Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

Morning light cuts through the rain-streaked glass, laying pale gold across the bed. Dallas and Elena wake tangled in the hush, with steam still fading over the hot tub and Murderbone already up, listening at the door.

A sharp knock lands on the suite door. Not frantic, just firm. Murderbone’s head lifts, hackles bristling a little as he pads closer to the threshold.

Elena pulls the covers tighter and gives Dallas a tired, knowing look. The world has started knocking again, but for one more breath, nobody answers it.

She eases herself up against the pillows, rainlight on her face, calm but not careless. Murderbone settles by the door like a dark guard post, his gaze fixed on the hallway.

The suite stays warm, quiet, and almost safe. Outside, someone waits. Inside, the morning holds still.

Dallas asks it plain, and the knock answers with a pause. A man’s voice from the hall says, “Room service, Mr. Fontaine. Front desk asked me to check the thermostat.”

The name lands with a little weight. Elena’s eyes flick to Dallas, then back to the door. Murderbone stays planted, but his ears angle hard toward the hallway.

Outside the door, the man shifts his weight. Inside, the room stays warm, the bed still rumpled, the rain ticking softly against glass. For a beat, nobody reaches for the latch.

There is a brief silence in the hall. Then paper slides across carpet and stops with a soft scrape against the threshold.

Murderbone does not move, but his gaze stays locked on the gap beneath the door. Elena lets out a slow breath and relaxes back into the pillows by an inch.

Footsteps turn away down the corridor, measured and careful. The knob does not rattle. The hall camera still hums somewhere beyond the wall, unseen.

The card lies just inside the seam now, plain and waiting, while rain keeps tapping the window and the room stays otherwise still.

Murderbone’s ears prick, then he hops up onto the bed with practiced ease, careful not to crowd Elena. The mattress dips, rain ticking softly at the window while the card stays forgotten by the door.

Dallas slips out of bed and crosses to the door in the hush between rain taps. The service card is there, pinned in the seam by the pressure of the latch.

He eases the card free and brings it back toward the bed. A smear of wet hallway grit clings to one corner, fresh from the corridor.

Murderbone lifts his head, eyes locked on the door seam. Somewhere outside, a shoe scuffs once, then stops.

Dallas turns the card under the light, and the hallway camera maintenance stamp catches the eye first, then a handwritten time note beneath it.

Dallas tilts the card closer to the lamp. The maintenance stamp is clean, but the handwritten time note is not, it is written over an earlier line of smudged pencil.

He angles the card again. Under the time, a partial code shows through the paper grain, a service corridor number tied to the hall outside their room.

Murderbone gives a low, warning rumble at the door. In the hall, the shoe-scuff returns, slower now, as if someone is listening for their reaction.

Dallas reads the final line of the note. It names the hallway camera bank by number, and the problem is no longer abstract, the exact unit is identified.