“No!”

Clare erupted from her chair, setting it rocking unsteadily on the Persian carpet.

Sterling tugged on his scarf. “It’s not as if the soup kitchen will fold without us. And I’m sure the unwed teenage mothers will continue to have babies whether we’re here to ‘mentor’ them or not.”

“Sterling,” Mrs. Marshall said warningly.

“Well, they’re not providing much benefit to the members of the congregation,” he pointed out.

Clare braced her hands flat on the table. “Ministering to the poor, the sick, and the friendless is pretty much the whole point behind the Christianity thing, Sterling.” She caught the wicked gleam in his eye and knew she had risen to his bait. “And you are being deliberately provocative.” She sat down. “Next suggestion.”

People looked up, down, across the room, as if thousands of dollars might materialize from the air.

“What about investments?” Geoff Burns said. “Are there any underperformers in the church’s portfolio we could sell?”

McKellan shook his head. “Not without gutting our already-modest endowment.”

“Ah.” Burns sank back into his seat. Clare considered the leather-and-oak chair, one of twelve in the room. Maybe they wouldn’t have to send anything out to auction. They could do it all on eBay. Mrs. DeWitt, St. Alban’s seventy-something volunteer webmaster, had her own e-store.

“There is the possibility…” Mrs. Marshall’s voice faded away. Clare sat up straighter. The elderly woman tended to be one of the quieter members at their meetings, but when she spoke up, she always did so strongly. Clare had never heard her sound uncertain before.

Mrs. Marshall looked down at the financial statement in front of her. “I suppose I could liquidate the Ketchem Trust.”

Norm Madsen shook his head. “No, no, no no no. Out of the question.”

Such clear-cut decisiveness was out of character for Mr. Madsen, the vestry’s Great Equivocator. “What’s the Ketchem Trust?” Clare asked. “I don’t recall seeing that name in our financial statement.”