Trust Me by Brandon Barrows

​ “I wouldn’t ask just anyone,” the man calling himself Dex said. “Wouldn’t even open my mouth I wasn’t sure.”

Emmett Simmons eyed the other man over his beer. “An’ you’re sure about me?”

“You’re Fred Moseley’s cousin? Got outta Great Plains Correctional couple weeks ago? Livin’ with your ma?”

“Uh huh.” Simmons sipped beer, embarrassed. He swore he’d never come back to this hick town, but when Great Plains’s steel gates disgorged him, he had nowhere else to go.

“Fred used to be married to my wife’s stepsister, Edie. That pract’ly makes us family.”

“Uh huh,” Simmons said again. “Well, if this thing’s so easy, how come you don’t do it yourself?”

Dex showed crooked teeth. “Hell, boy, I lived in this town my whole life. Think some shit like a mask’s gonna keep people from knowing me?”

Dex was over six feet, at least two-fifty, blue-eyed and fleshy, but handsome in a good ol’ boy way, marred only by a scar bisecting his left eyebrow. Simmons didn’t remember ever seeing Dex before he ambled into the bar, but he had been gone a long time, damned close to twenty years.

“I guess you got a point,” Simmons admitted. “How much did you say again?”

​It was the lunch hour, the bar crowded, everyone focused on their own business, but Dex lowered his head and voice before answering.  “Way I heard it, cops picked up near to thirty thousand in cash and drugs bustin’ Willy French’s meth lab.”

“An’ how’d you hear that?”

Dex grinned. “Small town, boy. Everyone knows everyone’s business. ‘Sides, we all got police scanners out here in the country.”

That was true enough; Simmons’s ma was practically glued to hers since the cable got shut off.

“I don’t know,” Simmons said slowly. “I promised my ma I’d go straight this time.”

“Respect, boy, but lemme ask you: you got a job?”

“Well…” Simmons trailed off, shaking his head.

“Listen, okay?” Dex placed a hand on Simmons’s shoulder. The smaller man tensed; six years in state taught that any touch was bad touch.

“I get wantin’ to do right by your ma, but it’d be a whole lot easier with some cash, huh? I know for a fact that besides Chief Denton, there’s only one cop in the station afternoons. I promise you, this’ll be cake, but it’s got to be done today.”

“How come?”

“Heard they’re transferring Willy French to county tonight, along with the evidence.”

“I don’t know.” Simmons made designs on the bar top with moisture from his glass. “Two cops,” he muttered. “It’s too much for me all by myself. I never did no hold up before. I’ll need someone else, just in case.”

“Got anyone in mind?”

“I think so.” Simmons met the other man’s eyes. This would be the last time, the very last time he stepped out of line. He promised himself that. “Thirty grand, three-way split. Not too bad.”

“No, sir.” Dex’s grin widened.

“What about this cop—besides the chief, I mean? You know him? Good man?”

​Dex’s expression darkened. “I know him. He was hot shit a few years ago, but he had himself some trouble and now they got him answering phones. He’s nothin’ to worry about, trust me.”

****

Chief Denton stood by the big front window of the station. He stretched and yawned. “Quiet afternoon, Colby.”

“Yessir,” Officer Colby said from the reception desk. The dispatch radio behind him hummed, and a ceiling fan creaked, but otherwise the station was silent.

“Just the way I like it,” the Chief said. “Think I’ll catch a few winks, ‘f’you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, sir,” Colby said, glancing at the wall-clock. Almost four o’clock. The sheriff’s men would arrive in less than an hour to transfer Willy French.

As Chief Denton disappeared into the building’s depths, a small, red sedan pulled up in front of the station. Simmons and a baseball-capped man hopped from it, tugging medical masks into place, guns in hand by the time they reached the station door.

Colby stood, then crouched slightly, using the desk for cover, his service pistol held steady. A drop of sweat crossed the scar dividing his left eyebrow as the station door opened. Thinking, I’ll show them I’m still hot shit, he triggered his first shot.

Simmons never knew what hit him.

© 2026 Brandon Barrows

About the author:

Brandon Barrows is the author of a dozen novels, his most recent The Darker the Night from Rowan Prose Publishing. He has also published nearly two hundred short stories for which he is a Mustang Award winner and a two-time Derringer Award nominee. Find him on Blusky at brandonbarrows.bsky.social and at http://www.brandonbarrowscomics.com