Chapter 1 #2
Angus set both documents side by side, studying them under the lamp. The fisherman’s death certificate was crisp, official, properly formatted. Logan’s looked…close. But not quite right. Like a photocopy of a photocopy, with details lost in translation.
He reached for his phone, then stopped.
Who would he call? Murphy had already done everything she could through official channels.
Miguel was running the department and didn’t need Angus dropping a bombshell about his brother possibly being alive.
The state registrar’s office would want documentation, jurisdiction, and a case number before they’d talk to him.
And Angus didn’t have a case. He had doubts. He had inconsistencies. He had a signature that didn’t match protocol, an ancestry test that said “deceased,” and a figure at a funeral who might have been his brother or might have been desperate hope made flesh.
He didn’t have proof.
Not yet.
Angus set the medical history folder aside and opened the desk drawer where he had been storing everything else related to Logan for the past eighteen years.
The original missing person report sat on top—yellowed now, edges soft with handling.
Filed when Logan was sixteen. “Status: Open. Outcome: Unknown.”
He’d read that report so many times he could recite it.
“Height: 5’10” (still growing). Weight: 155 pounds.
Hair: Brown. Eyes: Blue. Last seen: Tuesday evening, leaving the house around 8 p.m. Clothing: Dark jacket, jeans, sneakers.
Distinguishing marks: Small scar on left forearm from childhood bicycle accident; surgical scar, right abdomen, from appendectomy at age fourteen. ”
The appendectomy scar. The same detail that didn’t quite match in the autopsy report.
Angus pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote three words in the center: Who filed this?
Not who signed it. Not who performed the autopsy. Those were professional roles, traceable positions. But who actually filed the death certificate? Who walked it through the system? Who made sure Logan Reid’s status changed from “missing” to “deceased”?
J. Brennan, Registrar.
A name without a face. An initial without a trail. A signature on a document that determined whether Angus spent eighteen years searching for a living brother or mourning a dead one.
Outside, snow had started falling—small, hard flakes that hit the window like tapping fingers. Scout stood, stretched, and padded over to rest his chin on Angus’s knee. The dog’s warmth was solid, real, present. Everything this investigation wasn’t.
Angus looked at the autopsy report, the death certificate, and the missing person file that had defined half his life.
Three documents. Three different versions of truth.
And somewhere beneath them, a brother who was either buried in Thornfield County or walking around, breathing, and living a life that required eighteen years of silence.
The discrepancy wasn’t catastrophic. Wasn’t smoking gun evidence. Just a formatting issue, a protocol deviation, a bureaucratic irregularity that most people would overlook entirely.
But Angus Reid had built a career on noticing what other people overlooked. And this—this felt wrong in the particular way that truth felt when someone had tried to reshape it into something easier to accept.
He picked up his phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.
Then he opened a new note and typed one sentence.
Tomorrow: Thornfield County Clerk’s Office. Find J. Brennan.
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.