The rain starts at 11:04, exactly like always. Detective Mara Cole stands under the same broken awning across from the laundromat, pink neon flickering on the wet street. She has lived this hour forty times now. In sixty minutes, a man named Elias Voss dies in the apartment above. She has never saved him. Tonight she swears she will. The clock ticks. She steps off the curb.

Mara is tired of running blind. She walks into the laundromat itself, where the old owner, Dushku, folds towels at midnight every loop. He always nods at her like he knows something. This time she sits down across from him and asks the question she's been afraid to ask.

Dushku just smiles and says nothing. He folds the last towel, turns off the laundromat lights, and walks out into the rain. Mara sits alone in the dark as the clock hits 11:59. Upstairs, something heavy hits the floor. The rain starts again at 11:04.