Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

Fog crawls through the wire mesh, turning the records cage into a small, damp coffin of paper and rust. Dallas holds the ledger open under the sickly pier light. The footsteps stop at the half-ajar door.

The figure shifts in the doorway, coat dark with sea mist. Dallas sees the clean angle of a badge chain and the stiff way the man keeps his right hand away from his jacket.

Murderbone appears at Dallas's side, shoulder low, teeth bared at the threshold. Down the corridor, a second pair of boots scuffs in the fog, just far enough away to be trouble.

The man flinches at the name, and for one thin second Dallas sees it, not a thug, but a courier who came too late to save himself. The corridor behind him is full of the next move, and the book in Dallas's hand is the proof that gets Voss.

Dallas turns the ledger just enough to catch the line that matters, then lets the page settle closed. The man’s gaze follows it like a hooked fish.

Murderbone lowers his head a little, but he does not stop watching. The fog thickens beyond the mesh, softening the corridor into a gray tunnel.

The man swallows and finally eases one shoulder off the doorframe, like the answer costs less than a lie. Murderbone watches him hard, but does not move.

Fog whitens the mesh behind them, and the corridor beyond turns featureless. Dallas holds the ledger steady while the tension in the cage drops from a blade edge to a low hum.

Dallas turns a page in the ledger and finds the receipt pattern that matters, numbers repeated in a clerk's hand, then corrected in a second ink. He traces the chain to Carter Vale's stamp and follows it through the margin notes.

He lifts the matching receipt from the desk file and lines the codes up. The paper confirms a handoff window, a storage drawer, and a pier-side office tied to Vale's name.

Murderbone sniffs once at the paper, then shifts toward the corridor as if catching a fresh scent. The fog outside the mesh thins just enough to reveal a moving shadow beyond the door.

Dallas folds the receipt into his pocket with the ledger still open in front of him. The route is pinned down now, and the next footstep in the hall sounds like it belongs to whoever meets Carter Vale.

Dallas eases the ledger down and shifts toward the open seam of the door, trying to make himself part of the fog and shadow.

His boot clicks the metal lip by a fraction too hard. The shape in the corridor stops moving.

Murderbone plants himself at the threshold, baring his teeth without lunging, while Clara snaps her attention to the door.

Dallas pulls back from the opening just as the hallway shadow shifts closer, cutting off the clean exit he was trying to use.

Dallas slides his shoulder toward the gap, trying to turn fog into cover.

A floorboard gives under his heel. The hallway shadow snaps its attention straight onto the doorway.

Murderbone shifts in front of Dallas, blocking the line, while Clara drags the ledger closer to her chest.

Dallas pulls back into the cage instead of forcing it. The fog stays in the doorway, thick and waiting.

Dallas lets the pause stretch, then shifts sideways into the fogged aisle. His shoes make no more sound than the dripping pipes.

Murderbone keeps his chest between Dallas and the doorway, but the dog’s weight moves with him, making room instead of blocking it.

Clara’s eyes flick once to the hall, then back to the ledger. She doesn’t stop Dallas, only tightens her grip and clears a narrow path.

Dallas slips past the threshold and into the service corridor, the shadow missing him by seconds.

The voice snaps behind him, but Dallas is already out of the cage. Ahead, the corridor bends toward the loading side, where a low engine hum grows clearer through the damp.

Dallas takes the bend without breaking stride, the corridor narrowing into puddled concrete and pipe shadows. The engine hum swells from ahead, steady and close.

Murderbone pads at his knee, then veers a step wide, checking the dark seam of the loading side first. Clara stays behind, half-lost in the fogged doorway.

Dallas reaches the loading-side opening and catches a sliver of the bay beyond, lit by a swinging work lamp and the wash of headlights through mist.

A crate truck idles outside the frame, its rear doors already open. Someone has started the move.

Dallas slips into position at the threshold, where the corridor gives way to the loading bay, and the first shape of the shipment comes into view.

Dallas keeps his voice low and steady, asking for safe passage instead of a fight. The truck lights bleach the fog white while the bay listens with him.

A beat of silence passes. The figure steps out of the corridor shadow and lowers their hands just enough to show they are choosing words over panic.

Murderbone eases half a step back, still wary, while Dallas reads the figure’s face in the glare and catches the strain under the caution.

Dallas gives the warning a nod and steps into the glare, choosing the pallet lane instead of the open bay. The truck idles on, patient and ugly in the fog.

The figure watches him pass, jaw tight, then looks away from the truck like it might remember their face.

Dallas reaches the lane, shoulders brushing damp wood and stacked crates, as the bay lights smear across the wet floor.

Dallas slips along the pallet lane, hugging the truck’s shadow. The fog turns the headlight glare into a white wall, and the open cargo bed hums with a low, impatient idle.

He reaches the rear bumper and catches a fresh smell of salt, oil, and wet rope. A shipping stencil on the door is half-smeared, but one clean line of numbers stays readable.

Dallas lowers himself beside the rear wheel well, close enough now to see a strip of fresh tape sealing one crate edge. The bay stays quiet, except for the truck’s vibration through the dock plates.

The figure’s voice softens at the corridor mouth, not calling him back, just talking into the fog like confession might count for something. Dallas finds a second mark on the crate, a clerk’s stamp partly hidden under the shipping label.

Dallas peels back the shipping label with two fingers and studies the fresh clerk stamp beneath it. The ink is still tacky at the edges, a clean square pressed over an older manifest line.

He angles the crate toward the truck lights and catches the code in full. The stamp matches the load number on the rear door, then adds a handwritten initials line in the margin.

Dallas compares the fresh stamp to the ledger, and the same route number appears twice, once in ink, once scratched and corrected. Whoever touched this shipment changed the record after the truck was already loaded.

He spots a second detail, a dock time stamped under the tape, and it is later than the schedule by seventeen minutes. The crate was routed through Far Harbor under a revised signature, not the original clerk's.

The Unknown Figure in Hallway leans farther into the light, voice low and urgent. The truck engine shudders in place, waiting for someone to close the doors.

Dallas lowers the ledger and turns from the crate, giving the question space instead of the steel. The truck hums beside them, fog beading on the open doors.

The figure steps fully into the loading bay light, one palm open toward the crate. His shoulders loosen, but his eyes keep checking the ink, the route number, Dallas's hands.

Murderbone stays near Dallas's leg, silent now, watching the man's face instead of the corridor. The fog presses against the bay and softens the truck's headlamps.

Dallas tilts the page under the bay light and holds it steady between them. The truck idles in the fog, but the bay feels quieter now, like it is waiting with them.

He reaches out, stopping short of Dallas's hand, and points to the tiny overlap where the ink thickens at the margin.

Murderbone watches the man's finger, then relaxes a fraction when the page stays still. The fog slides past the open doors of the truck.

He gives Dallas a thin, tired look, then taps the reroute line once more, waiting for what Dallas wants from him next.

Dallas folds the page once, then steps to the truck. He hooks the rear door wider and shines his light into the cargo bay.

Inside, the shipment sits under a tarp, but the cover has been dragged back enough to show sealed cases, wet rope, and a second crate marked for transfer, not storage.

He crouches by the nearest case and finds a fresh dock tally tucked beneath the strapping, with Vale's reroute stamp over a changed destination code.

Murderbone noses the open bay, then stiffens at the far end of the loading dock. The engine keeps humming, but no one moves to stop Dallas.