Chapter 6 - An Unexpected Witness
Gabriel stood frozen in the doorway of the pantry closet, his hand shaking so violently the iron poker rattled against the floor.
The tally marks on the wall were counted in groups of five. There were over eighty marks.
"Gabriel, wait..." Everett pleaded, shuffling forward, tears running down his weathered cheeks. "It wasn't like that. Your mother... she said the dark calmed Amelia down! She said it was a sensory deprivation technique she read about online!"
"Shut up, Everett!" Marlene snarled, her voice cutting through the hall. "Don't explain anything to him. He's ungrateful. He's always been ungrateful!"
Gabriel slowly turned around. The fury inside him was no longer wild; it had crystallized into something cold, deliberate, and terrifying.
"Get out," Gabriel said.
"This is our house until we choose to leave!" Marlene shouted, stepping into his face, her finger jabbing toward his chest. "We have tenant rights! You try to throw us out, and I will call the sheriff! I will tell child protective services that you're an abusive, unstable widower who neglects his special-needs daughter! Who do you think they’ll believe? A decorated grandmother, or a grease-monkey laborer who works eighty hours a week?"
Before Gabriel could answer, the front doorbell chimed.
The chime rang out twice in the dead of night, sharp and startling.
All three of them froze. Gabriel lowered the poker, walked down the foyer, and unlocked the heavy oak front door.
Standing on the porch beneath the yellow exterior light was a woman wrapped in a woolen winter coat, holding a leather briefcase. Gabriel recognized her instantly, though he hadn't seen her in nearly eighteen months.
It was Sarah Bennett—Amelia’s former occupational therapist, the one who had worked with Nora for three years before mysteriously resigning after Nora’s death.
"Sarah?" Gabriel breathed, stunned.
"Gabriel," Sarah said, her breath fogging in the crisp night air. She looked past him into the hallway, seeing the splintered closet door and Marlene standing like a coiled viper in the background. "I'm sorry to come so late. But I received an automated alert from the state licensing board an hour ago. Someone tried to recertify a care plan under my license number for an entity called Oakridge Behavioral."
Marlene’s face lost every shred of color.
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"I didn't quit two years ago, Gabriel," Sarah said, her voice trembling with emotion as she stepped inside. "Your mother told me you had placed Amelia in a residential institution in Chicago, and that my services were terminated. She threatened to report my license if I ever contacted you again."
***
