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

soaked even darker with blood. One of the paramedics asked Seamus if he would be riding back with them, and I watched him hesitate before finally answering.

“No,” he mumbled. “I need to stay here and wait for the local Garda. I’ll head down to the hospital once the suspect is in custody.”

There was a tremor in his voice, and it was heart-wrenching to see someone who’d been so happy and confident on the car ride over suddenly look so dejected.

“You should go,” I prompted him. He began to shake his head, but I ignored him. “Agent Chapman and I can wait for the cops. We need to see what we can salvage from the castle, anyway.”

Seamus looked like he was about to protest, but then he just smiled sadly.

“That’s very kind of you, sir.” He nodded before climbing into the back of the ambulance with Callahan.

The fire department arrived just as the ambulance was pulling away, and the police arrived a few minutes after them in a pair of white and yellow patrol cars that looked like they’d seen better days.

“Good afternoon,” one of the officers greeted as he walked toward the van where Junior and I were standing with the suspect between us. “I’m Officer Cedric Murphy. I spoke to Sergeant O’Connell just a few minutes ago on the phone. Is this the scoundrel, then?”

“This is him,” I grunted as I shoved the suspect none too gently in Murphy’s direction.

“We’ll handle him, then,” Murphy nodded. “Our station is located in the village of Tinahely, about twenty miles from here. Do you fellows need a ride?”

“We will,” I answered. “But first, we have to have a look inside the castle. We believe that the traffickers were using it as a base and set it on fire to destroy any evidence when we arrived. We need to see if there’s anything we can recover.”

“That’s a bit of bad luck,” Murphy grimaced as he looked toward the smoldering remains of the castle. “Well, best of luck in your search, then. I’ll transport this one back and have the other officers wait for you so they can give you a ride down as soon as you’re done.”

“Thank you,” I replied with a nod. I watched as Murphy dragged the man away before turning to look at the castle. The firefighters had put out the fire by that point, but there were still clouds of black smoke filtering out of the windows and doors, and even the air around the building scorched my throat as I approached.

“You shouldn’t go in there.” One of the firefighters held out an arm to stop me as Junior and I walked toward the castle’s entrance. “There’s a lot of smoke in the air. The stone kept the whole thing from crumbling in on itself, but it’s also keeping all the smoke inside.”

“How long will it take to clear out?” Junior asked.

“A building this big?” the firefighter responded. “Maybe two or three days.”

“We can’t wait that long,” I huffed as I pushed past the firefighter. I could hear him arguing behind me with Junior, but I ignored them and rushed into the building before anyone else could stop me.

He was right about the building being full of smoke. My eyes began to water, and my throat went dry as I attempted to draw a clean breath of air. I pulled the collar of my shirt up over my mouth and nose and moved further into the building. It helped to filter the air a little, but it was still painful to breathe.

Like the police station, the inside of the castle looked completely modern. I could see the remnants of desks and computers inside one of the rooms as I passed, and another that looked like it had once been a storage office. There were remnants of papers and folders scattered around the room and two file cabinets in one corner that appeared unscathed by the flames. I pulled one open and yanked out one of the files at random. It was a little challenging to read with my eyes stinging, but I managed to make out several dates, product numbers, and prices that didn’t make any sense.

I shoved the file back into the cabinet. We’d have to retrieve them later to look through them more intensively. Most of the rooms on the first floor were similar. I could see several desks, or at least what remained of them, set up in kind of makeshift cubicles. Unfortunately, most of the rooms had burned so badly that there wasn’t anything left for me to even look through.

I headed up to the second floor and was relieved to find that the air was a little easier to breathe up there. It was still hazy, but I could see better as well. The first room I came into was startlingly different than the ones on the first floor, as this one was filled entirely with crates full of guns in individual cases. I stepped into the room and inspected the containers more closely. Each one contained a different kind of gun in a different colored case. I had enough experience around guns to immediately recognize the cases by the size and shape, but I popped open one of the cases just to be certain. Sure enough, nestled carefully inside one of the dark green cases was a massive semi-automatic rifle. There were smaller orange and blue cases that contained different kinds of pistols and even larger black cases that I didn’t recognize.

It made sense that whoever was in here would try to destroy the evidence by burning it, but it obviously hadn’t occurred to them in their haste that metal doesn’t melt that easily. Even the cases the guns were in seemed mostly unharmed aside from some scorch marks.

I left the room and quickly inspected the rest of the upper floor. Two other rooms contained more cases filled with guns stacked floor to ceiling, but the last one was different. It was a