Page 61 of Logan’s Way

“Still at her sister’s in Portland. We’ve increased patrol presence and coordinated with Portland PD to monitor the location. But …” Miguel’s pause carried weight. “Command is questioning the resource allocation. They’re asking how long we’re expected to maintain an elevated response for someone who technically hasn’t been threatened with violence. Budget concerns, liability concerns, the usual administrative delay when protection requires sustained effort.”

The usual obstruction. The predictable resistance that came when systems designed for reactive response were asked to provide proactive protection—not because the system was corrupt or incompetent, but because it was functioning exactly as designed: responding to documented harm, not preventing anticipated harm, conserving resources for situations that met legal thresholds rather than allocating them based on instinct that couldn’t be quantified.

“What do you need from me?” Angus asked, knowing the answer before Miguel gave it.

“Nothing. You’re still on administrative leave. I’m not supposed to be calling you about active cases.” Another pause. “I just thought you should know. Because if something happens—when something happens—I don’t want to be the one who didn’t tell you in time.”

The call ended. Angus stood in his kitchen, with Scout watching from the doorway, the collie's presence patient but hopeful—ball at his feet, waiting for breakfast, a walk, and whatever came after. Outside, Weyport was waking to another ordinary day—people going to work, children heading to school, life proceeding with the comfortable assumption that calling the police meant getting help, and getting help meant being protected.

Assumptions that worked most of the time. Just not for people like Lena Torres, who’d followed every rule and still found herself living in terror because the rules protected Derek Walsh’s right to exist in public spaces more effectively than they protected her right to feel safe.

Angus fed Scout, made coffee he didn’t drink, and stood at the window watching morning light filter through January clouds. He was no longer asking what was right. That question had fractured under the pressure that kept building without offering clarity. Now he was asking something simpler and more terrible: What happens if I do nothing?

If he remained on leave, maintained separation from active cases, honored the ultimatum Carol Henderson had delivered. What happened to Lena Torres while Angus was being obedient to an authority that moved too slowly to prevent harm before it occurred?

The answer was becoming unavoidable. She would continue running. Derek would continue finding her. The system would continue documenting his technically legal behavior, even while that behavior accomplished exactly what it was designed to accomplish—establishing that protection was temporary and fear was permanent.

Until Derek escalated into something they could finally charge him for. Until harm occurred that met legal thresholds for intervention. Until documentation became evidence in a prosecution that happened only after the damage was done.

There is a way that seems right to a man.

The verse constantly on his mind continued to offer no direction. Angus had been walking what seemed like the right path—trusting systems, following procedure, believing justice required boundaries to mean anything. And that path had led to watching people fall through gaps while he debated whether filling those gaps served principles more than it violated them.

But the alternative path—Logan’s way, decisive intervention that happened outside legal channels when legal channels proved insufficient—seemed right too. It produced outcomes Angus couldn’t deny mattered. It saved people the system couldn’t save quickly enough, filling gaps that would otherwise be sealed by harm.

Both paths seemed right. Both had moral justifications. Both cost something essential—trust in collective authority or the acceptance of individual judgment as a sufficient guide for justice.

And God remained silent about which path led somewhere other than death. Present, certainly—Angus still felt the weight of faith that had anchored him through twenty years of believing righteousness and procedure aligned. But not explanatory. Not offering the clarity he kept seeking. Just waiting for Angus to stop seeking permission and start accepting responsibility for choices that would matter regardless of whether divine approval was provable.

His phone buzzed. Email notification from county HR, subject line: Final Administrative Determination.

Angus opened it.

Sheriff Angus Reid,

Following review of your administrative leave status and recent activity, the county has determined that your continued separation from active duty is necessary to protect departmental interests and ensure proper resource allocation.

Effective immediately, your law enforcement credentials are suspended pending completion of a formal review process. This includes your badge, service weapon access, and any departmental identification implying active duty status. Physical materials should be surrendered to HR within 48 hours.

This administrative action is not disciplinary but reflects concerns about role clarity during extended leave and recent reports of unofficial involvement in active cases. You remain employed by the county and will continue receiving benefits during this period. Return to duty will be possible following successful completion of the review process and command approval.

The message was professionally neutral, legally sound, administratively reasonable. And it accomplished exactly what Carol Henderson’s ultimatum had threatened—complete separation from the tools and authority that would allow Angus to help anyone through official channels.

He was being locked out. Not dramatically. Not punitively. Just thoroughly. Cut off from systems that required credentials he no longer possessed, prevented from coordinating with Miguel, accessing case files, or operating with the assumption that his position as sheriff meant anything beyond a title that was currently suspended.

The environmental pressure had moved from subtle suggestion to explicit elimination. Angus Reid was no longer sheriff of Weyport in any functional sense. Just someone who used to be, who might be again if he accepted terms that required complete submission to authority that moved too slowly to protect people who needed protection immediately.

Scout padded over and shoved his nose under Angus's hand in the way he did when he'd decided enough time had passed without acknowledgment. The dog didn’t understand institutional pressure, didn’t wrestle with questions about when separation from authority became liberation or when suspension created freedom to operate outside constraints that had been preventing protection.

He just offered presence, asking nothing except continued steadiness from the person he trusted.

Angus thought about the timeline hidden in his closet. About cases where intervention happened outside legal channels because legal channels couldn’t move quickly enough. About the pattern Logan had established—predators escalating toward harm, gaps where law ended, interventions preventing violence before it became something the law could finally act on.

And he thought about timing. About how those interventions typically occurred when escalation reached the point where waiting meant watching harm unfold, when the window between anticipation and action narrowed to moments rather than days, when someone had to decide whether preventing violence justified operating without authority designed to prevent exactly that kind of individual judgment.

Derek Walsh was escalating. He’d moved from stalking Lena directly to approaching people in her orbit, demonstrating reach that made hiding futile. The pattern was clear to anyone trained to see it—building toward confrontation that the restraining order couldn’t prevent.

If someone were operating outside the system—if Logan, or someone like him, were still intervening in the gap before the law could act—this would be the moment. The window where intervention could prevent escalation before escalation became violence.