Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

The records office annex smells like wet paper, mildew, and hot dust from overworked lamps. Rain ticks against the high windows while a humming fluorescer throws sickly light across steel cabinets and a scarred service desk. Dallas Fontaine stands inside with Murderbone at his side, the routing log tucked under his coat.

A narrow corridor opens deeper into the annex, and fresh bootprints shine on the linoleum like black punctuation. Someone has come through recently, moving fast and careful.

Murderbone lifts his head and growls low at the far end of the corridor. A door there sits ajar by an inch, breathing a strip of light into the hall.

The voice comes from behind the service desk. A thin clerk in rolled sleeves rises with both hands visible, pale under the lamp, trying to look harmless and failing.

Dallas keeps his voice even, but the room tightens around it. Murderbone stays planted at his knee, eyes on the clerk, while the red light washes over the cabinets in slow pulses.

The clerk swallows, then reaches for a folder without taking his eyes off Dallas. His hands shake just enough to make the manila edge flutter.

He slides a paper across the desk, not daring to step closer. Wet bootprints near the corridor door glisten under the lamp, but the clerk does not look away from Dallas.

Dallas takes the folder in one smooth motion, and the clerk lets go like it burns. The paper snaps open under the red pulse, and Dallas finds the ledger reference marked in a different hand, tucked under approvals and transfer codes.

He asks for the ledger, and the clerk flinches so hard the lamp rattles on the desk. Murderbone shifts his weight, still silent, but ready.

Dallas files that away and reaches past the desk. His knuckles scrape the drawer edge, and a thin line of blood beads where the metal catches him.

The clerk stares at the corridor door again, white-faced and trembling, while the red light pulses over the ajar crack. Dallas now has the folder and the ledger location, but the safe, the back room, and Hart's cleanup order all sit within arm's reach.

Dallas folds the folder against his chest, and the clerk’s panic gives way to obedience. Under the red pulse, he nods toward the back room, as if naming the room costs him something.

Dallas holds his gaze long enough to make sure the answer sticks, then eases back from the desk. Murderbone watches the corridor door instead of the man, ears fixed on the faint pressure beyond the crack.

The clerk swallows hard and looks away. Blood glistens on Dallas’s knuckle as he shuts the folder, now heavy with a location and a name that finally points past the paperwork.

The red light washes over the ajar corridor door, then over the wet bootprints on the floor, leading the eye straight toward the back room.

Murderbone shifts a half-step toward the hallway, low and ready, while the clerk freezes behind the desk and waits for Dallas to choose the next move.

Dallas crosses into the back room, the red pulse chasing him over stacked ledgers and a bare worktable. The air smells of paper dust and cold metal.

He crouches, runs his fingers along the trim, and finds the latch. The panel lifts cleanly, revealing a shallow floor safe tucked beneath the shelving.

Dallas opens the safe and pulls out Hart’s ledger, a sealed envelope, and a thin packet of routing slips bound with twine.

Murderbone holds the doorway behind him, body angled toward the corridor. The clerk stays rigid at the desk, staring at the open back room like it has just given Dallas a verdict.

Dallas closes the safe with one hand and turns back with the ledger under his coat. The ajar corridor door keeps breathing red light into the annex, and the clerk waits for orders he may not survive.

Dallas tucks Hart’s ledger inside his coat and straightens from the safe. The red pulse washes over the back room as he steps out toward the annex office, papers held tight against his ribs.

The Clerk flinches lower behind the desk, watching Dallas cross the threshold with the ledger gone from the floor and secured on him now.

Murderbone shifts aside to clear the doorway, eyes locked on the corridor while Dallas passes him into the office.

Dallas reaches the annex office with the envelope and routing slips still under his coat, the open safe behind him now just an empty hole in the floor.

The corridor door keeps pulsing red light into the room, but the evidence is in Dallas’s hands, ready to leave with him.