Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

Dallas Fontaine eases open the service stairwell door and slips into the cold hush. Elena follows close behind, with Murderbone pressed low at Dallas’s heel. Above them, the hallway watcher stays hidden out of sight, but its presence hangs over the building like bad weather.

A soft scrape comes from the landing below. Dust drifts through the stairwell light. Dallas sees the fresh scuff marks first, then the bent edge of a museum badge half lodged in the grime.

Dallas takes the badge, turns it once in his fingers, and spots a clipped evidence tag tucked behind it. The number matches Chris Nogren’s lead. The museum trail is real, and someone has been using these stairs to move past the watcher.

At the next landing, the stairwell door stands ajar just enough to show a slice of dark corridor. Beyond it, the museum evidence is waiting, and the corruption Dallas has been peeling back finally has a physical place to bleed.

Dallas unfolds the evidence tag, revealing a precise floor plan of the museum archives stamped onto the reverse side. It marks the East Wing vault as the primary storage site, but also lists a secondary, unauthorized drop point in the basement loading bay.

Dallas traces the basement loading bay line with one finger, and the route resolves into a service path that avoids the main archive floors entirely. The mark is recent, the pen pressure heavier at the turns, like someone redrew it after the first plan was already in circulation.

He folds the tag once, then again, and the stairwell’s cold light catches a stamped transfer note tucked beneath the floor plan. The note points from East Wing vault to basement bay, then back upward, a closed loop built to move evidence without leaving the museum proper.

Murderbone shifts at the landing below, ears forward, body angled toward the ajar door. Somewhere beyond it, a shoe scuffs on concrete, then stills.

Dallas finishes the route check and fixes on the basement loading bay as the next move. The bay is reachable, the path is clear, and the watcher is close enough now to hear them if they linger.