Page 11 of Logan’s Way

Which meant whoever had done this—whoever had made Logan Reid officially deceased without actually providing proof of death—had not been acting alone. They had institutional backing. Or at least, the institution had protected them long enough to do what needed doing and cover their tracks afterward.

Angus looked at the archives building through his windshield. Concrete and glass, utterly unremarkable, housing millions of records that people trusted to be accurate. Birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses. The official documentation of life events that the government verified and preserved.

Except when it didn’t.

Except when someone taught the system how to lie.

Because that’s what this was. Not a coincidence. This was deliberate fabrication—taking the appearance of legitimacy and stripping away the substance that should have supported it, creating the illusion of proper procedure while bypassing every safeguard designed to ensure accuracy.

Someone had made Logan Reid dead on paper. But they hadn’t bothered to provide proof that he’d actually died.

Which meant either they couldn’t provide proof because Logan was still alive, or they could provide proof but chose not to because the proof would reveal something they didn’t want examined.

Either way, Angus now knew with absolute certainty what he’d only suspected before:

His brother’s disappearance wasn’t just a mystery.

It was a crime.

And the crime wasn’t Logan vanishing eighteen years ago.

The crime was someone making sure Angus would stop looking for him.

Angus started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. During the ninety minute drive back to Weyport, he’d have time to think about what came next. Time to consider whether he was still conducting an unofficial inquiry or whether he’d crossed the line into something that required badges and warrants and official authority.

But as he merged onto the highway and headed south toward home, one truth settled into his chest with the weight of stone:

You don’t erase the origins of a death certificate unless you’re hiding connections.

And you don’t hide connections unless revealing them would lead somewhere dangerous⁠—

somewhere Logan went, or somewhere they took Logan.

And Angus was going to follow that path, no matter how carefully someone had tried to erase it.

Chapter Four

Angus pulled into Murphy’s driveway just after six o’clock Thursday evening, his headlights cutting through the winter darkness. The drive back from Augusta had been long and cold, his mind circling the same truths over and over until they’d worn grooves into his thinking. Someone had manipulated the vital records system. Someone with authority and access and the willingness to make Logan Reid officially dead without bothering to prove he’d actually died.

The question was not yet who. The question was why it had been necessary.

Murphy’s porch light came on before he’d made it halfway to the door. She opened it with Scout at her side, the border collie’s tail already wagging at the sight of his person. The dog bounded down the steps and pressed against Angus’s legs with the uncomplicated joy of reunion.

“Hey, boy.” Angus crouched and ran his hands through Scout’s thick coat. The contact was grounding—warm fur and steady breathing and loyalty that asked nothing in return.

Murphy stood in the doorway, arms crossed against the cold. “Long couple of days?”

“Something like that.” Angus straightened, Scout staying close. “Thanks for watching him.”

“Anytime. You know that.” She studied his face in the porch light, and Angus felt the weight of her medical examiner’s assessment—the way she could read fatigue and stress and things people tried to hide. “You want to come in? I’ve got coffee on.”

“I should get home.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Angus hesitated, one hand resting on Scout’s head. He wanted to tell her what he’d found. Wanted to lay out the pieces—the missing source file, the system override, the deliberate manipulation that shouldn’t have been possible. Murphy would understand the implications immediately. She would help him think through what it meant and where to go next.

But saying it out loud would make it real in a different way, turning suspicion into accusation. This would move from a private search into something that required decisions about formal investigations, official channels, and all the machinery of law enforcement that Angus wasn’t sure he wanted to activate yet.