AN EXCERPT FROM QUEST... BOOK 2 IN THE ASBURY CHRONICLES! G-Man sat alone in his hotel room, staring at the amber numbers on the digital clock. 10:57 PM. For more than three hours now he had been sitting in the unlighted room that grew darker as the sun sank below the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. Eventually, the room was totally black except for the clock, a bit of light bleeding around the edge of the drawn curtains, and the intermittent red flash from the ceiling mounted smoke detector. It had not been a good day for G-Man. In fact, it had been disastrous. It all started with the phone call from his manager at three o’clock that afternoon. “The word is out.” Four simple words, yet they packed so much power … including the power to grab his career as a Christian musician and crush it as if it had never been. “The word is out.” A combination of dread and relief flooded G-Man as the words hit home. Dread because he feared the repercussions. Relief because he was just so tired of living a lie. “The word is out.” Everything he held dear—both real and illusionary—was now lost, and was replaced with uncertainty, confusion, apprehension. G-Man was here in Charlottesville beginning the last leg of his “Cross-Country” tour of venues ranging from huge football stadiums to small, intimate coffee houses. Eighteen of the first twenty shows were sellouts, as the musician’s latest song—No Black Clouds—rocketed up the contemporary Christian music chart, further fueling ticket and CD sales. In the world of Christian music, G-Man had the Midas touch. His last three CDs all went platinum, his fireplace mantle held numerous Dove and Grammy awards, the G-Man autobiography—ghost written by a top Christian author—was selling exceedingly well, and there was even talk of a movie project with the singer in the lead role. G-Man was indeed a hot property. But now it was all over. Everything G-Man had worked so hard all these years to achieve was now flushed down the toilet because of Trish. It started simply enough. G-Man and Trish—one of the back-up singers in the band—stayed back for lunch alone while the rest of the tour group went off to see the sights during a stop in LA on last year’s tour. Casual conversation led to talk about the problems in each other’s marriages. Soon, G-man—his wife thousands of miles away at their home in Nashville—found himself alone in his hotel room with Trish. The two spent nearly all their free time together as the tour moved on. Guitar player Dustin Jenkins resigned from the band in protest, but the rest of the troupe kept silent, doing their best to cover for G-Man and Trish. They worked diligently to squash any rumors that popped up, working hard to protect their livelihoods. City after city, show after show, they all silently conspired to hide the two singers’ infidelities. Until today. “The word is out.” Benson Trott, G-Man’s manager, didn’t know how the fact escaped, but now there would be no more lying, no more sweeping the truth under the rug. G-Man’s deception was exposed for the world to see. His concert at a large Charlottesville church was quickly cancelled by the promoter. Trish caught the first flight out, hoping to save her marriage by pinning all the blame on G-Man. The rest of the band made phone calls to their networks, hoping to land other positions. And G-Man sat alone in his room.

Copyright © William M. Dolack, Jr.