The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 6-10 - Catherine Coulter [176]
Then he saw his friends, Savich and Sherlock. Dane felt immensely grateful. He nodded to them.
Dane looked down at his brother’s coffin, the white roses blanketing it. He cleared his throat and fastened his gaze just over the top of Savich’s head because he just couldn’t bear to speak looking directly at anyone. He said, “My brother loved to play football. He was a wide receiver and he could catch any ball I could get in the air. I remember one of our last high-school games. We were behind, twenty to fourteen. There was only a little over a minute left in the game when we got the ball again.
“All the fans were on their feet and we were moving down the field, me throwing passes, Michael catching them. Finally, we were on the eighteen-yard line, with only ten seconds left to play. We had to have a touchdown.
“I threw the ball to Michael in the corner of the end zone. I don’t know how he kept a foot inbounds, but he actually caught that ball just as he was tackled hard, and he held on. He won the game, but the thing was, that hit tore up his knee.
“He lay there, grinning up at me like a fool, knowing he’d probably never play another football game, and he said, ‘Dane, it’s okay. Sometimes the bad things don’t touch you nearly as much as the good things do. We won, you can’t get gooder than that.’ ”
Dane’s voice broke. He vaguely heard scattered small laughs. He looked down again at the roses that covered Michael’s coffin. Then, suddenly, he felt warmth on his face, looked up, and saw that brilliant sunlight had burst through those incredible stained-glass windows. He felt the warmth of that light all the way to his bones. He said, voice firmer now, “Michael appreciated the good in everyone, rejoiced in it; he also understood that the bad was a part of the mix, and he accepted that, too. But there was one thing he wouldn’t accept, and that was evil; he knew it was here among us. He knew the stench of it, hated the immense tragedy it brought into the world. The night he was shot, he knew he was facing evil. He faced it, and the evil killed him.
“Michael and I shared many things: Two of them were Sunday football games and tenacity.”
Dane paused a moment, and this time he scanned all the faces around him. He said in a low voice, filled with despair and promise, “I will find the evil that destroyed my brother. I will never give up until I do.”
There was a moment of absolute silence.
The silence was broken by a soft popping sound. Even as slight a sound as it was, in the dead silence it echoed to every corner of the church. A man yelled, “This woman’s hurt!”
People jerked around, trying to see what was happening.
Nick yelled, “Oh God, it’s him, Dane! He tried to kill me! It’s him!”
Dane saw blood streaking down her face, felt fear paralyze him for an instant. Then he raced down the steps toward Nick, as she shoved her way through bewildered knots of mourners, yelling at them, “Stop him! There, he’s wearing that black coat, that black hat. Stop him!”
People were turning and grabbing anyone in black, but since nearly every person was wearing black, including a good three dozen priests, there was pandemonium, people shoving, people yelling, people grabbing other people. It was madness.
Dane reached Nick, looked at the blood snaking down her face, and yelled, “Dammit, Nick. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay, don’t worry. Just a graze, I guess. We’ve got to get him. Dane, hurry, I saw him running that way.”
Dane thought he saw the man then, moving fast, darting around people or pushing through them, his head down, heading to the narrow side door of the church.
Dane shoved two priests out of his way, saw the man disappear out the side door and the door swing closed again. He nearly burst with fury. The bastard had come here, to his brother’s service, probably laughing behind his hand, in madness, and triumph.