Page 25 of Logan’s Way

But he wouldn’t put anyone else at risk to do it. Wouldn’t call retired caseworkers or FBI agents or county clerks who might remember details. Wouldn’t create more Sandra Hammonds—people who’d tried to help and learned too late that helping meant exposure.

Whatever came next, Angus would pursue it alone. Using resources that couldn’t be monitored. Following threads that didn’t require anyone else’s cooperation. Building a case that existed only in his locked files, coded notes, and the evidence he could gather without implicating others.

* * *

He thought about Hammond in her Scottsdale home. She’d done nothing wrong. She had simply answered questions about a case from nearly two decades ago. Had confirmed what the file suggested and provided context the official record omitted.

And Angus had put her in that position. He had called her number and asked his questions and drawn attention that followed her even into retirement, even across state lines, even in conversations she’d thought were private. And she’d been put on notice almost immediately.

The guilt wasn’t theoretical. Wasn’t abstract. It was specific and personal, fixed in his chest, unrelenting.

He’d hurt someone by asking questions. And if he kept asking questions of people who weren’t protected, he’d hurt more.

So he’d stop asking. He’d work with what he already had, following trails that existed in documents and databases and public records—sources that couldn’t be retracted with a phone call.

The moral calculus was simple: Logan’s truth wasn’t worth Sandra Hammond’s fear. Wasn’t worth the next person who got contacted and warned and reminded that some memories were safer left unshared.

Angus would find another way. He had to. Because the person he had been for twenty years—the sheriff who believed in procedure and evidence and protecting people from harm—could not justify creating casualties in service of truth.

Even when the truth mattered. Even when the lies were institutional. Even when his brother’s life hung in the balance of what he could—or couldn’t—prove.

Some costs were too high. Some people deserved protection from his investigation, even if that protection meant working harder, slower, more carefully.

Outside, Weyport had settled into evening quiet. Inside, with Scout’s head resting on his foot, Angus sat in a room that no longer looked like an investigation command center. Just a guest bedroom. Just a man on leave, trying to process grief and move forward.

Except the investigation wasn’t over. It hadn’t even slowed. It had just gone underground—into locked cabinets and coded journals and the places where evidence could exist without being visible.

Angus looked at his notebook. At the rule he’d just written. At the boundary he’d set between what he would and wouldn’t do.

Then he added one final line:

Different approach. Same destination.

Because the truth about Logan didn’t change just because the path to it had become more dangerous. The fabricated death certificate didn’t become legitimate just because witnesses were being silenced. The pattern of interventions didn’t disappear just because people were too afraid to confirm what they remembered.

The evidence existed. Angus had found it, documented it, hidden it where others couldn’t seize it.

Now he had to figure out how to follow it without creating more casualties.

Scout’s breathing settled into a sleep rhythm. The house was quiet except for the familiar sounds of wind moving past the windows. Everything ordinary. Everything normal.

Except Angus Reid sat in the darkening guest bedroom, a locked filing cabinet holding evidence of systematic fraud and a rule in his notebook binding him to a path that would only make the search harder.

No more people who’d learned the cost of helping.

Just him and the truth and the brother who might still be alive somewhere, living a life that required this much protection, this much silence, this much institutional suppression.

Angus would find him. Eventually. Somehow.

But he’d do it differently now.

Carefully. Quietly. Alone.

Without leaving casualties in his wake.

Chapter Nine

The access denial came without warning.