When his quest drew a blank, Harry decided to check the responses to Vegas Local’s Send Us Your Story inbox. According to the blurb on the Your Story page, Vegas Local wanted to hear from you. In reality, Harry, Matt and Roberta the intern didn’t have time to investigate daily reports of rat droppings in restaurant kitchens, or some old couple’s complaint that the neighbouring motel had turned into a drug den.

But every so often there was a ready-made story, and out of sixteen unopened story tips, the one titled ‘Help me bust Helen Back’ stood out.

Back was a Harley-riding Goth magician, her stage name a play on Hell and Back. Her solo magic act had played in theatres up and down the strip for more than a decade, most recently in the custom-built Hell Arena at the Fontainebleau.

Harry clicked the header, opening a message full of dodgy spellings and swears.

Dear editor,

Helen Back real name Helen Margolis was my step ma until recenteley

She is a nastey manipulating **** who treated my mom like **** and my mom wound up in psychoatric hospital and Helen ran me down evree chance she got for two whole years until I got into fighting and staying out all hours of the night and got kicked outta school last term.

Helen got busted by IRS for not paying over $10 million in back taxis. But she has now got off prison with a deal. By snitching on the lab that did her gene mods to the FBI.

Just so you know I am not making things up, the dumb ***** gave me her old laptop and left her email on it so I can still see EVREYTHING

LOLS!! So dumb

So here is a letter with attachements out of all the most information that my step ma gave the feds.

I hope you can use this and do the nastey ***** Helen Back a lot of damage and take her down a peg to her suck-up fans.

Max Briston (Age 13)

‘Good old vengeful stepkids,’ Harry told himself, smirking as he opened up the first of two attachments.

It was an accountant’s report, more than sixty pages long, with details of Helen Back’s past earnings and a schedule for paying a seven-figure fine and more than twelve million in back taxes.

A major Vegas entertainer getting busted for tax avoidance was a solid story, but the second document was the zinger. It was a copy of a two-week-old statement that Helen Back had made for the FBI.

It began with Back’s real name and home address. Then the document stated that Helen knew of a large-scale Las Vegas-based human-genetic-modification operation run by her friends Veryan and Mango Kowalski-Clark.

After details of several modifications that Helen Back had paid for, there was a list of names. The first were two nurses who Back claimed worked in Los Angeles dealing with patients.