Chapter 14: The Return of the Silence
By ten o'clock that night, Oak Creek had returned to its normal, uneventful rhythm. The streetlamps buzzed softly in the humid night air, and the distant hum of traffic from the interstate was the only sound breaking the suburban quiet. Mrs. Gable had finally turned off her opera glasses and gone to bed, satisfied that whatever the government had wanted with Arthur Vance, it was over and wouldn't appear on the local news bulletin at eleven.
Marcus sat at the kitchen table alone, the twenty-dollar bill resting beside his homework assignment. His mother was still driving back from her sister's house in Baltimore, unaware of the afternoon's events, and Marcus hadn't called her yet. He didn't know how to explain federal agents, ruined basketballs, and lead-lined walls over a bad cell phone connection on Interstate 95.
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He looked out the small window above the sink. The driveway was empty now, the black SUVs gone as if they had never been there at all, leaving behind only a faint oil stain and the gray rubber residue from his ruined Spalding. He felt older than he had that morning, as if a door in his mind had been unlocked and could never quite be shut again.
He stood up, walked to the hallway closet, and pulled out an old, deflated rubber volleyball that had been sitting in the corner since his middle school gym class. It wasn't a Spalding, and it didn't bounce quite right on the asphalt, but it would have to do for tomorrow afternoon.
