before speaking. “One more chance then. But this will absolutely be the last one. I will tolerate no more failure!”

“I understand.” Manly looked up expectantly, like a naughty puppy who still hoped to be stroked. “I’ll go back out tonight.”

“Don’t be a fool. They’ll be looking for you.”

“Then-?”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan. A target.” The friend’s eyes darkened, contracting to tiny points of light. “One even better than what you’ve had before. One no one will be able to ignore.”

Ben crawled on his hands and knees close behind Dr. Masterson. It was dark in here; the light from Masterson’s flashlight provided the only illumination, and it wasn’t enough, at least not as far as Ben was concerned. The air had a musty, heavy smell-not unusual for attics, he supposed. Neither were the cobwebs, but they were atmospherics he could’ve lived without.

“Almost there,” Masterson said.

They crawled on. The levers and hoses overhead were so low that Ben was forced to go down on his elbows and practically slither forward. And why did he have to choose this morning to wear his new suit?

“I didn’t even know this place existed,” Ben said, making conversation. “Dark, convoluted, inaccessible. This could be a perfect hiding place.”

“I suppose it could at that. Here we are.” Masterson laid the flashlight on the wooden planking beneath them, opened a metal panel, and went to work.

This was the first time Ben had been in the St. Benedict’s organ chambers-and the last, he resolved. He had never considered himself claustrophobic-look where he lived-but this place might change all that. He hadn’t wanted to come up here at all, but Masterson insisted he had to work on the organ electronics right now, and Ben was somewhat pressed for time himself, so it was talk now or never.

“What exactly is it you do up here, anyway?” Ben asked.

“Oh, these pipe organs require a lot of maintenance,” he explained as he worked. “Just general stuff. Checking the wiring. Tuning the reeds. Making sure everything is behaving as it should.”

“For this you got a doctorate degree in music? Seems like there should be someone else who can handle this sort of thing.”

“Like I’m going to let some boob from the Altar Guild mess with my organ? Think again.” He tightened something with a pair of pliers. “Now a trained professional, sure. That would be permissible. But it would also be expensive. And given the current sorry state of St. Benedict’s financial affairs after losing half its members… well, it’s best I attend to it myself.”

“Where’d you learn how to do this, anyway?”

“Juilliard, believe it or not. It’s not all just singing and dancing up there, you know. Sometimes we actually learned something practical.”

Ben was impressed. “You went to Juilliard? I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I don’t have it engraved on my business cards the way some of my colleagues do. But yes, I went to Juilliard. Got in when I was fifteen.”

Ben whistled. “That’s impressive.” Impressive-but also somewhat incongruous. “And then when you got out, you took a position with the Church?”

Masterson made a coughing noise, deep in his throat. “No. Not exactly.” He reached for another tool. “My initial goal was to be a concert musician. I played piano on a per-service basis with the Cleveland Orchestra. And the Boston Symphony.”

“Really?”

“I even played Carnegie Hall. Not alone, of course.”

“That’s tremendous. And then you… I mean, and after that you…”

“You’re searching for a graceful way of saying, What the hell happened to you? Right?”

“Well…”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. It’s a sensible question to ask.” He gritted his teeth, applying force to a stubborn connection. “Have you ever known anyone who worked as a musician?”

“I’ve worked as a musician,” Ben answered. “In college. And again, not too long ago. Played the piano. Sang a little.”

“Indeed. I didn’t know we had a former professional in our little choir. What kind of music do you like?”

“Well, I played jazz, in a club down in Greenwood. My personal taste leans more to folk music.”

Masterson’s voice became quizzical. “A folk pianist?”

“Yeah, well, that was the problem.”

“Who are your favorite folk musicians?”

“Classical or Celtic or modern?”

“Whatever.”

“Well, big picture, no one was ever better than Oklahoma ’s own Woody Guthrie. Modern? I liked Harry Chapin. I’m still crazy for Christine Lavin. Janis Ian.”

“Mmm.” Masterson made a swooning sound. “Janis Ian. She’s got to be one of the greatest songwriters of our time, don’t you think?”

“You know her work?”

“What, you thought I just listened to church music all day long?”

“Well…”

“You thought I just listened to stuffy boring classical music.” He chuckled. “Well, I suppose I deserve that. I’m a bit uppity about my music at times. So how long did you play in this club?”

“About six months. I eventually returned to practicing law.”

“Couldn’t live without the big bucks, huh?”

Ben snorted. “Yeah, that’s it. Big bucks.”

“Well, my story is much like yours, only in reverse,” Masterson said wistfully. “You probably know what’s been happening to symphony orchestras lately. Funding dries up; the community doesn’t support serious art. They try to limp along doing those embarrassing pops concerts-which is a nice way of saying they’re playing drivel to make money-but it doesn’t last long. I don’t know how the Tulsa Philharmonic has survived as long as it has. Anyway, to make a long story short, I got laid off.”

“So that’s when you started playing in churches?”

“No. That’s when I became so thoroughly disgusted that I gave up music altogether. I managed a bookstore in a Boston suburb. Had nothing to do with music for three years.”

“But you eventually came back.”

“Yes. I remember one of my professors at Juilliard saying, in essence, that you have to leave music for a while to find out if you really have what it takes to spend your life there. I guess I learned that I did, or at the least, that I couldn’t live without it. But no one was hiring in the concert halls. So a friend steered me toward an Episcopal church near Boston that needed an interim organist. I took the job-and loved it. The parishioners were highly educated; they appreciated quality music. The rector was a delight. He let me do my job without interference. It was a pleasure.”