A Sounding Brass (9 page)

The contents of this cardboard box alone would take care of the invoices needing to be paid in the second largest pile. Operating
costs, it appeared, were not going to be a problem.

“This is amazing,” she said aloud over the sound of someone calling in to the open mic. “I think he’s going to do it.”

“Do what?”

She turned to see Toby Henzig leaning against her door frame, his hands in his pockets. The open-mic program must be able
to take care of itself. Whoever was speaking didn’t sound as though he was planning to stop for breath anytime soon.

“Luke,” she told him. “He told me he was going to turn this station around. From the looks of the donations we’re getting,
I think he’s going to do it.”

“How much do you reckon is there?”

She waved her hands at the pile a little helplessly. “Ballpark? I’d say a couple of thousand.”

His eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. I need some accounting software for that computer in the worst way.”

“That’s more than we ever took in in a whole quarter,” Toby said. “He’s only been here a couple of weeks. How is this possible?”

“With God all things are possible.” She felt a little odd, using the Lord’s name outside of Gathering, but after all, Toby
was a “worldly preacher,” wasn’t he? He would understand a reference like that.

“With Luke all things are possible, it seems.” Frown lines appeared briefly between his brows, then smoothed out. “What kind
of software did you say you needed?”

“QuickBooks. FileMaker. Anything. I’ve got no way to generate receipts for all this money, and no way to record the payables
except on a spreadsheet I found in the computer. I assume that’s yours.”

Toby nodded. “I can do basic arithmetic, but that’s it. This place hasn’t needed much more than that until now. Oh, and don’t
worry about the license and the FCC filings. I take care of those.”

“That’s good.” She smiled. “I don’t even know what FCC stands for.”

“Federal Communications Commission. They approve our programming and license the bandwidth to us. But I’ve been dealing with
the paperwork to them for fifteen years now, so I’ll just keep on doing that. We hired you to deal with this.” He indicated
her piles. “I’ll go over to Pitchford tonight and get you some software, all right? The stores will be open late, and I know
how your group feels about computers.”

Her mouth formed a wry expression. “I’m not sure anyone’s feeling the same about that anymore. Phinehas was the greatest proponent
against them, and now that he’s—” She stopped. What was she saying? How could she speak out against the Elect’s leader—well,
former leader—to a worldly man, and a preacher to boot? As Derrick said, Phinehas was innocent until proven guilty. Just because
she’d convicted him in her own mind didn’t mean she needed to do it in front of strangers.

Stricken, she gazed down at her hands, which were scored with paper cuts.

“Now that he’s been called into question, perhaps everything he stood for should be examined, too?” Toby’s voice was quiet
as he finished her ill-advised sentence. Claire looked up.

“Have you been talking to Luke?” she asked. “He said the same thing.”

“It’s reasonable to question some of his ideas. After all, you’ve got to admit the strictures against computers and different
colored clothing aren’t in the Bible.”

It was one thing to hear this in Gathering from Owen and Luke, but quite another to hear it from outsiders. Even if what he
said were true, Melchizedek had preached many a sermon on what the Devil did when he got the chance—and she’d handed an opportunity
to bad-mouth her religion to him on a plate.

“Maybe not,” she said with dignity. “But it does tell us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice and to think on things
that are pure and lovely.” Ha. She probably knew the Scriptures better than he did.

He bit his lip. “Now I’ve gone and offended you. I didn’t mean to.”

His humility undercut her flash of pride. How could she be offended by someone who agreed with Luke and Owen? It didn’t take
away from the fact that the community in which she’d grown up had sheltered her and protected her from the temptations of
the world. That was a good thing, a worthy thing.

“That’s all right,” she mumbled, and Toby went back to the studio to open the phone line for someone else to rant about taxes
or highway maintenance or the dismal price of beef.

But it
wasn’t
all right. Between the teachings of the past and the changes in the present, she needed to find her balance. And that was
turning out to be harder than she’d expected.

