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

nonetheless.
    By morning the bottle was empty, Boone was hungover again, and he was getting a picture of what it would take to survive. Good thing the wine was cheap if sleep was going to require a bottle a night. When he emerged from the bedroom, sunlight was already streaming through the curtains and Jack was gone. He had left a note on the kitchen table.
     
Sorry, but your pastor called and he’s coming by this morning. He said he knew you would probably beg off, so he was just gonna show up. If you don’t want to see him for some reason, maybe this’ll give you enough warning to find somewhere else to be. See you later. Jack
    Great. Boone knew there would be no avoiding Sosa, but he had hoped to put him off until their funeral-planning sessions. As soon as Boone finished with all his obligations, he would disappear from Community Life, at least for a while. Maybe forever. Sosa was the type who would pursue him, and the day would likely come when Boone would have to be honest with him. Meanwhile, couldn’t Sosa simply leave Boone alone?
    He jumped in the shower, trying to think of somewhere to escape to. He wouldn’t hang around headquarters the way some furloughed cops did. Maybe he could just hang out at a public library. Boone needed to figure out how to handle all the legal things that would arise out of this mess. His homeowners policy would rebuild the house, but then he wanted to sell it as soon as possible. The insurance claims on Nikki and Josh would likely be paid after a cursory investigation, but Boone was so repelled by the idea of, in essence, benefiting from their deaths that he could barely stand to think about it. He didn’t feel up to studying these things yet, but he needed something to do to keep himself from being so buried by his grief that he would not be able to function. In fact, he was close to that already.
    When Boone headed out to his car, he found Sosa’s parked right behind it. The pastor sat behind the wheel, reading. There would be no avoiding him. Boone approached and Sosa got out.
    “I knocked,” he said, “but I didn’t want to ring the bell in case you were sleeping.”
    “I was in the shower. Thanks for coming.”
    “Let me see your eyes, Boone.”
    “Nah. They’re bloodshot, as you can imagine.”
    “Not sleeping?”
    “Not much and not well.”
    “You got someplace to be, or can you ride with me for a few minutes?”
    Boone shrugged and climbed in. Sosa drove to a park where young mothers watched their kids on playground equipment. The two men sat on a park bench fifty yards away.
    “Don’t want to spook them,” Sosa said. “Nobody trusts anybody anymore.”
    “Did we have to come here?”
    Sosa looked away. “Life hurts,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to avoid mothers and kids.”
    “I can try.”
    “In your job? And in our church? I’m not trying to be mean, Boone. I just wanted to check up on you, make sure you’re all right, get you out of the house a little.”
    “You wanted to make sure I was all right?”
    “You know what I mean. I know this has rocked me and so many in our church, and that has to be just a fraction of how awful it is for you. Lots of people are praying for you.”
    Boone stared at the ground. “It’s a little late for that.”
    “There’s never a wrong time to pray.”
    “Yeah? What are they praying for? That I’ll get my wife and boy back? I don’t want anything else.”
    “Come on, Boone. You know what they’re praying for. That God will come alongside you, make himself known to you, get you through this somehow. I can’t tell you how he’s going to do that. And I’m not saying how long it will take. But I can tell you that you need to let your brothers and sisters embrace you and gather you in and care for you.”
    Boone stood and wandered. To his credit, Pastor Sosa let him go without following. Boone turned and called out to him, “I’ve got to tell you, nothing sounds worse. I don’t want to be