They were fooling around when Felix's phone rang.
"Hello. Who is this?"
"It's Carles. Felix, why aren't you on for the night shift?"
"Why? I shot and killed a suspect—you didn't hear? I'm on administrative leave."
"Who told you a shooting always means automatic admin leave?"
"Isn't it?"
"Of course not. Admin leave is to keep the follow-up inquiry clean—avoid bias, show the public we're fair. It's a precaution, not a statutory must. Whether it happens and how long depends on the case and the agency. If we judge you don't need it, you don't."
Carles barked that out and hung up.
Rachel drove home. Felix called an Uber to the station.
Carles saw him, said nothing, tossed him a car key, and walked off.
Felix checked out his Glock 19, changed into uniform, and headed to the lot—only to find the key belonged to a brand-new Ford Police Interceptor.
He still dreamed of a Camaro, but the Interceptor was solid—tough, capacious, a work mule. Trunk swallowed everything: ammo, cuffs, med kits; sometimes even smoke and CS for crowd control, the kind of odds and ends you used to backfill what other units forgot.
Depending on the job, you could load a ballistic shield, a compact AED, a decibel meter, a window-tint gauge, a fingerprint kit—whatever it took.
He rolled out. After a few blocks he felt the street had shifted from the usual. Then it clicked: a lot of units had been reassigned to hunt the music-warehouse shooters, so patrol density was down. People who lived on the street could smell that gap.
"Adam Three-Eighty-Eight, shots fired, Windsor Avenue. Respond code three, use caution."
"Adam Three-Eighty-Eight, copy."
He lit up, siren on, and pushed hard. Up ahead, a cluster of onlookers—mostly Black—crowded around to watch. He blipped the horn twice and forced a lane.
"Back it up. If you drop anything on scene, you may ride downtown as a suspect." He stepped out and threw a little scare. A few heads lit red or gray in his inner ledger; drag them in and you'd find records on all of them.
They backed off, sullen.
The streetlights were weak. Felix kicked on the Interceptor's scene lights, washed the area, and scanned. Black neighborhood, but unusually many brick-and-stone houses.
Scene sat along a wide street: three Black males down. Two writhed on the grass—young, both with red tags in his mind's eye. A third lay face-down on a walkway to someone's front door—no tag at all.
Felix checked the pulse on the face-down one. Nothing.
"Dispatch, Adam Three-Eighty-Eight on scene. Three Black males shot, one DOA. Send additional units and EMS."
He looked at the two howling on the grass. Voices strong; they'd probably live. No need to start care yet.
Cops had a duty to aid, but only when safe to do so. Anyone who'd watched American body-cam compilations had seen it—suspect shot, cops hold, no treatment until the scene's secure.
Right now wasn't secure. If he knelt over the wounded, the crowd could rush him from behind. Better to wait for cover.
If they died? Then their luck ran out.
Backup arrived within moments—two cars, then more. In L.A., a theft could take an hour for a unit to show. Shots fired? Sometimes support dropped in like teleportation.
The crowd melted at the sight of more cruisers.
With cover set, Felix and the others frisked the three one by one. They pulled a handgun and a fat bag of dope—cocaine, per his partner's quick glance.
"Blood set ink on all three. Likely retail crew. Getting hit could be rivals. But there are a dozen Blood subsets. We'll need hospital IDs to tie the set."
Only then did they wave EMS in to haul the living to the ER.
"Let's see if anyone saw anything."
Felix knocked at the door where the dead one lay. "L.A. County Sheriff's. We'd like to ask a few questions."
A Black woman in her thirties opened up. "Hello, officers. I'm the one who called it in."
He and his partner exchanged a look. That helped.
"Your name, please? And could you tell us what you saw?" Felix flipped open his notebook.
"Kenisha. I was inside with my family watching TV. We heard pops—first thought it was fireworks. We went to the window and I saw that young man face-down on my porch. Then I called."
"Kenisha, did you see anyone shoot, or anyone or any car fleeing?"
"I didn't see a person. I did see a white car heading north fast. Don't know if it was them."
"Could you point out where you last saw that white car?"
"Under that third streetlight."
"Thank you."
Felix and his partner walked to the third light, then started south. A short way on, loose casings glittered on the asphalt.
He went back to the cruiser, grabbed markers and tape. The others started counting shells—one marker per casing. Felix strung the tape. Alone a moment ago, he'd done nothing but watch his back.
Tape up, markers down—their part was basically done. Homicide would take it from here.
As for whether they'd grind hard to find who shot three gang sellers—hard to say. America had its numbers: homicide clearance was 64% in '13, sliding since; by '18 it hovered near 60.
They waited awhile. No homicide yet. Felix got bored, nodded to two partners, and peeled off.
