Dayton lifts the magnifier and goes still. Under the routing stamps, a second ink shows through the paper grain, a hidden authorization trail.
Professor Dayton
It is not one man at a desk. It is a chain, a relay of approvals. Desk Nine is the choke point.
Jackson stops pacing. He leans over the oak desk, jaw tight, as the final slip lands beside a marked apartment transfer and a sealed marital record.
Jackson Temple
Your wife is on the paper trail, Dallas. Not as bait, as leverage. Covington's office is using her file to keep you moving.
Dallas Fontaine
The marriage file is the hook. That is why they never let it die.
Dayton taps one page, then another, building a route from Records Oversight to a private elevator at Covington's floor. The path is clean, bureaucratic, and murderous.
Professor Dayton
If you want the conspiracy broken, you go there now. Take the ledger, expose the sign-off, and force Covington into the light.
Outside, headlights wash across the blinds. The room feels suddenly smaller, as if the city itself is closing in on Jackson's kitchen.
Expose the sign-off