The filing aisles swallow the trio in stale paper dust. Clara leads with a trembling hand, Jackson stays tight behind her, and Murderbone pads low at Dallas's knee, nose working the air.

She stops at a locked drawer bank marked with a faded city seal. The tag is fresh, too fresh for a dead file, and a ribbon of light from the rolling flashlight slides over one drawer stamped PIER NINE, VOSS.

Clara fumbles a keycard, but the drawer sticks. Dallas yanks it free, and a thin folder spills out with invoice copies, route notes, and one clean name repeated in the margin, Voss. From the hall beyond the stacks, a hard shoe scuffs once, then stops.

The flashlight band catches a shadow at the aisle mouth as Murderbone bares his teeth. Dallas has the paper that links the clerk room to Voss's office, and the corridor to the end of this mess is finally in sight.

Dallas slips from the drawer bank, shoulders turned narrow, feet whispering over dust. He keeps the folder close and angles toward the aisle mouth, where the shadow had paused.

The floor answers with a faint paper crackle under his shoe. The sound is small, but in the hush it lands like a gunshot.

Jackson reaches out too late, catching only air as Dallas has to check his step. The shadow at the corridor mouth shifts back, no longer still.

A boot turns on linoleum beyond the shelves, then another. The aisle ahead is now a hard line of attention, and the opening Dallas meant to use is gone.

The sound came from his side, not the hall.

Murderbone plants himself in front of Dallas, low and tense, staring past him at the shelf end where the real danger now waits in the paper haze.

Dallas eases off the line of sound and lets the records room swallow him again. His steps shorten, then vanish under the hiss of paper dust settling around his shoes.

The shadow at the shelf end jerks once, then freezes. A sliver of a face appears between binders, turned toward the aisle mouth, listening past Dallas now.

Jackson shifts back from the drawer bank, keeping his shoulders square to the corridor while his eyes flick to Dallas. Clara goes pale and grips the keycard tighter.

Murderbone slides ahead of Dallas, low and silent, cutting the gap between the detective and the shelf end. The dog stops at the corner, staring into the paper haze.

Dallas reaches the shadow and finds a man half-hidden beside a toppled cart, one hand pressed to a pressed folder, the other hovering near his coat as if deciding whether to run or draw.

Dallas holds the revolver steady. The hidden man’s eyes flick to the muzzle, then to the pressed folder in his hand.

He lowers the folder onto the cart and nudges it out with two fingers, careful not to step away from the cover of the shelf.

Clara swallows hard, watching the man’s coat where the hard shape sits under the fabric. Murderbone inches closer, still blocking the aisle mouth.

He lifts both hands, but one sleeve slips back just enough to show a stamped courier tag tucked into the cuff.

Dallas keeps the barrel locked on the hidden man while Jackson steps in close, quick and practiced. The courier tag gets pinched free from the cuff, and the man’s smile thins when Jackson turns it over in his fingers.

Jackson pats the man down fast, pulling a folded receipt stub and a slim motel key from an inner pocket. Clara goes rigid at the motel name written on the stub.

The hidden man shifts his shoulders and a hard rectangle knocks under his coat. Murderbone growls at the sound, teeth bared toward the cart.

Jackson yanks the coat open just enough to expose a water-stained envelope marked with a civic annex seal and Voss’s initials. He freezes for half a beat, then looks straight at Dallas.