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boy unwrapping his first cap gun, did a little flip. That was what he’d been working for since he joined the marshal service ten years ago.
    “So, Louden, let me ask you again—how is your toe?”
    “The only thing I can’t do is run at full speed,” he said all grim.
    “Then take Miss Vaccarelli somewhere you won’t have to run.” Henkel offered the folder. “She’s being held at Cady’s office, awaiting your arrival.”
    “Understood.” Frank stood and took the folder. “She’ll be safe at my grandparents’ estate in Tuxedo Park. It’s gated. Police roam the grounds. My family’s still on holiday in France. I’ll leave a contact number with Norma.”
    “Good plan.”
    Frank stepped to the office door.
    “Louden?”
    Anxiety fluttering about his stomach, he looked to his boss. “Yes?”
    Henkel’s eyes narrowed. “Mess this up and you’ll be processing evidence for the rest of your career.”
    Frank nodded. The warning was clear.
    He started to leave then stopped. Something nagged at him. Something didn’t make sense. “Sir, Van Kelly hasn’t survived in the shadows on his own. He needs minions to do his dirty work, connections to protect his identity.”
    “Go on.”
    “Why not send one of his lawyers, a minion or a copper he buys off to collect the sourdough? Why would he send his sister to do something that put her directly in danger?”
    Henkel leaned back in his chair, tapping his steepled fingers together. “Good question. That’s something you need to figure out.”

Chapter 4
    If you have, through friends in common, long heard of a certain lady, or gentleman, and you know that she, or he, also has heard much of you, you may say when you are introduced to her: “I am very glad to meet you,” or “I am delighted to meet you at last!”
    —Emily Price Post, Etiquette
    Twenty-Third Street and Fifth Avenue
2:08 p.m.
    “M iss Vaccarelli, you understand now that you’ve done this, your life as you know it is over?”
    With her hands clenched together in her lap, Malia didn’t flinch under the hazel-eyed gaze of Special Prosecutor Van Wyck Cady. She was too emotionally and physically exhausted to feel much of anything. The gaunt six-footer standing with his back to a wall of law books was—as the papers described him—ramrod straight, not only because of his bearing but also because of his personality. Still, the least he could do was show a mite of compassion and gratitude, as a true gentleman would.
    Moments after entering the law offices of Everts, Cady, Powell and Perkins, she’d been hidden in a back room with her lawyer and a stenographer who refused to look at them. Special Prosecutor Cady had questioned her on what she knew, why she brought the bills to him, what she wanted in exchange for her testimony. The latter had rankled. Her foremost desire was to help her brother. At the most, he’d serve eighteen months for possession of counterfeit bills, as explained by her lawyer—and closest friend—Miss Irene Gibbons, the first female barred associate at Lord, Day & Lord.
    Malia hoped turning in the counterfeit bills—sourdough, as Irene called them—would motivate her brother to change his ways. She wanted Giovanni to live a God-honoring life. Her fear of losing him forever had made her desperate. Her love for him made her brave. Yet for the past hour—maybe longer—she and Irene had sat on a tan linen sofa in the law office library with nothing but the sounds and view of the construction on the triangular-shaped building across the street.
    Did she understand, now that she’d done this, her life as she knew it was over? “Sir, I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “Then let me explain,” Cady bit off. “No more volunteering at the Museum of Art. No more apartment suites at the Waldorf-Astoria. No more shopping on the Ladies’ Mile. No more balls, operas, book clubs and charity events. No more evenings of drinking tea and playing dominoes with your brother.