Chapter 5 - The Unexpected Knock
The sun sank below the horizon by four o'clock, casting a long, violet shadow across the snow-covered hills of Duluth. Toby had woken up an hour earlier, quiet and subdued, helping Bernard clear a path down the front steps. They hadn't talked much about Raymond’s phone call, but the unspoken tension hung in the air like frost.
Toby was sitting at the kitchen table, picking at a bowl of canned soup, when the sound of crunching gravel echoed from the driveway.
Both of them froze.
Bernard looked out the small kitchen window. It wasn't Raymond’s battered sedan or a police cruiser. It was a sleek, unfamiliar SUV idling by the mailbox, its headlights cutting amber cones through the gathering dusk.
Before Bernard could tell Toby to stay back, the front door rattled.
The lock clicked, and the door swung open. It wasn't Raymond who stepped into the warm entryway, shaking snow from an expensive wool coat.
It was a woman Bernard had never seen before—middle-aged, impeccably dressed, with sharp features and cold, assessing eyes that immediately locked onto Toby sitting at the kitchen table.
“Thank God,” the woman said, letting out a sharp breath of relief. “I was afraid Bernard had dragged you all the way out into the wilderness before I could catch you.”
Toby dropped his spoon, his face turning sheet-white as he stared at the woman in absolute disbelief.
“Aunt Sarah?” Toby whispered, his voice trembling.
Bernard gripped the edge of the kitchen counter, his mind racing. Sarah—not his late wife, but Sarah Miller, Raymond’s younger sister who had supposedly moved to Seattle twelve years ago and cut all ties with the family.
“What are you doing here?” Bernard demanded, stepping out of the kitchen into the hallway.
May you like
Sarah turned her cool gaze from the boy to her father, a bitter, ironic smile touching the corners of her lips.
“Saving my nephew from the same man who ruined my brother,” she said smoothly, pulling a manila folder from under her arm. “And from the looks of it, I’m about three years too late.”
