DEATH (The Justice Cycle Book 1) by J Kiefer (best classic books to read TXT) 📗

his brother’s cigarette was clearly visible in the darkness.

“Steve?” Jared asked.

“The one and only,” the man replied, exhaling.

“What the devil are you doing out here? And how is it that I didn’t notice you when I first walked up, and the porch light turned on?”

Steve flicked away what remained of his cigarette and walked over. Strangely he continued to appear only as a shadowy silhouette until he was standing directly over him.

“Don’t know, big brother,” he replied with a smirk. “Guess you were just too lost in your own thoughts to notice me.”

“Not likely,” Jared shot back indignantly. “I’m trained to notice everything, and I am very good at what I do.”

Steve shrugged. “Maybe your eyesight is starting to go in your old age. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Ha. Ha, ha. Very funny!” Jared rolled his eyes. “You must have come from around back after I sat down.”

“We will never know, will we? Maybe it was magic.”

“Whatever!”

Jared grunted as he stretched, the fatigue from the last few days finally getting the better of him. His body ached all over and all he really wanted to do was go inside, pass out on the couch, and sleep for a week. The light turned on as he rose, the sensor once again detecting his motion.

“I thought you quit smoking,” he commented.

Steve opened the front door and held it for his older brother. “I did,” he said with a smile. “It didn’t take.”

Jared shook his head as he walked past his brother. Warmth instantly surged over him as he stepped over the threshold and into the humble dining room. He sighed with relief and the tension and fatigue from the previous few days seemed to melt away.

“God, I love it here,” he said to himself.

Their mother hurried out of the kitchen and threw her arms around her eldest son. “How are you doing?” she asked. “I heard about Jasmine. What happened? Everything seemed to be going so well.”

Jared returned his mother’s hug but shot Steve an annoyed glance as he did so. Steve threw his hands up and mouthed, “It wasn’t me!”

Their mother went back into the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “She called here sometime last night trying to reach you. She mentioned something about not wanting to call your cell phone and said she was sorry if she’d hurt you. She seemed to be in quite a big hurry and asked us to tell you not to try to reach her as she would be going out of town and had no idea when she would be returning to the area.”

Jared groaned as the emotions he had been suppressing throughout the day came flooding back. He plopped down into the nearest chair.

“Did she happen to mention where she was going?” he asked miserably.

“Sorry, honey. We were at church last night counseling and missed her call. She left the message on the answering machine.”

“If you want, you can play it back,” Jared’s father yelled from his perch by the computer in the living room. “I haven’t erased the messages yet.”

Jared’s head shot up. He desperately wanted to run into the living room and play that message just to hear her voice again, but he fought the urge. Steve, who was now sitting down across from him, eyed him curiously, interested in how he was going to react to this new revelation.

“No thanks, I’ll take your word for it,” he said, his mood turning sour. “I don’t think I can handle hearing her voice right now.”

His dad came into the room and he rose to give him a hug. The two men embraced, and Jared’s dad held him longer than he usually would.

“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, Dad, I’ll be okay. It may not feel like it right now, but it’s not the end of the world.”

His dad was a short stocky man in his late fifties with salt and pepper hair. Even though he was balding, he was handsome and distinguished, with a well-trimmed beard and sharp blue eyes.

He did, however, have a distinct aura of authority that he naturally projected when he came into a room. His father said that it was the anointing of God on his life. God or not, for Jared it was because his dad was his hero. To this day, he still felt the same awe for his father that he’d had as a child.

Steve fidgeted at the display of affection between the two. When they had finished, he stood up and quickly walked out into the living room and toward the steps that led upstairs.

“Don’t go anywhere,” his mother called after him as she entered the room carrying a plate of piping hot roast beef. “Dinner is just about ready.”

“I have to take a piss,” Steve said as he lumbered up the stairs.

“Steven James! You know I don’t like that word.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he shouted from somewhere up the stairs.

“I swear, that boy says things like that just to get under my skin,” she complained to her husband. She placed the dish on the table and headed out into the kitchen to get the rest of the meal.

“He says things like that to prove that he is his own person and no longer bound to our rules,” his dad replied. “That’s also why he continues to smoke. I used to think it was just another one of his rebellious phases and that he’d grow out of it, but now it has become a matter of independence for him. I don’t understand why he fights so hard against what he knows to be right.”

Ever since they were kids, Steve’s nonchalant attitude had always made Jared smile. He didn’t care what anybody thought about him or whether they approved of what he was doing. Steve lived his life on his own terms and never did anything simply because it was customary or expected. Much to his parents’ dismay, at times he went to the extreme to prove he was his own person, a man