might add, at great expense.'
'And that's it. That's the whole deal,' I said.
E. Emmett shot a hard look at me. 'Are you being flip?' he snapped.
'No, sir,' I answered. 'I'm trying to find out what these guys are doing.'
'They're growing. They're attempting to expand their services in keeping with the highest threat assessment standards of this agency and we're helping them do it.'
'Helping them? How?' Alexa asked.
'They've applied for and received a DHS government grant.'
'I'm sorry?' I said.
'A grant. Money from the government.'
'Really?' Alexa looked over at me. 'How much money?'
'For transit authorities that meet our most stringent guidelines, the federal government is approving nonrecourse grants to continue growth and defray cost. It's part of the incentive program I just mentioned. But in order to qualify, the transit authority must meet every single guideline. They must have a transit police department with at least six members. They must install all of the preferred security materials-GPS and satellite tracking equipment. Only about six or seven percent of the transportation companies in the nation have qualified. I'm proud to say NVNTA is one of our better examples.'
'How much money did you give them?' Alexa asked.
E. Emmett Riley looked through the folder and found it on the last page.
'To date, just a little more than fifteen million dollars,' he announced proudly.
Chapter 49
Alexa and I were sitting in our backyard in Venice, both of us wearing self-satisfied grins. We'd figured it out, cut through all the B. S. and had finally gotten to the bottom of it.
'It locks every piece in place.' I tipped back the ice-cold Corona I'd just pulled from the fridge and drained half of it.
'Yep,' Alexa agreed. 'We be good.'
'Mike Church isn't smart enough to figure all this out on his own. This is pure Wade Wyatt. That arrogant asshole engineered it. He sees that one old rusting bus and he knows about the Homeland Security grants. Maybe he got the info from his father, or while he was clerking for the Supreme Court. It's just the kind of get-rich-quick fast-food idea that would appeal to that little putz. He tries it on Church, who is so greedy he decides not to wait, so he kills his father to get the bus line. They end up scamming the government outta fifteen mil.'
'You need to call Secada,' Alexa said. 'After all, it was her case.'
I went inside and called the hospital at Casa Dorinda. After I finished reporting everything Alexa and I had learned, Scout said, 'This is amazing, Shane. You guys actually fixed it.'
'I still don't know how to drop this mess on the department,' I told her. 'Alexa and I are working on that part now. We have to be careful about procedure here. Some of this evidence is a little compromised.'
'You'll find a way. Good work. Tell Alexa thanks for me, but I think you need to move fast. Tru isn't going to last long once he goes back into gen pop.'
'Don't worry. This all gets done first thing tomorrow.' Then I changed the subject and asked her when she was getting out of the hospital.
'They told me I can go home next week. Popi is getting a nurse and he and Mama are moving into my apartment on the hill.'
'I'll call you with our next moves.'
I hung up and turned to find Alexa standing in the doorway looking at me.
'They say, life's a journey,' she said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. 'But for me, it usually feels more like a lesson.'
I took her in my arms and kissed her.
We went into our room and made love. It wasn't as wild as the last time, but we had found our rhythm again. The closeness that followed was incredible.
Alexa snuggled against me, burying her face in my neck. 'I love the way you smell,' she said.
'Gym socks?'
We cuddled and caressed and ended up making love all over again.
Later, as the sun began to set, I dressed for my normal evening jog.
'I'd go with you, but you wore me out,' Alexa teased. 'I'm gonna hang here and see if I can come up with a way to lay our cards down. We can't go to Jane Sasso. I don't trust her.'
'Maybe Jeb,' I suggested.
'Maybe,' she said, 'or Tony. You can bet Tito Morales is already working on a way to shut us down. He doesn't know that we've got the Homeland piece yet, but we've got to move fast.'
'Gives me something to think about while I'm on my run.'
I left the house at eight-forty-five, just as the sun dipped below the horizon. The Pacific Ocean looked flat and the setting sun had turned it a beautiful shade of red-orange. I jogged along the bike path toward Venice Beach feeling stronger with each stride, my steps landing with more authority. I started to get into it, running evenly, feeling at one with my body.
As I ran, I began looking for the right way to expose all this to the department. I knew people inside the LAPD would want to keep it quiet, so there would be political forces lined up against us. I also couldn't dismiss Wade Wyatt's powerful father, Aubrey. God only knew what kind of trouble he could cause. One option was to go straight to the press. Once it was all out in the open, it would develop a life of its own. Even though that option had merit, I sort of hated it. I still carried a badge. Blind-siding the department in the press was cheesy. Nonetheless, it had some positive elements, so I figured I should probably discuss it with Alexa.
I thought about my wife. I now saw only occasional flashes of the disorganized Alexa who had shared my home, but not my life for the past year. The wild, damn-the-torpedoes woman was fun, but not exactly what I'd bargained for. I desperately wanted the woman I married. Our ships were closer, but not yet side by side.
Then, it felt like my head exploded. It was like a starburst. Flashes of white and a burst of bright orange. One brief thought occurred as I started to fall.
Another stroke?
In that millisecond before I lost consciousness, I knew whatever was happening was major. As I blacked out I knew I was in big trouble.
Chapter 50
I regained consciousness.
Rivulets of sweat ran down my back and into my crotch. I was instantly nauseous, on the verge of throwing up. I opened my eyes into blinding light. My shirt was off and silver duct tape pinned my arms and legs securely to the frame of a rolling office chair while my exposed upper body slowly turned bright pink. Where the hell am If I thought.
Then I saw a professional paint sprayer with a long rubber hose attached to a compressor, hanging from a rack. Four, wall-sized aluminum reflectors fitted with large heat-producing lights shined down on me from two walls. That's when I knew. I was inside the paint bay at the Church of Destruction, being cooked alive.
My head throbbed while my stomach continued to churn. Mike Church and a VSL veterano I remembered as Tyler Cisneros were standing on the far side of the room beside a partially open door trying to escape the oppressive heat.
'Turn 'em off,' I croaked, unable to stand even another minute of this.
Mike Church spun around. His overlit pitted complexion was slick with sweat. He walked over, leaned in, and
