Breakout by Paul Herron (notion reading list .txt) 📕

him to his feet. He lets her do her thing, moving away a couple of steps without resisting.

“I’m gonna give you that one, Detective,” he says. “I understand. It’s hard failing like that.” He wipes his mouth on his sleeve and shakes his head. “Pussy punch anyway.”

He gets in the car with his wife and drives off.

I watch him go, realizing in a moment of icy clarity that he’s never going to prison. Ever. He has too many city officials in his pockets.

That’s the exact moment I decide to frame him.

Whatever I do, it has to be ironclad. However good I thought the case was last time, this one has to be ten times stronger. So strong that even the most corrupt judge can’t let him go.

First things first. I take the shirt Kincaid bled on and I hide it in the garage. After a few days I carefully scrape the dried blood into an evidence bag. It’s not much. A few flakes. But it’s all I need. I have his DNA now and I sure as fuck am going to make sure I put it to good use.

The actual plan, though. How I’m going to frame him. I’m not too sure about that. I can’t rush it. Not if I want it to work. That means biding my time. But all the while I’m planning, thinking, watching for an opportunity.

Preparing.

Over the next few months, I shake down every dealer I can find and confiscate their wares. I don’t arrest them. I take their stash and tell them to count themselves lucky I’m not taking them in. Doesn’t matter what they’re holding—meth, Ecstasy, coke, PCP, LSD, fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, oxy. Doesn’t matter how much they have, either—a bag, a bundle, ten pills, a single rock, I don’t care. I take it all and I add it to my collection. I take a gun from one of them too, an old Beretta that’s seen better days. Untraceable. On top of that, I buy myself a burner phone. I know I’ll need it eventually.

After four months I have enough drugs to fill a backpack. It weighs about four kilograms. More than enough to nail someone on drug-trafficking charges.

And that includes me. Federal trafficking charges are ten years to life for holding a kilo of heroin. I’ve got 1.2 kilos. I’ve also got 2.8 kilos of cocaine. That’s a minimum of five years. That means what I have in the bag is enough to put someone away for a fifteen stretch. The grass, the Molly, the oxy, that’s all small-scale stuff. Icing on the cake. It’s the coke and the heroin that will do the job.

Least it would if Kincaid was anyone else. As it stands, I don’t think it’s anywhere near enough. Evidence goes missing from the station all the time. Even a massive backpack of drugs.

That’s fine, because the drugs aren’t my whole plan. All that—the gun, the phone, the backpack—it’s just groundwork. I’m still not sure how I’m going to nail Kincaid. I’m waiting for inspiration to strike.

Which it does one day in winter.

Not that you can really call it winter in Miami. Seventy-three degrees, and I’ve had my sleeves rolled up all day. It’s about six in the evening now. The sun is low, shining directly into my eyes as I drive home from a malicious-damage call-out. Some disgruntled employee trashing a factory in the Hialeah warehouse district.

I almost miss it. As I sit at a red light I happen to glance to my left, where a narrow alley sits between two abandoned buildings. I see two guys struggling. One wearing a football jersey, baggy pants, and high-tops that look like they’re just out of the box; the other wearing dirty jeans and a stained T-shirt. I recognize the guy in the high-tops. He’s a dealer I’ve already shaken down. Devon, I think he’s called.

The guy with the dirty jeans throws Devon against the wall and yanks a knife out of his back pocket. He lunges forward, his arm a blur as he stabs Devon again and again in the chest.

It’s over before I’ve even registered what’s happening. Devon slumps to the ground and the other guy rummages through his clothes, grabbing money and bags of drugs before running for the opposite end of the alley.

I look around. The place is deserted. There’s an old Cadillac parked about twenty feet from the alley, but that’s it.

When the light turns green, I swing around and park directly in front of the alley entrance. I drum my fingers on the wheel, pondering. Is this it? The final piece of the puzzle I’ve been waiting for?

I grab a pair of latex gloves from the cubby. I pull them on as I enter the alley and crouch down by Devon. I feel for a pulse.

Nothing.

I search his pockets and find a set of car keys. I leave the body where it is, slumped between sodden cardboard boxes and mildewed packing crates, and exit the alley. I test the keys in the Cadillac parked on the street. They fit. I make sure the doors are locked, then get back into my own car and head home.

The way I see it, if no one reports the body in the next few hours, the plan is a go. If someone does report it, then it wasn’t meant to be.

But I have a feeling this is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

I make a call. This has been part of my plan since the beginning. I researched everyone who works behind the computers at the alarm company Kincaid uses. A surprisingly high number of employees have some kind of criminal record, but there was one guy in particular I was drawn to. I knew his face. I’d bust him myself a couple times already. Only thing is, his record didn’t show any of that. Which means he had someone on the inside wipe it clean.

“Simon?” I say.

“Who’s this?”

“You still at work?”

“What? Yeah, who is