Pier Nine groans under fog and sodium light. In the loading bay, the envelope lies open, the truck cab yawns wide, and the seat is kicked loose like someone tore the truth out by force. Dallas Fontaine stands over the mess, with Murderbone bristling at his side.
Councilman Voss
You came this far for a dead girl and a paper trail. That is all this was ever going to be.
Voss is on his knees near the open cab, cuffed by his own panic, trying to keep his chin up. Harlan Tate is gone, Bell is cornered elsewhere, and the dock has run out of places to hide him.
Dallas Fontaine
The truck seat was pried open from the right side. Someone wanted the ledger fast.
Councilman Voss
You think you can make this stick? You have nothing but scraps, and a hungry dog.
Murderbone answers with a low snarl, one paw planted on the torn papers. From the dark beyond the bay, the last of the pressure closes in, silent and final. Dallas has Voss, the proof, and the choice of how this ends.
“I show Voss the recording of rook being burned alive and I tell him his fate will be worse unless he tells me if anyone else was involved in my daughter's death.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Interrogation, rolled -2)
Dallas lowers his gaze to the recorder in his hand and taps play. Rook’s voice crackles out of the speaker, thin and ruined, and Voss goes still at the sound of his own problem becoming proof.
Councilman Voss
No... that tape should be buried.
Dallas raises the phone toward Voss, letting him hear the burning room, the panic, the last ugly seconds. Voss’s face drains as the color leaves it.
Dallas Fontaine
Who else was in on my daughter’s death?
Councilman Voss
You think I was the only one? Bell signed the clean paper. Tate handled the dock. Pryce made the calls when it got messy.
Murderbone’s growl drops into a low, satisfied rumble as Voss keeps talking, desperate now to outrun the recording.
Councilman Voss
And there was one more, a woman in records. She moved names off the books before anyone ever saw them.
Dallas does not interrupt. Voss swallows, then points his chin toward the open cab, as if the truck itself can shield him from what he has admitted.
Quest Complete
Reach Pier Nine
New Gift: Dreadful Presence