Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (short books for teens .TXT) 📕

Agent Gardner will be able to triangulate where the bottles came from.”

“Got it,” I replied as I finished my doughnut and stood up to take the printed list of addresses from him.

Junior and I headed out of the office and down to the parking lot in silence.

“The closest address is Adrian Gooden’s,” Junior informed me as we got into Junior’s work car. “He’s the seventeen-year-old student who attacked his teacher.”

“Jeez,” I sighed as Junior inputted the address into the GPS. Now that we had confirmed that the drug was hidden inside bottles of medicine, we had to contend with the fact that all of these people were victims as well as aggressors. Adrian Gooden had just been an innocent kid, and now he was dead.

Gooden’s home was only about five minutes from our office, in a luxurious residential area of Las Vegas. The house we pulled up to was large, with a sprawling, manicured lawn across the front of it and what looked like a pool peeking out from around the back.

I stepped out of the car and waited until Junior had as well before walking toward the front door. Before I could knock, however, a door at the side of the house burst open, and a woman stepped out.

“Can’t you jerks just leave us alone?” she screamed as she lifted something off the ground. I realized it was a hose the instant she turned it toward me and turned it on at full blast. I brought my hands up to shield my face as I was hit by a painful stream of water. “Don’t you have any compassion?”

“Ma’am, please stop!” Junior yelled. I took the opportunity to retreat out of the reach of the hose’s spray. “We’re federal agents! We need to speak to you about what happened to your son.”

All the color drained from the woman’s face as Junior spoke.

“You’re not reporters?” she asked weakly. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. They’ve been coming all morning.”

She turned the hose off but then froze as if remembering something.

“Well, whoever you are,” she huffed, “I don’t want to talk about my son. Please go away.”

“Wait!” Junior shouted as she moved to close the door. “We know why he attacked his teacher. It wasn’t his fault.”

“What did you say?” she asked as she dropped the hose in surprise.

“He was drugged,” Junior replied calmly. “Without his knowledge. That’s why we’re here. We believe he took some over-the-counter medicine that had been laced with a lethal dose of illegal drugs..”

The woman stared at Junior as if he had just grown a second head. Then, suddenly, she fell to her knees.

“Thank goodness,” she sobbed into her hands.

Junior glanced back at me in confusion, and I just shrugged and attempted to pull my jacket closer around myself. My clothes were soaked, and the chill in the air felt bitingly cold.

“Ma’am?” Junior asked tentatively as he approached her.

“Everyone was saying he was a criminal,” she cried. “They were all calling him a druggie and saying that it was his own fault that he overdosed. I kept telling them they were wrong, but no one would listen, not even the police. As soon as his autopsy came back positive for drugs, they all started acting like he deserved to die for what happened.”

I suddenly understood why she’d seemed so relieved a moment ago. All this time, she’d been trying to defend her son’s memory, and now she had proof that he hadn’t been in control of his actions that day.

“Why don’t we speak inside?” Junior suggested as he helped her up off the ground. “It’s a little cold out here.”

“Alright,” she nodded before turning to look at me. “Oh, my word. I can’t believe I just did that. Here, come inside. I’ll fetch you a towel.”

She scurried off into the house as Junior and I stepped inside. It was warmer inside the house, but my clothes were still sticking to me uncomfortably. I peeled my coat off and hung it on a coat rack by the entrance. I felt a little bad about dripping water all over this woman’s house, but then again, she was the one who’d put me in this state.

“I am so sorry about this,” she apologized profusely as she returned, a large, fluffy blue towel in her hands. “I thought you two were a couple of reporters. They’ve been showing up in droves since last night when a news station aired the names of all the attackers. Finally, I’d had enough and started spraying them down as soon as they got near my porch.”

“It’s not the worst home defense system I’ve ever seen,” Junior snickered. I shot him a glare as I attempted to dry myself with the towel. “And I’m afraid that’s likely only going to get worse. Our director is going to be holding a press conference this afternoon to announce that the assailants were all victims themselves and to warn others not to take the same drug inadvertently.”

“That’s alright,” Mrs. Gooden smiled bitterly. “Everyone will know now that Adrian was innocent.”

“Just keep hosing them down if more show up,” I suggested. “Under Nevada’s Castle Doctrine, you’re allowed to defend your home from trespassers if they refuse to leave.”

She smiled sheepishly at me.

“Oh, please have a seat,” she gestured toward the couch. “Don’t worry about getting it wet. It’s my fault, after all. And I have a teenaged boy, so I’m used to messes.”

Her face fell as she mentioned her son, and her eyes glistened as though she was about to cry.

“Mrs. Gooden,” Junior prompted as he took a seat on the couch. “We wanted to talk to you about what happened that day.”

“Of course,” she nodded as she wiped at her eyes with the palm of her hand.

“Did Adrian take any medicine that day?” he asked. “Was he feeling sick?”

“He was, actually,” Mrs. Gooden responded. “He woke up with a bit of a sore throat, but he had an important science test that day and didn’t want to stay home