The rain in Los Angeles didn’t wash things clean. It just made the grime slicker, turning the oil on the asphalt into rainbows that looked pretty until you stepped in them and realized it was just toxic sludge. Sara Bruno sat in the back booth of Jerry’s 24-Hour Diner, nursing a coffee that tasted like burnt tires and regret. She didn’t drink it. She just held the ceramic mug, letting the heat seep into her cold fingers. Her sketchbook lay open on the Formica table, charcoal dust smudged across the page. To the casual observer—the tired trucker at the counter, the two college girls taking selfies by the jukebox—she was just an artist trying to capture the noir aesthetic of a dying city. She was actually waiting for a shark. Her phone buzzed in her leather jacket pocket. One short vibration. Colby. *Target active. Two blocks out.* Sara didn't check the phone. She didn't need to. She kept her eyes on the charcoal sketch of a gargoyle she was half-heartedly shading, but her peripheral vision was locked on the glass door. The diner was a sensory overload of the worst kind. The smell of frying grease was thick enough to chew on. The jukebox was playing a low, mournful country song that sounded like it had been recorded underwater. Then the bell above the door chimed. The atmosphere in the room didn't change for anyone else. The waitress, a woman named