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into my Apple account to get the full picture of where my phone was, but that site was slow to load on my good computer, so I went with the simplest option and logged into Gmail. I had three emails waiting for me from my phone. The last location logged had been a block from where I was at the theater at almost the same time I’d been there. Either I was in a weird romantic comedy and this was part of our meet-cute, or whoever stole my phone was following me. I immediately thought of the woman who bumped into me outside of the theater.

I sat back and folded my arms behind my head in a very dramatic thinking gesture wondering how to play this. A new move presented itself though when an email came in from my phone. The location logged was the café where I was sitting.

Click here to learn more about Trigger Switch by Bryon Quertermous.

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Here is a preview from It’s Ugly Because It’s Personal, a crime novel by Ryan Sayles.

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Part One

Chaos

0132 hours, Carcasa PD

“102, PD, 10-45.” The red and blue LEDs lit up the neighborhood, stabbing away at the late autumn night.

“Copy, go ahead.”

“Stop location is westbound 139th at Rainbow, vehicle is an older model tan Buick LeSabre, license plate 427 David King Sam. Appears to be occupied two times, unknown race and gender.”

“10-4.”

Officer Barros undid his seat belt and aimed his spotlight into the driver’s sideview mirror. He watched the vehicle. Both occupants were moving, and while Barros took note of it, the movements weren’t frantic, disorganized or the like. Not “furtive,” as the legalese labeled it. Not the rush to stash drugs or guns but the usual shuffle to get a driver’s license and insurance card. Then the occupants stopped and sat idly in their seats. Waiting for their visit from the Ticket Fairy.

“102, your return.” Rick was in dispatch by himself; it was Caroline’s day off and Eileen had called out sick. Rick was fast and accurate; both those traits were as good as any tool on a duty belt.

“Go ahead.”

“427 David King Sam, December of 2019, comes back on a 1987 Buick LeSabre to a Gertrude Brown of Basin Row. No wants or warrants.”

“Copy.” Barros exited his vehicle and the air stole the warmth from him before he shut the door. A cold front had moved in a little after eight that night, and that was hours ago. Snow wouldn’t be far behind in the week now.

Behind them was a more commercial section of town. In front were neighborhoods, and rough ones at that. This car, at this hour of the night, leaving the city proper and going into these neighborhoods, they were all little red flags. The fact that the headlights were off also helped. As the car drove by Barros—who was idling in a parking lot, facing the flow of traffic—the two occupants glanced at him for a moment before sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead with the driver correcting his hands to ten and two.

“I smell something,” Barros said, and shifted into drive.

Now, Barros stood at his door for a second, decided he’d mix it up, and while keeping an eye on the car, he walked around his own to the rear and got up on the curb. The grass was dead and stiff underfoot.

The academy taught the passenger side approach as an option for situations where traffic was heavy on the driver’s side. Or the officer might want to keep the driver off-guard as best as possible on a suspicious stop. Three years prior a highway patrol trooper had been hit and killed by a semi while he was doing a driver’s side approach. Two months after that at a DUI checkpoint an officer speaking to a driver was killed by a drunk trying to skirt the line. Barros’s PD strongly suggested they get used to the idea of passenger side tactics.

But cop deaths pass by and are forgotten by all but a few once the black bands come off the shields, and the in-vogue status of passenger side approaches cooled off.

Still, Barros was getting tired and wanted to keep himself on his toes. He came along the passenger side of the Buick and slowed his roll, observing as he went. The back windshield and rear windows were so darkly tinted it was impossible to see inside the back, even with the extra light from his flashlight crawling along it. The tinting itself was such a shoddy job there were enough air pockets in the material to make it spotted like animal print.

He could see better as he got up to the front passenger side and its lack of tint. Two young men, both intently looking to the driver’s side window, waiting for him. Waiting for his silhouette to puncture the glare of the spotlight aimed in their mirrors.

Their guns at the ready.

“Pig! On J’s side!” Shout from the back seat. The driver and front passenger spun. Startled. All at once everyone knew the score.

Barros reacted; took a shocked step back, right hand going for his gun while his left hand dropped his light and scrambled at his radio. The high-intensity beam of it cut through the shadows around as it spun and fell, rolling off. Time did that odd thing time does and it raced at quadruple speed while slowing down to a crawl. Dilation.

Barros clicked the transmit button. And both those guns swung right up at him, ravenous to kill a cop. On his second step back, his ankle rolled.

The driver didn’t really aim. Just shoved the gun in the direction of his target and squeezed. The arc of the gun pendulum-ed to the window, unaffected by the fact the passenger’s head was in the way as the driver pulled the trigger. Undisciplined. Raging on adrenaline.

Barros fell