Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood by Jerry B. Jenkins Page B

prescribed a sedative.”
    They agreed to get together the following evening with his parents. Boone did not look forward to that but could think of no way to get out of it.
    When he hung up with his father-in-law, he had to wonder what it was like for a man to lose his only daughter and grandson. Boone wished he could transfer some of his grief and empathize with the man. Steve McNickle had known and lived with Nikki for eighteen years. Boone felt cheated of a lifetime with her.
    Did it make sense to be alone with his thoughts? They were jumbled, and his emotions made them worse. Mixed with his horror and grief and loss was that rage over the unfairness of it all. He knew what all the church platitudes would be, and they were no help to him now. People would fall all over themselves to try to help, and while he knew they would mean well—as he would in reversed circumstances—the fact was that there was absolutely nothing anyone could ever say or do to make this better. And right then it seemed nothing could even dull a pain so sharp it threatened to slice him in two.
    How long had it been since he had told Francisco Sosa that his wife was his life and that he would die for his son? He meant it then and doubly now. Without Nikki he didn’t want any kind of a life. And he would have given everything he would ever own if God would have allowed him to trade places with Joshie and let Boone suffer such a horrible death so the baby could live.
    His hands and feet felt weighed down from exhaustion, yet Boone could not sit still. He paced the bedroom, then the living room, peeking out onto the street and idly watching the occasional car, cab, or truck pass.
    If he could talk with anyone, anyone at all, who would it be? Pastor Sosa? Maybe someday, but not soon. His parents? That would come too soon as it was. Jack was a great partner and friend, but he had nothing to offer. Oh, how he longed to talk with Nikki. She knew him, understood him, would grieve with him, stand by him, love him unconditionally, allow him to rage, to question God, to weep, to despair over his very life.
    What did other people do in this situation? The devout talked to God, but the sad fact was, that wasn’t Boone. Though he’d been a Christian since childhood and a churchgoer his whole life, his prayers were limited to grace at mealtime and pleading with God for something he really wanted or needed—like safety in a life-threatening situation. He had not, as he had heard Pastor Sosa put it so succinctly, maintained his spiritual disciplines.
    Sosa had also often warned in his sermons that sometimes God has to allow a person to come to the end of himself before he realizes his deep need. Well, Boone couldn’t imagine being more at the end of himself, but right now he and God were not on speaking terms—and he wasn’t sure they ever would be.
    Everyone who knew and loved him would say something about God being his strength and comfort, his rock in this time of need. But Boone had too many questions, too many challenges, too much of a grudge against a supposedly all-powerful, loving being who could allow such a thing to happen to Nikki and Josh . . . and him.
    Boone felt guilty that his stomach was growling. It seemed wrong to worry about physical needs when what was left of his wife and baby was wrapped in gauze and plastic and lying on steel gurneys in a basement morgue. But he was hungry, and Jack was right that it would do him no good to quit eating altogether. With everything he was going to have to endure, he didn’t need malnutrition.
    The refrigerator was full, as Jack had said, but his hope for a cold piece of beef or chicken or ham was not to be satisfied. The only thing that appealed was a block of cheese. He hauled it out and rummaged through the cupboards, looking for crackers. Boone found a box, hoping they weren’t stale, but he also came upon Jack’s clumsy hiding place for the family photos he had swept off Nikki’s end table. And