Page 22 of Logan’s Way

Scout stood and pressed against Angus’s leg. The dog sensed distress even when Angus kept his expression neutral. Outside, another car passed. The neighbor’s porch light came on. Everything ordinary, except for the phone call that had just erased an hour of conversation.

Angus set his phone on the table and looked at his notes, at the words he'd written while Hammond was still willing to talk — her description of Elena Martinez's refusal to cooperate, her observation that Volk's network had fractured in the weeks after his disappearance, her quiet acknowledgment that sometimes victims were saved not because the system had finally caught up but because someone else had moved faster than the system could. All of it there, in his careful handwriting, recorded before she'd decided remembering was too costly.

About caseworkers knowing when not to ask questions.

And now she’d called back to say she’d been mistaken. That she’d confused cases. That she had no documentation of anything she’d told him.

The timing was precise. One hour between calls. Just enough time for someone to notice that Sandra Hammond’s phone records showed a call from a Maine area code. Just enough time to reach out and suggest she clarify her earlier statements. Just enough time to make sure whatever she’d told Sheriff Reid was officially retracted.

* * *

Tuesday morning arrived gray and cold. Angus sat at his kitchen table with his notebook open and the weight of the previous evening still pressing on his chest. Angus thought about the State Oversight call and to stop before things became “unnecessarily complicated.”

He’d stopped using official systems. He’d moved to personal research and private calls and thought he was operating below the radar by contacting a retired caseworker in another state about a case from nearly twenty years ago.

But someone was still watching. Still paying attention. Still ensuring that anyone who confirmed Angus’s suspicions understood the cost of continuing to talk.

Sandra Hammond had been afraid. Not hostile. Not angry. Just afraid in the particular way people became when they realized they’d said something someone else didn’t want said.

And she’d called back within an hour to fix it.

He wrote the date at the top of the page in his journal, then hesitated before continuing:

Called Sandra Hammond (retired caseworker, Las Vegas). She confirmed the Elena Martinez case. Mentioned unusual intervention, victims saved, network collapsed. Deliberately omitted details from official records.

One hour later: Hammond called back. Retracted everything. Claimed confusion. Requested no further contact.

Then, after a long pause:

Response time suggests active monitoring. Not database flags—direct surveillance of specific inquiries.

Angus set his pen down and looked at the investigation wall in the next room. Logan’s photo. The fabricated death certificate. The pattern of cases in which predators vanished and victims were freed. The careful construction of official silence around events that people remembered but wouldn’t document.

And now, a witness who had been willing to talk until someone made sure she understood she shouldn’t.

This wasn’t about records anymore. It was about people who’d learned what happened when they confirmed what Angus was discovering. People who had been fine with sharing memories from two decades ago until someone reminded them those memories were better left unshared.

Sandra Hammond probably hadn’t been threatened or intimidated. She’d probably just received a suggestion that maybe she’d said more than she should have, and it would be better for everyone if she clarified that she’d been mistaken.

And she’d complied within an hour.

Which meant someone was watching closely enough to know Angus had called her. And connected enough to quickly suggest she retract without making it sound like an order.

As Scout pressed against Angus’s leg. Outside, Weyport had gone quiet the way small coastal towns did after dark — lights behind curtains, boats settled at their moorings, the ordinary stillness of a town that trusted its systems and had no reason to do otherwise.

Angus thought about Sandra Hammond in her Scottsdale home, probably worried about what she’d said and who’d noticed and whether retracting it was enough to make the attention go away.

She’d tried to help. Had confirmed what Angus needed to know. And within an hour, someone had made sure she understood that helping Sheriff Reid was a mistake.

The guilt settled into Angus’s chest alongside the certainty. He’d put Hammond at risk by calling her. He’d drawn attention to someone who’d done nothing wrong except remember a case and be willing to talk about it. And now she was afraid—not of Angus, but of whoever had noticed the call and decided it needed to be addressed.

This was the cost of continuing—not just to Angus’s career or reputation, but to people who got caught in the radius of his investigation. People who had information but not protection. People who could be reminded, quickly and efficiently, that some questions were better left unanswered.

Angus closed his notebook and sat in his darkening kitchen with Scout close beside him and the weight of what he’d just learned pressing on his shoulders. He’d confirmed the pattern was real. Had gotten human corroboration from someone who’d witnessed it firsthand.

And then he’d watched that person retract everything within an hour.

Not because she’d lied. Because telling the truth had consequences she wasn’t willing to accept.