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agony, she knew the very worst.
    That this very man, the man who held her, who squeezed the life from her body, who would kill her now…
    …he was the one…he was the only one who could have known…
    …
he
had sent those words…
    The outrage of it burned through her, galvanized her into one final act of resistance. She drew up her foot, slammed it down hard on his instep. She heard him gasp with pain, felt his grip loosen. She brought her head forward, found the soft flesh of his hand, bit down as hard as she could. She shook her head violently, her teeth still fastened, until she heard him howl, and his hands flew away. She felt blessed air rush into her lungs, swung her elbow back, felt a satisfying crack as it struck his face.
    She heard him cry out again, saw his shadow, cast by the glow of the computer screen, flash across the wall in front of her as he went down, tumbling over her desk, scattering files, the pictures of her family, the spray of summer flowers she’d learned to dry herself. She was already running for the door, her hands grappling for the handle, the metal slipping in her hands like some object from a dream you just can’t hold…
    …until mercifully she had it, the door opened, slammed behind her, and she was out in the long hallway, alone. She glanced at the door helplessly—no way to secure it—then bolted away down the hall, her bare feet slapping the cool tile, echoes that died behind her as she run. Door after door flashed past her, bland titles, no comfort in any of them: Media Research, Communications Services, the several portals into Archives. She reached a broad intersection, hesitated, heard a door slam down the hallway behind her.
    She drew a kind of sobbing breath, turned left, ran down the wide hallway toward the Convocation Center. A huge arena, two dozen exits there, out to the vast parking lot, her car…and then she remembered with a pang that nearly took her legs from under her: the keys. Yes. Still in the pocket of her coat, back in her office.
    Her lungs were burning now, her side ached, her throat was raw. Footsteps pounded behind her and she had to keep going. Going somewhere.
    She fastened her gaze on the big double doors fifty yards away and forced her rubbery legs to move. She could make it to the hall. And then she could get outside. And somehow she’d find help.
    She glanced behind her, found her pursuer had not yet reached the turn. She turned back, thinking she had thirty yards, twenty-five…
    If she could just make it through those doors before he saw her, perhaps she’d have a chance. She was gasping when she reached them, clawing at the handles, the first door unyielding, but the second—yes, yes, thank God—swinging open at her touch. She glanced back to see the hallway still empty, then she was through the doors and closing them quickly behind her.
    She paused inside the silent cavern of the arena, steadying herself against a stand that held a marble baptismal font, a stack of collection plates, an usher’s candle damper in a notched sleeve. A series of life-sized saints, figures from biblical lore, and some characters who were the outright invention of the Reverend James Ray Willis seemed to stare down at her from their niches along the walls of the vast arena. All the accoutrements of salvation, she thought, none of them much good to her now. She’d lost her claim to grace, that was plain enough. She’d been found out, discovered wallowing in sin and degradation, proven herself unworthy, never mind that she’d been tricked. And damn it, that was still no reason to die.
    Her breath thundered in her ears, and she forced herself to rest another moment, savoring the silence that surrounded her, the familiar tang of new carpet and bindery glue and whatever vague residue of beingness still hovered in the air from last Sunday’s visit: 10,000 faithful souls who’d come to hear James Ray Willis proclaim God’s word and would come again the next and the