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

a cop showed up and shot him. Everyone already knew about the spiked medicine, but after someone uploaded that video to the internet two nights ago, people have been talking about it on social media and trying to find bottles.”

“And instead of throwing them away or turning them in to the police,” Naomi huffed, “they’re selling them online. Don’t people use their brains anymore?”

“Evidently not,” I muttered. “What else are people saying about the drug online?”

It was probably a long shot, but maybe someone knew something about it that we didn’t.

“I don’t know,” Kyle shrugged. “There’s a challenge going around where people see how much of the cough syrup they’re willing to drink.”

“What?!” Naomi and I both shouted at once.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Kids were deliberately ingesting something they knew would kill them or, worse, cause them to hurt others? I knew that it was normal for teenagers to do dumb and crazy things, but this was a step too far.

“It’s all fake, though,” Kyle rushed to assure us. “At least, most of them probably are. Most people can’t find any of the real bottles, so it’s pretty obvious that everyone is just drinking normal medicine and just pretending it’s the laced stuff. Besides, the few real bottles people have found have sold for so much that it would be a waste to use it just for some dumb internet video.”

“I see,” Naomi replied, and I could hear the relief in her voice. The idea of kids turning themselves into violent aggressors just to show off to their online friends was absolutely horrifying.

“I don’t really know anything else about it besides that,” Kyle shrugged. “If you want to know about that drug, you should go ask down at the Silver Horseshoe. You know that bar downtown that looks like it’s abandoned because half the windows are smashed in?”

“I know it,” I answered as calmly as I could. “How are they connected to the drug?”

“They’re the ones who first started distributing it,” Kyle replied. “I have a friend who deals there. Well, he’s not really my friend, I guess. Anyway, his name is Brady. He stands outside all the time. He told me once that the whole bar is just a cover for the Irish mob, but I’m pretty sure he’s full of crap. They do deal drugs there, though. Brady always has everything, and if not, he’ll get it for you, usually by the next day.”

“That one kid that tried to stop us from going into the bar.” I looked up at Naomi. “Do you remember? He was wearing a hoodie and went white as a ghost as soon as he heard we were feds.”

“I remember,” Naomi nodded.

“Whoa,” Kyle snickered. “So you guys already had your eye on him? Guess I just screwed him over then, huh? Oops.”

Kyle was chuckling, but there was a strained look in his eyes, and I could tell that he was trying to use laughter to cover up the pain he was in.

“You’ve been a big help, Kyle,” I told him. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem,” he replied flatly. I could tell he was tired, and it was time for us to go.

“Get some rest,” I encouraged him before silently motioning at Naomi to follow me out of the room.

“Okay,” he muttered. He waved as we walked out, and I returned the gesture as we stepped out the doorway.

“We should go pay another visit to the bar,” I said once we were standing out in the hallway. “I think I know how we can leverage some information out of them this time.”

“Oh?” Naomi raised an eyebrow at me.

“All finished?” The officer from before suddenly asked as the door closed behind us.

“Yep,” I confirmed. “All done. I think we got what we needed, too.”

“Good,” the officer replied. “I hate thinking there’s a bunch of drugged-out whackos running loose in Las Vegas.”

“Yeah,” I frowned. Just a few days ago, I would have said the same thing without hesitation. Drugs were a useless vice, and people who abused them were weak and pathetic. At least, that’s what I’d always thought. Now that I was interacting with so many addicts close up, I wasn’t sure what to think anymore.

I waited until we were both in the elevator before turning to speak to Naomi.

“That kid,” I replied as the doors slid closed in front of us. “Kyle said his name was Brady. We have enough to arrest him for drug dealing.”

“That’s true,” Naomi nodded. “But isn’t that a little premature? We barely have enough to hold him. If we move now, we might mess up the case.”

“Brady isn’t our goal, though,” I corrected as the elevator chimed to indicate we’d arrived at the ground floor. “He’s just some low-level dealer. I could tell by that deer-in-the-headlights look that he’s just some grunt in over his head. I could also tell that protecting their own is important to them. Kyle said that Brady claimed that he was a part of the Irish mob. What if that wasn’t just some attempt to look cool? What if he was being honest?”

“You think that the mob is involved in this,” Naomi concluded. “That would certainly explain how the police records of the incidents connected to their bar were mysteriously scrubbed from the police database.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “And it would explain all of that hush-hush, ‘we handled it in-house’ garbage that the bartender, O’Callaghan, was going on about.”

“So we arrest the kid on some minor offense,” Naomi hummed, “and use that as leverage to coerce them into speaking with us. That’s pretty underhanded, Miranda.”

A wicked smile broke out across her face as she turned to look at me.

“Let’s do it.”

33

Miranda

The rain had let up a little by the time we made it to the bar, but it was still coming down hard enough that staying outside for more than a few seconds would have left me drenched. It was a little past ten in the evening by that point, which meant