[Feedback] Looking for some writing advice so I can improve

I was looking for some advice on improving my writing. I'm kind of old fashioned and not trained outside of writing short stories with friends. Trying to watch youtube videos about improving my writing but it's been a process. This is just the prologue of my book. Anything is appreciated.

Prologue

Rain fell in thin, slanted sheets, turning the canal into a black ribbon along the city’s edge, an old wound that never healed. It drilled into concrete and mud with persistence, washing grime from the streets, dragging it somewhere darker. The sky hung low, pressing down on the city as if it had come to be a witness.

Detective Mason Rourke stood on the bank with his hands buried in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched, collar turned up against the cold. The chill had little to do with the weather. It settled deeper than that, beneath the skin, in the space where memory lingered too long. Floodlights bleached the canal in a harsh white light, flattening the water into something artificial. Rain sparked briefly in the light before vanishing into the current. Under that brightness, everything looked staged, too sharp at the edges, as though tragedy had been arranged instead of discovered.

The smell was harder to ignore. Mud and rot rose from the banks, tangled with stagnant water and something metallic beneath it that clung to the back of his throat. It lingered there, unmistakable.

A crime scene photographer crouched near the reeds, camera flashing in bursts that turned misery into evidence. The light cut through the rain, documenting what could not be undone.

Rourke kept his eyes on the canal, tracking the slow, deliberate movements of the men in waders as they guided a hooked pole beneath the surface. When one of them stiffened slightly, he recognized the movement. They had found something.

The joking from the nearby officers had faded. Even those who had tried to blunt their nerves with noise had gone quiet. Rain and the distant hiss of traffic filled the space instead, the world beyond the embankment continuing as if nothing had shifted.

One of the men in the water lifted his arm. The man beside him nodded. A body bag lay open on the bank, black plastic slick in the rain.

Twenty-four hours. That was all it had been. Three girls at a park on a sunny afternoon. Witnesses who hadn’t seen anything. Parents who had looked away for a moment too long. A city that kept breathing. Amber Willis, twelve. Lila Cortez, eleven. Megan Shultz, thirteen. Three faces that were printed on flyers, paper curling in gutters. Smiles captured in photographs that had no idea what waited beneath the surface.

Rourke had told the parents they would find them. He said it with certainty, because certainty and hope were the only things he had to offer. Now the weight of that promise pressed against his ribs.

Behind him, Lieutenant Haskins stepped closer, boots sinking into wet earth. “You okay?”

Rourke didn’t answer. Something pale rolled beneath the surface, turning lazily in the current, hair spreading like dark weeds. For a moment it didn’t look human. The floodlight caught a cheek. A closed eye. A small hand, slack and swollen, fingers curled around nothing.

Rourke felt his stomach drop. The man in the water hooked the body gently beneath the arm and guided it toward the bank with careful hands. A medic standing nearby stepped forward out of habit more than hope. A coroner’s assistant waited nearby, already writing notes.

Rourke watched as the body was lifted from the water and placed into the open bag. The zipper closed with a sharp, final sound. Rain tapped against the plastic while the photographer’s flash went off again, capturing the moment.

Haskins shifted beside him. “There could still be—”

“Don’t,” Rourke said, the word low and rough like a growl. If one was here, the others wouldn’t be far. There was no hope left.

The pole dipped again. The men moved with the same measured precision. When the second body surfaced, smaller and twisted at an angle that caught in his throat, Rourke held his ground. For an instant, an image of sunlight through park trees intruded. Children were running, sneakers kicking up dirt, but the floodlight erased it. Her skin was too pale. A bruise darkened her throat.

Someone turned away and vomited into the grass. Rourke didn’t look away as the second bag closed. His mind began assembling the pieces whether he wanted it to or not. Dump site near the park. Quick disposal. No attempt at concealment. A vehicle nearby. Someone familiar with the area. Someone composed enough to work without panic.

The water shifted again and by the time the third girl surfaced, the rain felt heavier, as if it had thickened in the air. Her hair floated around her face. Her eyes were open, reflecting the floodlights in blank, glassy halos. For a moment he thought she was looking at him. The men drew her in and the third bag closed. Silence settled over the bank, broken only by the faint hum of the lights and the steady fall of rain. Three black bags lay side by side on the grass.

A young officer approached, notepad in hand. “Detective Rourke? The parents are asking if there’s any update. If it’s them.”

Rourke turned toward him. The kid’s cap dripped rainwater down the side of his face. His eyes held the kind of fear that came from proximity to grief and lack of experience. Beyond him, umbrellas clustered behind police tape. Three families were waiting. “Tell them we found them,” Rourke said.

The officer hesitated for a moment, then nodded and moved off toward the embankment. Rourke remained where he was until the bags were loaded into the van and the floodlights shut down one by one. The canal resumed its dark, steady flow, carrying leaves and oil toward the river as if nothing had happened.

The placement was too clean. Too intentional. Whoever had left them here had expected them to be discovered. That wasn’t panic. It was communication and whoever sent that message was still out there.