R
AY JUST HAPPENED
to be oh-so-coincidentally seated at one of the coffee bar’s sidewalk tables drinking a latte when Claire came out of the
station at five o’clock. Fortunately—since he’d been nursing it for nearly an hour while he’d been watching the station’s
door—the place made an excellent latte.

She did a double take when she saw him, hesitated as if deciding whether it would be politically correct to talk to him, and
then walked over.

“Hey, Claire.” Swinging his boots off the wrought-iron chair opposite him, he waved her into it.

“You look as if you’re enjoying your holiday,” she observed.

He straightened out of his comfortable surveillance slouch. “I am. This place makes good coffee and lets you hang out and
people watch for as long as you want.”

“Do you like people watching?”

He did it for a living. Long nights of surveillance, wiretaps, undercover ops—all were concentrated forms of people watching.

“Sure. This town is full of interesting types. Plus I noticed there’s been a lot of traffic into the bookstore.”

“Luke’s going to start a reading club.”

“A what? When?”

“Next week. ‘Hamilton Falls for Literature’ or something like that.”

“I hope Quill and Quinn has a lot of copies of the books he’s chosen, then. People have been going in and out of there as
if she’s having a sale.”

“Luke probably gave Rebecca a heads-up. She doesn’t usually stock that kind of thing, so she had to do a special order.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Christian fiction.”

He stared at her. Something wasn’t computing here. “She’s a Christian, isn’t she? Why wouldn’t she stock Christian fiction?”

Claire bit her lip, and Ray found himself unable to look away. “She—we—um, at one time we believed that other churches were
deceived. We’re only supposed to read the Bible, not other books.”

“‘At one time?’”

Something had become very interesting on the latch of her purse. “I’m not exactly sure about some things now. A lot of what
I thought was the truth is changing.”

Ross had told him once that the Elect believed their ways were mandated by the Bible and could not be changed. They must really
be hurting if one of their own could admit that change might actually happen.

“And that bothers you.”

“Yes.”

She looked up, as though she were grateful for the fact that he didn’t make a big deal about it. Why would he? If they wanted
to change their rules, it was nothing to him.

“It would be like the traffic laws changing every time a new politician was elected. You’d hardly know what the right thing
was until you were arrested, and by then it would be too late.”

Discussions about the ins and outs of religion made Ray’s skin twitch. “So, are you going to join the book club and read this
book by an obviously deceived person?”

“I guess I am. It’s part of my job now, to participate. You can’t very well have a book club hosted by your boss and not read
the book.”

“I suppose not. Gotta be a team player and all that.”

“Do you read Christian fiction?” she asked.

A swallow of his latte went down the wrong pipe, and he coughed. “Not hardly,” he got out when he could speak. “I believe
what I believe and try not to think about religion at all.”

“Belief and religion are different.”

“Are they?” He put his cup down. The roof of his mouth felt dry from too much caffeine.

“What
do
you believe?” Her gaze was direct, honest, as though she really wanted to know, but the whole subject was making him jumpy.

“Look, Ross and Julia don’t talk about that stuff with me. No offense, but I’d appreciate it if you took a leaf from their
book, okay?”

That was all he needed—to get into a long discussion about faith, belief, whatever you wanted to call it, with a pretty woman
and find himself being led off to a Gathering by his nose. Not gonna happen.

“All right.” She stood up and pushed the chair in. “Well, I’m heading home. It’s been a busy day. See you later.”

Wait a minute. He hadn’t meant to brush her off. On the contrary, he still needed to have a bogus conversation with her about
seeing the sights of Hamilton Falls. “Claire—”

But he was too slow on the draw. She was already halfway down the block and couldn’t hear him. Once again, Prince Charming
had come through in the pinch and alienated the one person he could use to get the drop on Luke Fisher. Ray felt like smacking
himself on the forehead. Instead, he lobbed his empty cup into the trash can and stalked down the street to his truck.

