Read Online A Smudge of Gray by Jonathan Sturak - Free Book Online Page A

cheered. It was his family—his mother Laura, his sister Katie, and
his father Trevor, who was wearing a plaid golf shirt and khakis.
    “Yea, Kevin, go get ’em honey!” Laura
yelled.
    Kevin dribbled the ball toward his
basket. He reached the three-point line before a swarm of red invaded his space.
Kevin picked up his dribble, and then bounced the ball to his teammate,
Jonathan. The younger Boise jumped and shot the ball in one fluid motion. It
arced high in the air, and then swished.
    Trevor, Laura, and Katie shouted with
zest as Anne Marie and Helen followed their lead seven rows away.
    “Brian is missing another great game,”
Anne Marie said to her sister.
    “Where is Brian, anyway?” Helen asked as
she saw a muscular father walking her way.
    “Working. Where else?”
    “Are you sure he’s working ? Men
are sleazeballs. They cheat, steal, lie,” Helen replied as she locked eyes with
the father and shared a smile.
    “He’s a cop. That’s a demanding job.”
    “He’s not a cop.”
    “What do you mean? Are you saying that
he’s been lying these past ten years?” Anne Marie said.
    “I’m saying that he’s just pretending to
be a cop after his—”
    “After his father died, Brian changed. He
changed so much that he became a cop himself. But losing a father is something
that I dread one day. Don’t you?”
    Helen got quiet. “Isn’t the ten year
anniversary of his father’s death coming up?”
    “Next week. I can’t believe it’s been
ten years. Brian hasn’t brought it up, but I know it’s been tormenting him.”
    “I get shivers whenever I think about
what happened to his father, and even more so when I think that Brian saw it
happen right in front of him. I would go mad.”
    “It seems that Brian has been getting
busier and busier with his job, maybe just to block it all out, but I know he’s
doing it for us…at least, I hope he is.”
    “He should be a banker. What cop has a
math degree? You should have dumped him back when you met him,” Helen said.
    “Well, you introduced him to me.”
    Seven rows away, the Malloy family
watched their son steal the ball from a red player, but then he lost control
sending it out of bounds.
    “Good hustle, Kevin!” Coach Wilson’s
voice echoed through the gym.
    “I’m so glad we decided to enroll him in
youth basketball. He looks like he’s having so much fun,” Laura remarked to
Trevor.
    As the game engrossed the crowd, a
mysterious signal, invisible to those around it, lurked through the air above
the action. It traveled secretly, and while the humans in the gym did not see
it, smell it, or even sense it, the signal snaked around them. But suddenly, it
revealed itself not to the masses, but to one man sitting amongst his family—Trevor
Malloy. His cell phone vibrated, possessed by the strange stream of binary
digits. Trevor felt the pulsations rattle his waist. He peeked at the screen and
saw the pixels identify the unidentifiable signal, “Unknown.”
    Trevor removed the device from his belt.
His mind left the gymnasium and entered darkness. He knew who it was even if
the device didn’t. Trevor answered the phone as he stared straight at the
painted concrete across from him. Swiftly, one of the kids on the red team
tossed the ball from one side of the court to the other. The crowd collectively
chased it. And there was Trevor with an evil glare, listening, the only one in
the bleachers looking forward. Then as the spectators spectated, Trevor killed
his phone and returned it to his belt.
    “Work?” Laura asked as she looked up at
her husband’s stone face.
    “Yeah, another contract with a client.
You’ll be okay with Katie.” Trevor looked at his carefree daughter. “You take
care of Mom while I run an errand for work, okay?”
    “Okay, Dad. See you later,” Katie
replied, without taking her eyes off Kevin, who was trying to block the ball.
    Trevor kissed his wife on the lips, just
as he always did before he departed her. Laura