Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

Jackson’s boat rocks softly at the dock, cabin air tight with salt and engine heat. Dallas keeps the stolen hard drive plugged into the ruggedized laptop while the last lines finish decrypting.

A payment trail blooms across the screen, clean columns turning dirty. The harbor money does not come from the mayor’s office. It routes past it, around it, straight to an offshore account.

More names surface, city elites Dallas has only seen in newspaper photos and donor lists. Jackson’s jaw tightens as each one locks into place beside dates, transfers, and code tags.

Outside, water slaps the hull in a steady, ordinary rhythm. Inside, the laptop throws cold light over Dallas, Jackson, and the hard truth that the whole scheme was never local at all.

Dallas drags the donor names across the route log and lines up the timestamps. The match is ugly, clean, and immediate.

One column after another snaps into place, donor, dockside code, harbor relay. The paper trail is not just shared, it is coordinated.

Jackson leans closer, then goes still as a mayoral donor tag lands beside an elite office clearance. The room feels tighter around the laptop glow.

Dallas has the cross-reference complete now. The route logs point straight through city leadership, and the cabin goes quiet except for the boat creaking against the dock.