Dallas reaches the service cart at the edge of the wedding path as the staffer is already half-turned away, one hand on the handle like he plans to vanish into the palms. The card in his grip flashes under the balcony light.

The staffer freezes. Dallas takes the card, and the district address clicks into place, not a public office, not a reception desk, but a derelict basement in the industrial district, windowless and dead quiet.

Elena’s eyes narrow as she reads over Dallas’s shoulder. Below them, the wedding area suddenly looks less like a celebration and more like a blind corner waiting to happen.

Dallas looks back to the card, and the earlier warning settles into a single ugly shape. Bishop’s people are not inviting him in, they are trying to pull him away from every witness on the grounds.

Dallas pries open the cart’s side panel and checks the false bottom first. A folded route slip is tucked under the liner, and a taped packet of slim tools slides loose into his palm.

He turns the slip over. The clerk’s signature mark is there again, small and neat, like a stamp pressed by someone who expects the paper to disappear.

Dallas checks the tool packet next. No weapon, but the contents are meant for a quiet hand, a latch pick, a narrow blade, and a spare key tag clipped behind the foam.

Under the key tag, he finds a second card with the same district address, only this one adds a time window and a dockside transfer code.

Dallas slips the route slip into his inner pocket and keeps the transfer code in view a second longer.

His thumb, still rough from the seal, drags once over the card before he folds it smaller.

Murderbone steps closer to Dallas’s leg, eyes fixed on the staffer and the cart.

Dallas turns the second card enough to read the time window, then the dock code, then the hotel route clipped beside it.