Those two were happy to stay, talk, and earn.
Felix decided to nose around the blocks. He cruised slowly, eyeing places a man could tuck in. Then the radio cracked again.
"Assist call. Black male suspect armed, resisted arrest, fled, now hiding. Units in the area respond."
Felix took it and drove in. By the time he arrived, a dozen deputies were already there, more rolling in. Fine—ride the wave, earn the hours.
He fell in behind the line while the sergeant briefed.
"Suspect: Paymon McReynolds, believed to be one of the shooters in the music-warehouse case. Half an hour ago we moved to arrest; he made the tail, fired on deputies, fled by car, and ditched into this subdivision. We're conducting a grid search. He's armed and dangerous. Report any sign immediately. Watch your six. Move."
"Yes, sir."
They spread out, yard to yard. In practice, they stayed in the yards, not the interiors. If a resident was home and said things were fine, they took a look for obvious threats and kept moving.
Even that drew refusals and complaints on normal nights. Not tonight. Too many badges. People complied. Fear did the rest.
Fifteen minutes, nothing.
At this pace they could comb for hours and still miss him. And the guy could rabbit again—these blocks weren't airtight, and a determined runner always found a seam.
Even if he stayed put, luck decided which team stumbled on him. Someone else tagged him and Felix wouldn't even get a shot off. Pushing to the front wouldn't help—he'd still have to clear yards in order, catching bullets first for free.
His danger sense—useful at range—was weaker in tight CQB. You could feel the threat and still be a beat slow. It needed more upgrades. The guilt-mark view wasn't great either; he had to see the person to see the mark. If you could see the person, the mark hardly mattered.
Others searched tense and focused. Felix drifted, thinking.
Then it hit him. Why shouldn't the guilt mark bleed through walls? Or give a target cue—hum when he was close? No rule against it. He'd been limiting himself. He still had one feature request left.
Good thing he'd saved it. He pinged the system and pushed the idea.
A moment later, the reply came:
[Per host request: New skill generated—Target Indicator Lv.1: Once the host fixes a specific target in mind, he can faintly sense the position of that person's guilt mark. Near the target, a mild tremor will alert the host.]
Perfect. Good tonight, better forever. For manhunts, more valuable than raw marksmanship.
"I want the Black male—" Nothing. Wrong query. Too many men fit that label in Los Angeles.
"Find Paymon McReynolds."
A pull tugged at Felix's mind: left. He peeled away from the line without hesitation, following the feeling. As he moved, he tapped a deputy's shoulder. "Follow me."
The neighborhood was dark; residents, told an armed suspect was loose, kept their lights off—or stayed away entirely.
His own flashlight barely cut it. Also, optics mattered: if he wandered off alone and a suspect wound up dead, people would talk. Better to have witnesses.
With a heading in his chest, he moved faster—searching lightly until the pull sharpened. The few deputies shadowing him noted the odd pattern but said nothing. No suspect was a fact; leadership wasn't theirs; why argue.
They crossed several lots and slipped into a yard. A jolt ran through him.
Here.
Felix went two-hand on the gun, pulse steady. He blipped his light—on, off—never holding it long enough to give away his position.
Front yard clear. Into the back. The tremor swelled.
This was it.
He edged in and snapped the beam across a pile of junk—just in time to catch a flicker of movement.
Danger.
He dropped, shoulders down, head tucked.
Two muzzle flashes cracked from the pile.
Felix drove rounds back at the mark's location—three fast shots, then more. The suspect was buried in clutter; hit probability was ugly. Felix dumped the magazine.
The deputies behind him fired toward the flashes. For a moment, the yard roared.
[Host has eliminated target. Progress 2/10.]
He slammed in a fresh mag. "Cease fire!"
Once the others took cover, he flashed the light—quick open, quick close—and saw a body slumped against the junk. Paymon McReynolds, most likely.
"Cover me."
The others didn't know he was down. Felix played it straight, approached slow, then called, "Clear. Suspect down."
Teams converged on the backyard. Beams crossed on the body. The sergeant stepped up, compared a photo, and nodded. "That's him."
He turned to collect weapons from those who'd fired, Felix included. Whether admin leave would happen wasn't his call, but disarming hot shooters cooled everyone off.
Before he could speak, every radio on scene screamed: "Officer down! Officer down! El Monte—Garvey and Central, Siesta Motel. Ambush with gunfire, deputies hit. Any unit receiving, respond now!"
Felix ran, vaulted into his unit, and punched the pedal to the floor toward the Siesta.
The sergeant watched his taillights and sighed. "Split it. Some to the Siesta, some hold for CSI, the rest with me—we still have more to grab."