The diner smelled like grease and loneliness. One of those late-night holes tucked between a boarded-up theater and a liquor store with bars on the windows. The kind of place that forgot your name the second you left — exactly the kind Hale needed.
He sat in the back booth, watching the rain smear neon lights across the windows like a painter's regret. Then she walked in.
Mid-30s. Dark hair tied back in a loose bun. Black leather jacket over a gray tee. No umbrella. No hesitation. Her eyes swept the room once — calculating, calm — then landed on him.
She moved like someone who'd been trained not to make noise.
Hale's hand hovered near his holster under the table.
"Matthew Hale?" she asked.
He didn't nod. Didn't speak.
She slid into the booth opposite him anyway.
"I'm Charlie's sister."
The name hit like a gut punch. Charlie. The one name he still couldn't say out loud without tasting guilt.
"She didn't have a sister," he said flatly.
The woman smiled — not kind, not smug. Just tired. "Half-sister. Different mothers. Long story."
He studied her. "You have a name?"
"Carmen."
"And a reason for finding me?"
She pulled a flash drive from her jacket and set it on the table. "Because you're the only one left asking the right questions. And because Charlie... trusted you."
That part hurt more than it should've.
Hale didn't touch the drive. "You expect me to believe you're family, and you just happened to track me down in the middle of a war with an invisible enemy?"
"I didn't say I wasn't part of it," Carmen replied, leaning in. "I worked for Blackstar. Logistics. Communications." She hesitated. "I thought I was working for something real. Something good. Then people started vanishing."
She slid the drive forward. "This has names. Locations. Maybe answers. But not the full picture. You're already in too deep to walk away — I'm just trying to keep you breathing long enough to matter."
He met her gaze. Her eyes were steady. Wary. Not the eyes of a liar. Not the eyes of someone clean, either.
"And what do you get out of this?" Hale asked.
"A clean break," she whispered. "And maybe… a shot at redemption."
Later, in his apartment, Red stared at the drive like it was ticking.
"She's lying," he said immediately. "Maybe not about all of it. But something."
"She's scared," Hale replied.
"She's practiced." Red plugged the drive into the isolated terminal. "You don't work comms for Blackstar without learning how to sell half-truths wrapped in sincerity."
The files began to unpack — scrambled directories, overlapping PDFs, voice logs, heatmap tracking data.
"She's definitely ex-Blackstar," Red admitted. "Or someone who had access. This is insider-tier."
"And the rest?" Hale asked.
Red hesitated. "If she's telling the truth, someone's building a list. And you're near the top."
Hale sat in the dark after Red left, Carmen's voice looping in his head.
"I'm just trying to keep you breathing long enough to matter."
But there was something in her tone. Like someone who knew what it meant to watch someone die — and couldn't afford to let it happen again.
He didn't know if she was telling the truth.
But she wasn't walking away clean.
And neither was he.