It was fear of man’s potential for godhood that had caused the Lord to banish humans from paradise, but Walter doubted that a single one of his most judgmental parishioners was aware of that fact.

Although he would bet that, to a person, they’d condemn his immorality and call for his resignation if they ever got wind that he gambled on sporting events.

Hypocrites.

The phone rang, and he hurriedly toggled back to his sermon before answering, just in case someone walked in while he was on the horn. It turned out to be a robocall, and he almost hung up, but the hook grabbed him: “Does your bank offer no-interest gambling loans? We do.”

Walter’s grip tightened on the receiver.

“Signature loans of up to three thousand dollars are available to pay off existing gambling debts or to use as a stake in future wagers. Press one if you would like to learn more—”

There was the familiar sound of the front door opening and then closing in the chapel, and Walter quickly hung up the phone. His hands were sweaty, and he wiped them on the towel he kept nearby just for that purpose before walking into the next room. He hoped it wasn’t someone with a serious problem—he was not in the mood for that right now—but he needn’t have worried: the chapel was empty.

Walter frowned. That was strange. He knew intimately all the sounds of his church, and he had definitely heard the loud squeak of hinges and even louder clack of the closing front door.

“Hello?” he said to the empty room. There was no response, but he said it again. One could never be too careful these days. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that some unbalanced person with a grudge against God, the church or himself might decide to come in with a weapon and start shooting.

No one answered, however, and he saw no sign that anyone was in the chapel. On the off chance that someone was hiding behind or beneath one of the pews, he walked down the aisle, looking down each row. When he came to the door, he opened it to see if the person who’d come in had somehow gotten out without him hearing or seeing it, but the church grounds were empty, as was the road.

He must have simply imagined that someone had come into the church.

Guilt?

It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. He’d been looking at the betting site, and while he didn’t consider gambling to be wrong or immoral, he knew parishioners like Norma did, and perhaps that had subliminally affected him. Closing the door, he walked back to his office to finish working on his sermon.

But his sermon was not on the screen of his computer. Instead, he was looking at FreshBets. And not just the odds page but a betting page. Somehow, within the past few minutes, a new account had been created under his name, and he had bet over five hundred dollars on the outcome of a hockey game.