Page 50 of Lawless in Leather

Mal signed off on the expenditure Lee asked for to fix those problems—God, he was going to be happy when they had time and cash flow to rip all the bloody gates and scanners out and put in state-of-the-art systems, but that wasn’t this season—and made a note in his tablet to double check the pricing on the scanners via his company contacts. He might be able to get a better deal.

The rest of the meeting went smoothly. No one had any major issues to report. They’d thrown out one guy who’d managed to get drunk by the end of the third inning and a few others who were pushing the line later in the game. There’d been the usual crop of contraband in people’s bags coming into the game. Booze mostly, which was confiscated. A few knives. Those guys didn’t get into the game. Or so he’d thought. But then there were Raina’s tires. Of course, you didn’t have to get into the game to get into the parking garage. That would explain how the security team hadn’t found a knife on whoever had done it. But hopefully he’d find out exactly how the guy had gotten in when he talked to Chen.

Hopefully the zero-tolerance message would get through to the fans pretty quickly. Tom Jameson had had good security screening but Mal had upped the number of people searching bags and the stations to do it, which meant they could search more thoroughly.

There would always be macho assholes who thought they needed a weapon at a baseball game but they weren’t getting into his damned park.

He dismissed the team, thanking them again for a good job. For a team so newly pulled together they’d done well, even the couple of guys who were relative newbies hired to beef up the numbers. He asked Chen to meet him in his office in fifteen minutes.

Then he turned to Alex and Lucas. “Not bad for a first run.”

Alex nodded. “They did well.”

“Running late this morning?” Lucas asked, his blue eyes amused. “Too much champagne at the party?”

“Something like that,” Mal said. His whereabouts last night weren’t up for discussion. “Now. There’s one more thing that happened yesterday. I asked Chen to look into it before we discussed it with the rest of the security team and then everyone else.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

“Someone slashed Raina Easton’s tires in the underground lot,” Mal said.

“Excuse me?” Alex said. His voice had gone cool. Pissed. Good. Mal was pissed, too. “How the fuck did that happen?”

“That’s what Chen’s looking into. Her truck is bright pink, so it might just have been the most obvious target.”

“Might?” Alex said.

“She’s had a few incidents at her club. Vandalism, mostly.”

“You think someone has a problem with her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve spoken to her club manager and the guy who does security there. Given them some suggestions.”

“Anyone looked at the reaction to the Angels yet?” Lucas said.

Mal shook his head. “Haven’t had a chance. Have you?”

“No. Alex?”

Alex scowled. “I asked the media team to do a sweep of articles and social media and have the report for us when we get to Baltimore. But I haven’t looked myself. Do you think this is because of the Angels?”

“From what I can gather, the incidents at the club started before this. But if there’s someone who has a problem with her, it could spill over onto the Angels.”

“Not too mention the Angels are likely to attract some nuts anyway,” Lucas said.

Alex nodded. “We knew that would happen. So Mal will make sure the security around them is increased. We’ll deal with Raina first.”

“Deal with her?” Mal said, trying to keep the edge out of his tone.

“Make sure she’s okay,” Alex said. “Maybe get her a driver for game days as a start. She really has a pink truck?”

“Yeah,” Mal said. “Big old Ford. Great truck, actually. If you like pink.”

“Well, she is a girl,” Lucas said. “I hear some of them like pink.”

“Maybe you can buy Sara a pink helo,” Mal said.

“Not sure Sara’s the pink type,” Lucas said. “She likes blue.”

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