The key gives with a dry click, and the freight office opens on stale air, dust, and the soft tick of cooling metal. Murderbone moves first, low and silent, sweeping the room before Dallas can step fully inside.

A desk lamp burns under a green shade. Filing cabinets line the wall. On the far side, a shadow jerks behind a waist-high stack of invoices, too fast to be wind.

Bell stands up from behind the paper stack, pale and unsteady, one hand slick with blood at his ribs. He has a revolver but cannot quite keep it level. Murderbone growls from the doorway, pinning him in place.

Behind Bell, a wall-safe hangs open, its door torn wide enough to show a ledger, a key ring, and a sealed envelope marked PIER NINE CLEANUP. Bell glances at it, then back at Dallas, and the last of his confidence drains out.

Dallas fires once. Bell jerks backward, the revolver slipping from his hand before it can clear the safe.

The shot punches through the cramped office, and Bell drops hard against the cabinets, then down beside the open wall-safe.

His blood smears the ledger’s corner and the sealed envelope marked PIER NINE CLEANUP. The key ring skitters across the floor and stops at Dallas’s boots.

Murderbone surges forward, then freezes over the body, growling once at the dark stain spreading under Bell’s ribs.

Inside the safe, the ledger sits on top now, plain as day, with a tucked-in receipt and a folded berth map beneath it.

From the hallway outside, a sudden footstep stops, then a man’s voice breaks, thin with panic. 'Did you shoot him?'

The office holds its breath around the dead man while the unseen witness waits for Dallas to answer.