The frantic Harbor Unit courier barrels into Dayton’s study with the revised manifest clutched to his chest. He is winded, pale, and dead certain the paper matters more than his fear. The steel door behind the room gives a hard scrape, and the whole wall seems to listen.

Jackson goes still beside the desk, then snatches the manifest and scans the routing block. His name appears again and again, not as a warning, but as authorization. The fake Harbor Unit stamp on the page matches the one Curtis pulled from the alcove.

The scrape at the inner steel door turns into a deliberate shove from the other side. A thin seam of darkness opens, and a man’s face appears in the gap, half-lit by the study lamp. He is not a ghost, not a demon, just a cleaner in Harbor colors with bloodless eyes and a service key ring.

The courier recoils as the truth lands. Jackson lowers the manifest, furious now, while Murderbone snarls at the door. Dallas has the shape of the conspiracy at last, a framed name, a sealed door, and the person behind it finally breathing in the same room.

Dallas takes the manifest from Jackson and lets his eyes move line by line. The routing block is dense, but one name keeps surfacing in the authorization trail, stamped, repeated, and impossible to miss.

It is not just listed. It is used as cover, a legitimate Harbor Unit signature turned into a mask for the blackout run and the breach pickup at Dayton’s study.

Jackson’s face changes as the pattern clicks into place for him too. The fury in his eyes sharpens into certainty, because the paper now reads like a frame-up, not a confession.

At the inner door, the cleaner leans in a fraction farther, key ring glinting. The scrape in the hall becomes a measured pressure against the frame, like someone checking whether the lock has truly failed.

The courier looks from Jackson to Dallas, drained of all fight. On the page, the revision is plain now, the blame was never meant to land anywhere else.

Dallas lifts the manifest a little higher, and the lamp catches the altered chain of custody. The same Harbor Unit mark appears where a witness should sign, where a courier should receive, and where a body should be found.

Jackson stares at the page, then at Dallas, and the anger in him gives way to something harder, cleaner. He sees the route for what it is now, a paper trap built around his name.

The courier swallows, shrinking back from the desk edge. The duplicate manifest bundle lies half-spread beside the stamp, matching the same edits, the same bad handwriting, the same lie copied twice.

At the inner door, the cleaner tightens his shoulder against the seam, but the plan has already broken. Dallas has put the blame back where it belongs, on the people outside the room.