Page 42 of Logan’s Way

He was no longer sure what obedience looked like. Or whether peace was supposed to feel like this—quiet, heavy, uncertain, aching with questions that had no answers and conflicts with no resolution.

Only the weight of choosing not to act. And the terrible possibility that inaction might be the greater faithfulness.

Even when it felt like abandonment.

Chapter Fifteen

The mail came on a morning that felt like normalcy was returning.

Angus walked Scout along the harbor road, the canine’s pace easy and unhurried, both of them settling into a routine that had been disrupted by weeks of investigation, surveillance, and pressure that seemed, for now, to have eased. Life functioned the way it had before Angus started asking questions that made systems respond with containment.

He’d stopped calling witnesses. Had put away the phone numbers he’d collected and made peace—or something close to it—with restraint as the path forward.

And the world had responded by returning to its ordinary rhythms.

Scout sniffed at a patch of frost near the seawall, his tail wagging at some scent only he could detect. Angus watched the harbor—fishing boats preparing for the day, gulls calling, the sun barely visible through winter clouds. Weyport in January: cold and quiet and familiar.

This was what obedience felt like, perhaps. Not dramatic. Not victorious. Just ordinary life continuing when you chose not to pursue what felt justified but might cause harm.

When they returned home, Angus sorted through the mail while Scout settled on his bed with the satisfied exhaustion that followed a good, long walk. Bills. Advertisements. A notice from the town about snow removal schedules. The usual accumulation of paper that modern life generated.

However, one envelope made Angus pause.

Forwarded twice. First from Sunset Manor—his mother’s care home in Portland. Then from the county clerk’s office handling Moira Reid’s estate. The original address was barely visible under layers of forwarding labels, but Angus could make it out: an address in Las Vegas he didn’t recognize.

The envelope was addressed to Moira Reid. No return address. Just a postmark from New Mexico, dated weeks ago.

Angus opened it carefully.

Inside, a single sheet of paper. Typed. No letterhead. No signature. Just a brief message:

Mrs. Reid,

Your son, Logan Reid, was recently contacted regarding participation in a witness assistance program for survivors of trafficking networks. He declined involvement and requested that no further contact be made.

Per his request, we are informing you as next of kin that he is stable and safe but wishes to remain uninvolved in any official proceedings or advocacy work. He asked us to tell you he is well and that you should not worry.

We respect his choice and will honor his request for privacy.

— Survivor Advocacy Network, Albuquerque

Angus read it three times.

The paper was thin, ordinary printer stock. The font was standard. The language was professional but generic, the kind of form letter organizations sent when they needed to document contact without creating permanent records.

Dated three weeks ago. Sent to an address in Las Vegas that must have been from when Moira had first brought her sons to America, before they’d moved around, before she’d ended up in Portland in her final years. An address that had remained in some database, connected to her name, used by an organization that assumed next-of-kin notification was appropriate for someone declining their services.

Services for survivors of trafficking networks.

Logan had been contacted. Recently. Had declined participation.Had asked them to inform his mother—perhaps a habit of protection so deeply ingrained that old instructions still ran beneath conscious thought, or perhaps the organization had acted on outdated next-of-kin information without consulting him. Either way, the letter had been forwarded through estate proceedings until it reached the son who had been searching for him.

Angus set the letter on the kitchen table and looked at it as if it might vanish if he looked away. Proof. Not of the pattern he had been documenting. Not of past interventions. But of now. Of recent contact. Of Logan being alive and reachable enough that an advocacy organization had found him, asked him to participate in something, and had received his refusal.

He declined involvement.

Angus exhaled — slow, long, audible. Across the room, Scout's head lifted from his paws, one ear pricked, eyes finding Angus's face with the immediate focus of a dog who'd been trained to read people.

Not because he couldn’t help. Not because he didn’t care. But because involvement meant visibility, official records, existing within systems that required names and addresses and the kind of documentation that would make him traceable.