Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

The cabin stinks of salt and engine oil. On Jackson’s laptop, the decrypted trail blooms red, locking onto a warehouse block near the wedding venue. The names on the screen are city clean and city rich.

Jackson jabs a finger at the coordinates, grim and tight-jawed. Murderbone lifts his head at the change in tone, ears forward toward the hatch. Outside, water knocks hard against the hull like a warning.

The laptop flickers again, then settles on a single loaded address. Whoever is behind this is not hiding anymore, they are staging for the finish.

Dallas leans closer to the laptop, reading the warehouse block like a crime scene. The route is not random, it is a funnel, with the cleanest approach tucked behind a loading bay that faces the water.

His finger traces the map, then stops on a narrow service alley marked for waste pickup. It gives cover, a blind corner, and a straight line to the dock doors before anyone inside can scatter.

Murderbone shifts by the hatch, low and ready, as Jackson snaps the laptop shut halfway. The screen glow dies to a thin red line, and the warehouse address sits in the dark like a target.

Jackson keeps one hand on the dead laptop, the other easing the route slips into a neat stack. His eyes stay on the warehouse block, but his voice softens.

Jackson taps the narrow lane again, then looks up at Dallas with a hard, certain calm.

Dallas rises from the table and folds the map-lit cabin into silence. Jackson starts to speak, but Dallas is already moving for the hatch, the route slips left behind like a verdict.

He drops into the salt-damp passage and comes up with the boat rolling under his boots. The dockside district sits ahead in hard angles, warehouse lights washed pale by sea mist.

A service alley opens beside the loading bay, narrow enough to hide a handoff and tight enough to choke one. Fresh scuffs stripe the threshold by the side door, as if a crate jack just scraped through.

Dallas reaches the alley first, with Murderbone close and silent at his heel. The dog stops once, nose down, then fixes on the bay entrance as if it has a pulse.

Inside the bay, a light flickers once across stacked pallets and a dockside transfer code stencil on a crate corner. Somewhere deeper in the warehouse, metal starts to clatter.

Dallas is in position before the unload begins, the alley giving him a straight look at the handoff point. The first workers are not visible yet, but their approach is now the problem.

Dallas slides along the bay wall, shoulders tight to the salt-stained siding, and vanishes into the warehouse shadow. A crate jack clanks somewhere inside, but his boots stay quiet on the wet concrete.

He reaches the service door threshold where fresh scuffs cut through the grime, then freezes as a red camera blink sweeps the corridor beyond. The lens keeps turning, but it does not catch him.

Dallas presses lower and makes it to the corner of the loading bay, still hidden. His sleeve snags a rusted nail, and a thin line of blood marks the fabric.

Jackson’s voice stays back at the alley mouth, guarded and low. Inside the bay, men begin unloading a pallet, their shoes scraping around the dockside transfer code stenciled on the crate.

Dallas holds his ground in cover, close enough now to hear the handler calling positions. The delivery team is in place, and if they turn the wrong way, he has seconds before the whole alley lights up.

Dallas keeps low and slides another few feet along the bay wall, his coat brushing wet concrete as he settles deeper into shadow. The camera’s red sweep passes over empty siding instead of him.

He reaches the next support post and stops behind it, where the fresh scuffs on the service door threshold sit just ahead. Inside the bay, a pallet rolls, then drops with a dull thud.

Jackson stays posted at the alley mouth, eyes fixed on the open bay. Murderbone presses in beside Dallas, muzzle angled toward the moving shoes and the crate stenciled with the dockside transfer code.

Dallas slips again, crossing the last stretch of wall cover without a sound. He reaches the inner corner of the loading bay, tucked behind stacked shrink wrap and a steel brace.

From there, he has a clean angle on the unload line, and the red camera still misses him. A handler voice snaps for the crew to hurry, then cuts off.

Dallas shifts one finger in the dark, a small, precise signal toward Jackson. Jackson’s eyes catch it at once, and he leans out just enough to read the unload line.

Jackson slides his stance wider at the alley mouth, giving Dallas a cleaner lane. Inside the bay, a pair of workers angle a pallet toward the threshold, unaware the corner has gone silent.

The red camera sweeps back, but Jackson’s movement draws its eye toward the mouth of the alley instead of Dallas’s cover. The beam lingers there a second too long.

Dallas reads the crew’s rhythm, the handler’s pace, the blind spot Jackson just bought him. The load line is exposed for a breath, and the bay feels one decision away from a lockdown.

Dallas moves the instant the workers set the crate down. He slips out of the corner, closes the distance in two quiet steps, and gets a hand on the pallet before anyone can shove it onward.

The crate settles hard on the concrete. Its side turns enough to show the dockside transfer code in full, and the unload crew freezes at the sudden weight shift.

Jackson keeps the alley mouth covered, shoulders squared to the street, drawing the red camera away while Dallas takes the crate’s far edge.

Murderbone slides in tight beside Dallas, nose low, tracking the workers and the service door threshold as if expecting the floor to move.

One worker reaches for his radio, then stops when a second set of boots answers from inside the bay. The unload line is no longer just a crew at work, it has become a handoff.