Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

Two weeks pass. Far Harbor keeps its mouth shut. In Dallas Fontaine’s apartment, the knock comes hard and regular, like a metronome with a grudge.

Dallas opens the door to a hallway washed in sick yellow light. A woman in a sharp suit stands there, cold-eyed, a charred digital drive pinched between two fingers.

She holds the drive up just out of reach, never offering it freely. Her smile is thin and mean, the kind that costs nothing to wear.

Dallas’s hand snaps out. The drive slips free before Elena can curl her fingers back around it.

He has it. The charred plastic lands in his palm, warm from her grip, its edge blackened and brittle.

Elena’s eyes track the drive, not Dallas’s face. Her hand stays half-raised, empty now, while her smile thins.

From deeper in the apartment, a floorboard gives a soft, deliberate creak. Elena’s gaze flicks past Dallas toward the hallway, then back again.

Dallas splits the charred casing with his thumbnail. The seam gives with a dry crack.

Inside, the chip is scarred but readable. The tiny contacts catch the apartment light like teeth.

A file index blooms on Dallas’s phone screen, copied from the drive’s contents, and Jonas Bell’s name sits in the middle of a transfer chain.

Elena’s voice stays flat, but her hand tightens at her side. The floorboard in the hall creaks again, closer this time.

She turns her head toward the hall again, listening to the creak settle into silence.

Elena reaches into her coat and draws out a slim access card, holding it between two fingers like it costs her something.

Dallas takes the card without breaking eye contact.

Elena says it fast, then watches Dallas pocket the card. Her gaze flicks to the apartment door, listening for footsteps that are not there.

A thin draft slips under the front door, carrying hallway dust and the faint metal smell of the building. Elena stiffens, then points at the card in Dallas's hand.

Dallas Fontaine leaves Dallas Fontaine's apartment behind and arrives at Annex file room.

The annex file room breathes dust and cold fluorescent hum. Steel drawers rise in tight ranks, each one tagged in faded tape, and the access panel beside the cage blinks red over Dallas's shoulder.

Dallas slides the records lift against the lock strip. The cage latch clicks, then grinds open with a dry metallic complaint that carries through the room.

Inside, the inner cage sits narrow and cramped, stacked with transfer folders and intake boxes. A paper log lies faceup on the shelf, its top page marked with Bell's initials.

The lift brings up a bundle of sealed records, stamped for cleanup and annex intake. One envelope has been slit and reclosed badly, the tear line fresh enough to catch the light.

A faint scrape sounds from the hall outside, then silence. Elena turns toward the door, and the loose file in the lift waits in Dallas's hands, heavy with names.

Dallas turns the slit envelope under the lamp and works a thumbnail under the reclosed seam. Paper dust sheds onto his cuff as the flap lifts cleanly.

Inside is a carbon copy slip, stamped with annex intake time and a second routing mark, the kind used when a file is pulled for private review.

A name on the slip catches the fluorescent glare, Jonas Bell, alongside a clerk signature and a drawer code for the records cage.

At the bottom, a fresh pencil note points to a pickup box in civic annex storage, timed for tonight, and the page was folded and refolded until the crease shines.