Page 5 of Logan’s Way

The words stared back at him, simple and inevitable. He didn’t know what he’d find there. Didn’t know if J. Brennan was real or invented, helpful or hostile, the key to everything or another dead end in a search that had produced nothing but dead ends.

But he knew he was done accepting what they told him.

And if Logan was alive—if he was alive this whole time, watching from the shadows while Angus mourned—then someone went to a lot of trouble to make the world believe otherwise.

Someone who knew how to manipulate official documents.

Someone who understood how to make a death look legitimate.

Someone who’d made one small mistake in the formatting of a witness signature.

Angus closed the laptop, turned off the desk lamp, and stood in the semi-darkness of his guest bedroom while snow continued to fall outside. Scout stayed close, nudging his hand every few minutes as if checking whether Angus had forgotten he existed. Tomorrow, he’d drive north to Thornfield County. Tomorrow he’d start asking questions about registrars and signatures and death certificates that didn’t quite match protocol.

Tonight, he had one more thing to do.

He pulled out the small leather-bound journal he’d carried since the police academy, where he recorded prayers that felt too private for spoken words. The pages were filled with eighteen years of petitions. Desperate requests for Logan’s safety. Pleas for guidance when the search felt hopeless. Thanks for small mercies and large graces.

He wrote today’s date. Then, beneath it:

Lord, I don’t know if I’m chasing truth or just chasing hope. But I know I can’t be whole while this wound stays open. Guide me to what’s real. And if Logan is alive—if You’ve been keeping him safe all this time—help me understand why. Help me see Your way through this wilderness.

He closed the journal and set it on the table beside the autopsy report.

Tomorrow, Thornfield County.

Tomorrow, J. Brennan.

Tomorrow, whatever truth was waiting at the end of eighteen years of questions.

But tonight, in this quiet house with his faithful dog and his unanswered prayers and his file full of inconsistencies, Angus Reid allowed himself to believe something he hadn’t let himself believe in a very long time.

His brother might still be breathing.

And if he was, Angus needed to understand why he’d chosen to stay hidden—and what that choice had cost them both.

Chapter Two

The drive north took Angus through winter country—gray highways edged with dirty snow, skeletal trees, and fields locked under ice. Three hours of salt-stained pavement and towns that looked like they had been holding their breath since November. Weyport disappeared in his rearview mirror before seven a.m., and with it the weight of being Sheriff Reid. Out here, he was just another man in a truck with questions nobody wanted to answer.

The radio stayed off. The phone stayed in his pocket.

Miguel had sent a text around six-thirty:

Everything good here. Take your time.

Angus had read it, typed a brief reply, then silenced the device. His deputy didn’t need to know where he was going or why. Not yet. Maybe not ever, depending on what he found in Thornfield County.

Scout had looked at him with those knowing eyes when Angus dropped him at Murphy’s place before dawn. The hound understood something was different about this trip—no patrol vest, no radio chatter, no routine. Murphy had taken the leash without asking questions, just squeezed Angus’s arm and said, “Be careful.”

She knew. Not everything, but enough.

The badge was in the glove compartment. His gun remained secured in the gun safe at home. Angus wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and a winter jacket that had seen better days. He looked like what he was: someone with time on his hands and a reason to drive three hours through January cold to ask questions about paperwork.

He’d spent the last hour of the drive rehearsing his approach. Keep it neutral. Keep it procedural. Don’t mention Logan by name. Don’t mention the funeral. Don’t mention anything that sounds like desperation or grief or eighteen years of unanswered questions.

Lead with the document. Ask about process. Let them think he’s just another sheriff tying up loose ends on an old case.

The moment he said “my brother,” everything would change. People would get sympathetic or defensive or both. They’d stop seeing a professional inquiry and start seeing a personal crusade. And if there was something wrong with that death certificate—if someone had gone to the trouble of making Logan Reid officially deceased—then Angus needed to know who and why before they knew he was asking.