Chapter 6: Awakening to Reality
The morning sun broke through the dense cloud cover, casting long, sharp beams of golden light across the hardwood floors of Katherine’s kitchen. The scent of toasted sourdough and fresh coffee filled the air, a domestic routine foreign to this house. Toby sat at the counter, wearing a clean flannel shirt that Katherine had hastily purchased the night before from an all-night mercantile. The sleeves were rolled up twice at his wrists, and the collar sat slightly loose around his thin neck, but he looked warm, clean, and anchored.
Katherine poured a glass of milk and set it beside his plate. The bruises on his face looked more prominent in the harsh morning light—purplish-yellow around the cheekbone and jawline—a stark reminder of the violence he had endured before reaching her doorstep. She pulled out the stool next to him and sat down, holding a mug of black coffee between her palms.
"How did you sleep?" Katherine asked, watching him butter a piece of toast with deliberate care.
"Good," Toby mumbled around a bite. "The bed didn't move. In the shelter, people were always walking around and slamming doors."
"You won't hear any slamming doors here," Katherine promised. "We need to talk about practical things today, Toby. The social services office in Multnomah County sent over your records electronically last night. I’ve reviewed them."
Toby paused, his toast hovering halfway to his mouth. His dark eyes darted up to hers, instantly guarded. "Are they coming to get me?"
"No," Katherine said firmly, reaching out to place her hand gently over his small, flour- dusted fingers. "No one is taking you anywhere. But those records show a history of instability, missed school attendance, and a man named Ray who lived with your mother during her last year."
The boy’s expression darkened instantly. He set the toast down on the plate, his appetite vanishing. The easy warmth in the kitchen seemed to drop ten degrees. "Ray was a bad man," Toby whispered, his voice dropping an octave. "He yelled at Mom all the time. He broke things. When Mom got too sick to get out of bed, he took our money and left us with nothing for two weeks. That's how I got this bruise—he tried to take the wooden box because he thought the gold was real and worth money."
Katherine felt a cold fury rise in her chest, a mixture of a judge’s demand for justice and a grandmother’s primal rage. "Did the police in Portland ever arrest him?"
Toby shook his head, looking down at his lap. "He ran away when Mom went to the hospital. Nobody cared about us. The landlord threw our stuff out on the sidewalk the day after Mom died."
"They care now," Katherine said, her voice dropping into a low, resolute register. She pulled her phone from her pocket and placed it on the counter. She had already contacted a private investigator and a federal marshal friend of hers late last night. Ray Miller—or whatever alias he used—wasn't going to remain a ghost for long. If he crossed state lines after abandoning a dying woman and abusing a child, federal statutes would apply.
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"Finish your breakfast, Toby," Katherine instructed gently. "Then we are going to set up a secure line with a doctor to look at that cheek, and after that, we have a very important phone call to make to a detective."
***
