Free Angels in Pink: Holly's Story (Lurlene McDaniel (Mass Market)) by Lurlene McDaniel Page B

. . . because it would be the last thing she could ever do for him.
    Holly was seated with her parents at the burial site, under a canopy, when the invited guests began to arrive. The mahogany casket that held her brother sat on a raised platform, draped with a mantle of spring flowers. Holly clutched a box of tissue, watching Raina and her mother walk from their car. Behind them came Kathleen and Carson, pushing Mary Ellen’s wheelchair over the bumpy ground. Three of Hunter’s best friends from high school and three buddies from their church youth group were acting as pallbearers.
    The cemetery looked beautiful, clipped and trimmed and bathed in sunlight. Bright splashes of flowers dotted the landscape, tributes to all who’d come before her brother. In the distance, she saw a small lake edged with tall rushes and grasses, a fountain in its center. The water sprayed upward to some mysterious rhythm; the droplets caught sunbeams and then splattered onto the surface, where they disappeared into the deep only to rise and shower again.
    Holly was glad that her parents had opted for the small private burial. She was dreading the memorial service yet to come. How much more grief could she and her parents bear?
    When everyone was gathered, Pastor Eckloes stepped forward and read Bible passages about life and death, hope and heaven. Holly’s thoughts wandered. She’d attended church all her life, believed in what she’d been taught, never questioned it. Until now. Yes, the promise of heaven seemed glorious, but she could not understand why God had taken Hunter away from them.
    She had overheard her mother challenging the pastor one afternoon at their house. “I thought God sends angels to protect his own. Where were Hunter’s angels the day he was shot?”
    “Hunter’s angels had a different job that day—to carry him up to heaven,” the pastor had answered.
    Holly thought the image of winged angels bearing Hunter off a pretty one, but it brought her no understanding, no peace. Her brother had not deserved to die. God could have prevented it. He hadn’t. It made no sense to her.
    When the brief graveside service was over, Holly went to Raina and Kathleen. They hugged one another. Kathleen said, “This is so hard. So horrible.”
    “I’m just pretending he’s away at college, like he planned,” Holly said. “It’s easier to lie to myself than to say he’s never coming home again.”
    Raina said, “This is the worst day of my life.”
    Carson came up, put his arms around Kathleen and Holly. “Do the cops have any news?”
    “Not that we’ve heard.”
    “They’ll get the sorry scumbag.”
    “You sound like the detective who’s in charge of the case,” Holly said. “But why is it taking so long?”
    Holly’s father called her. “I really wish we could go home. I don’t want to go through another service,” she told her friends.
    “None of us do,” Raina said. “It’s just more of the same nightmare.”
    “I’ll call you both later,” Holly said, and she hurried off to ride to the huge brick church for a second service, which would commemorate Hunter’s brief life.
    “There certainly was a crowd,” Mike said that evening.
    “Even people who hardly knew him or us,” Holly said, feeling resentful about reporters she thought had no business coming.
    She sat with her parents at the kitchen table. A few dishes of the many brought by friends and neighbors had been heated, but no one had an appetite. Evelyn picked at a salad and Holly toyed with a bowl of soup.
    “But a lot who did,” Mike said. “A lot of people loved our boy.”
    Holly had looked over the crowd briefly, recognizing teachers and kids from school, and many from the hospital—Sierra; Susan from the pediatric cancer wing; Mrs. Graham; Carson’s parents; Betsy, the newborns’ nurse Raina had liked so much; even Mark Powell, the director of volunteer services, including the Pink Angels program. Seeing them jolted her back to a