Page 62 of Logan’s Way

The recognition hit—unwelcome, disturbingly logical. Angus didn’t want to think about Logan’s pattern, didn’t want to measure Derek Walsh’s behavior against cases where predators disappeared before harm occurred. Didn’t want to acknowledge that the timing matched, that the escalation fit, that if intervention were coming it would need to happen soon—before the window closed, before waiting meant documenting tragedy rather than preventing it.

But thinking about it—or not thinking about it—didn’t change the reality pressing in: Someone would act. Either the system would prove sufficient despite moving slowly, or someone operating outside it would prove necessary, because moving slowly meant arriving too late.

And Angus was standing at the intersection of those two possibilities—suspended from authority but not from awareness, separated from official capacity but not from recognition that gaps existed, that someone had to decide whether filling them served good more than it violated principle.

He looked at his phone—the HR email still visible, the suspension now official, the 48-hour deadline for surrendering credentials marking the end of whatever middle ground he’d been occupying. He looked around the kitchen where he’d stood, watching weeks of pressure build without ever resolving into clarity. Then he looked down at Scout, who was watching him with the focused attention of a dog waiting for a cue, even when that steadiness meant crossing thresholds that changed its meaning.

And he understood with certainty that felt more like resignation than conviction that the next step would require decision, not reflection. It would require choosing whether protecting people was worth losing everything else—credentials, authority, and the belief that justice required boundaries.

He’d been watching events since Lena Torres appeared on his porch asking for help the system couldn’t provide. Watching Derek Walsh’s escalation, watching institutional pressure that moved faster than protection, and watching the narrowing window between harm anticipated and harm occurring.

But he didn’t have to stay on the sidelines. Didn’t have to keep choosing reflection over readiness, procedure over protection, the appearance of righteousness over the responsibility that might require operating where righteousness couldn’t be proven.

The clock on his wall read seven forty-three. Somewhere in Portland, Lena Torres was waking to another day of fear that documentation wouldn’t prevent. Somewhere nearby, Derek Walsh was planning his next move—the one that would demonstrate conclusively that restraining orders were as flimsy as the paper they were printed on, patrol presence was temporary, and hiding accomplished nothing except postponing inevitability.

And somewhere in the gap between those two realities, a choice was waiting. Not about whether to help Lena—Angus had already decided that, had already crossed lines in preparation for the possibility that action might become necessary. The choice was whether helping her meant accepting that the system’s failure justified operating outside it, that outcomes mattered more than methods, that individual judgment could replace collective authority when authority proved insufficient.

He didn’t yet know which path he’d take when the moment came. But he could feel it approaching, pressing closer with every hour Derek Walsh remained free, every hour Lena Torres remained afraid, every hour the system documented patterns without preventing their consequences.

And he knew he would not be caught unprepared. He would not watch someone fall through gaps while debating whether filling them honored God or merely satisfied his own conviction that protection mattered more than procedure.

The decision was no longer theoretical. It was imminent. And whatever he made when the moment came would define who he could be afterward—the sheriff who’d trusted systems until they proved trustworthy, or something else, a role without a name, the one Logan had inhabited for eighteen years:

Invisible. Necessary. Operating where law ended because someone had to, watching people suffer while righteousness remained provable.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The address came through a text from a number Angus didn’t recognize, sent at dawn with no explanation: Old fish processing plant off Route 1, south of Rockland. Alone.

No signature. No context. Just coordinates leading to a location Angus knew immediately, a place he’d hoped never to see again.

The fish plant. Where Pete Hutchinson had tried to kill him years ago.

He drove north without telling anyone where he was going, leaving Scout at home with enough food and water for the day, Scout’s eyes on him from the doorway, the last thing Angus saw before closing the door on a choice he couldn’t yet name but felt approaching with the inevitability of winter darkness.

The plant sat a quarter mile off the highway, accessible only by a gravel access road that bore recent tire tracks. As Angus pulled his truck to a stop at the edge of the property, memory hit him with physical force—the smell of burnt wood and old fish, the skeletal remains of walls that had once held workers killed in an explosion Pete had orchestrated, the rusty pipes where Pete had held him while deciding whether to shoot him or let him suffocate.

This was where Angus had almost died. Where Sheriff Whitley had saved him. Where he'd proven himself worthy of the badge. The one Carol Henderson hadn't formally taken yet. The one he'd brought anyway.

And whoever had sent that text had chosen this place—Logan, if Angus allowed himself to believe what every instinct was telling him. Because of all the abandoned structures along the coast, whoever had summoned him had picked the one location that carried the weight of Angus's own near-execution, his own confrontation with someone who'd decided the law didn't matter when personal justice felt righteous.

The building wasn’t standing anymore. Not entirely.

The western wall had collapsed inward since Angus had last been here, support beams charred black, roof sagging where fire had weakened the structure’s integrity decades ago. Not chaotic damage—no spread pattern, no auxiliary burning, no evidence that flames had done anything except consume exactly what someone had wanted consumed.

This was deliberate destruction—controlled burning that had taken out specific sections while leaving others intact. The kind of fire you set when you needed something gone completely but couldn’t risk the attention total demolition would draw.

Angus got out of his truck and approached, his hand instinctively moving to where his service weapon should have been—until remembering he’d been suspended, credentials surrendered. The smell of burnt wood and plastic lingered, suggesting recent activity—hours, not days. Ash covered the ground in patterns that spoke of accelerant used with precision, not randomly.

Someone had known what they were doing. Had chosen this location because it was already marked by tragedy, had sacrificed the structure to prevent something else from being exposed.

Movement near the standing wall caught his attention. Not sudden. Just presence becoming visible as someone stepped from shadow into weak morning light.

Logan.

Eighteen years older than the boy who’d disappeared. Harder. Thinner. Wearing clothes that looked functional rather than chosen, the kind of anonymous layers that let you move through the world without being remembered. His hair was shorter than Angus recalled, gray at the temples. His face carried the weariness that came from years of looking over your shoulder while never being allowed to stop moving.

But the eyes were Logan’s. Still the same color. Still carrying that quality of seeing more than he wanted to see and accepting it anyway, because acceptance was the cost of continuing.