He was a total idiot. A smart investigator would buddy up to a source like this—one who was tied both to the station and to
the group that Luke Fisher was burrowing into with such success. A smart investigator would develop that relationship while
avoiding that fine line where professional investment became emotional involvement. It was true that things had turned out
well for Ross when he’d fallen for Julia, but Ray had no intention of getting hooked up with any woman who dropped belief
and religion into a conversation and seriously expected an answer. He’d had enough of fanatics to last a lifetime, thank you
very much. Even now, his mom only invited him for a visit in order to bend his ear about his salvation—or lack of it. She’d
started four churches single-handedly, as though it were her mission in life to devise ways for people to give up their ability
to make sound decisions based on rational criteria and instead start basing them on a nebulous afterworld that no one could
prove existed.

A breeze off the lake tickled the back of his neck and he shivered. He leaned on the driver’s door, watching the inhabitants
of Hamilton Falls go about their business. The truth was, he was stuck. He had no contact with anyone else in this group,
and getting all chummy with Luke Fisher was going to be difficult after the other man had drawn a clear line on the sidewalk
in front of Claire Montoya. He had to pull it together and get back into the lady’s good graces.

A glance at his watch told him it was five-thirty. There was a pizza place next to the theater on the next block. It was obvious
that the famous Harper charm had conked out where Claire was concerned. Maybe crisp dough and Italian sausage would do a better
job.

* * *

WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG,
Claire dried her hands on the bathroom towel and went to answer it. Usually Rebecca called up when she needed something,
but once in a while, she trekked up the steep stairs, measuring cup in hand, to borrow sugar or cornstarch.

She swung the door open. “What are you making this t—oh.”

Ray Harper stood there with a Mama Rosa pizza box balanced on the palm of his hand. He filled up the whole doorway—or so it
seemed. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Her whole brain was occupied with trying to imagine what he could be
doing there.

“If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, I figured the way to a woman’s would be to keep her out of the kitchen,”
he quipped.

Her brain snapped back into gear and began to function. “What do you want?” Okay, that sounded pretty ungracious. “I mean,
what’s going on?” Still not brilliant, but better. And why did he want to know the way to her heart?

He shrugged, and his face took on a sheepish expression. “My best friend and yours are married. I figure we’re going to be
running into each other at birthdays, graduations, and weddings, so we ought to be on good terms. I don’t think I managed
that earlier, so I’m here to try again.”

She had to give him credit for his initiative. And she couldn’t really argue with his reasoning, either. It wasn’t his fault
that all she could think about when she was around him was how powerful he looked and how dumb she felt. He was just being
nice, that was all. He didn’t have designs on her—how could he? She was clearly not his type. And he was definitely not hers.

First off, he didn’t believe in God, and the only thing worse than getting interested in someone from a worldly church was
getting interested in an atheist. Well, they were the same, really. Elect girls only dated Inside. It was safer and saved
hours of explanations—not to mention a future spent in misery in a divided household, like her sister, Elaine.

Not that anyone here was thinking about dating or getting married. An interrogation and a pizza did not a relationship make.

“You have a point.” She opened the door wider and motioned him in. It wouldn’t be shameful to have him here alone; after all,
he’d been a guest in Rebecca’s home, not to mention here the other night. “Thank you. I’ve been so preoccupied with work that
I walked in and realized I didn’t have a thing in the house to eat except an orange and two slices of processed cheese.”

“Hey, at my place that would make a gourmet dinner.”

She laughed and reached into the cupboard to take out two plates. “So, this is purely social, right? They haven’t decided
to use me as a witness after all?”

“Right. I felt kind of bad that I cut you off earlier, at the coffee bar,” he said. “You were being sincere, and I was just
being cranky.”

She put salt, pepper, and napkins on the yellow kitchen table and found red chili flakes and Parmesan cheese packets in the
pizza box. “Most men wouldn’t come bearing food because of that.”

He shrugged and held up his plate while she slid a steaming slice onto it. He waited for her to serve herself, and then as
she bowed her head to say grace.