“His uncle?” The coach squeezed Lucky’s hand in a too-firm,“I’m macho, damn it!”grip. Lucky didn’t flinch. “You’re a truck driver, right? He talks about you a lot.”
Truck driver? But sure, truck driver worked for Lucky’s goals. “Yeah. He talks a good bit about you too, and the team.” True enough. “Since he’s new here and all, I wanted to check in on how he’s doing.” Lucky shrugged. “You know how kids his age are. Anyone over thirty is the enemy and he ain’t telling me nothing.”
The coach chuckled. “Don’t I know it. Got a son about his age.”
Interesting. Did coach give him drugs too? “Is he on the team?”
“Nah.” Coach rolled his eyes. “He’s on the robotics and chess teams, if you get my drift.”
No, Lucky didn’t, but he wasn’t saying. Why wouldn’t a man be proud no matter what his son’s interests?
“Not like Ty. Now, there’s a boy with potential.”
Really. Pushing drugs at Ty damned sure wouldn’t help him reach that potential. “His joining the team late hasn’t hurt him?”
The coach swiped his arm over his sweaty forehead. Yes, spring sun got hot in Georgia. “Heck, no. I have to work with the new kids a bit more, but he’s coming along just fine. Or, he has since he got his grades up.”
Lucky just bet he had to work with them. As in filling them full of drugs. “Good to hear. I’ve been worried about him since he transferred from Spokane.”
“Well, don’t you worry none. He’s doing fine.” The coach finished his water and lobbed his bottle at the nearby trash can. “Two points! And basketball isn’t even my game.” The man laughed at his own joke. He gave Lucky an apologetic smile and cut his eyes toward the school. “If that’s all, I’m afraid I need to get up there before the guys tear the locker room apart.”
Lucky faked a wince. “You better do that. Thanks for easing my mind.”
“You bet.”
Lucky watched overly bulky shoulders and an ass better suited on a professional body-builder thump away. Steroids. Ty’s coach had to be taking steroids. Lucky waited until the man opened a door, threw up his hand, and disappeared inside the school.
Checking the area to ensure privacy, Lucky pulled out a handkerchief he’d swiped from Bo’s dresser drawer and reached into the trash can for the bottle, lifting it by the lid.
He’d done his part, now to wait for Ty.
***
Thirty. Thirty pills in a tiny little bottle, enough to put a kid in the hospital.
His kid. Or rather, his sister’s.
Lucky secured the pills in a plastic zip bag earmarked for the lab, and sent the bottle to forensics. With any luck, Ty did exactly as told and left no fingerprints.
Good money went on the coach not being so lucky.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The kid in the hospital wouldn’t talk, not even with Bo’s persuasive charm, and the parents weren’t cooperative either. If someone nearly killed Lucky’s son, he’d be out for blood.
Then again, denial was a powerful enemy to setting things right.
Okay, so no witness there. Still, Lucky had a case to solve.
The first order of business? Avoiding Judge Spence, who’d denied Lucky’s warrant requests. Second, follow-up on the lead from his grocery checker turned secret agent—at least in his own mind—and strike a name off the list.
Which required combing through hours of recorded videos. Good thing Lucky’s area of expertise wasn’t surveillance. Hopefully, Keith had to go through every second of footage by himself and got abad case of eye strain.
The clip sent to Lucky from the school showed the money shot: the teacher—who no one but Lucky would suspect of being a drug dealer—shoving drugs into a kid’s locker at ten p.m. and taking a wad of bills in return. Camera images from outside the building showed her car in the parking lot.
But she didn’t have a key to Ty’s locker, so she wasn’t the only one supplying the drugs.
The asshole who’d dared supply a narcotics agent’s nephew with possibly tainted pharmaceuticals got the personal touch, even if Lucky couldn’t make the arrest himself.He could make sure it happened.
