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Everything you know is at an end.”
    He was being a bit dramatic.
    She looked to her lawyer. “It’s not going to be like he says. Why would it all have to end?”
    Irene, in a chiffon-and-velvet day dress as black as Malia’s lace gown was white, wrapped her hands around Malia’s. “How about we take this one day at a time? I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
    Malia nodded then looked to Mr. Cady, who clenched a leather binder and looked at her as if she was the village idiot. “Sir, my life as I knew it was over the moment I saw what was in the safe.” That everything would change as he claimed, she wasn’t convinced. “I haven’t changed my mind about testifying at the deposition hearing, but I want protection on Giovanni increased. His death doesn’t benefit either of us.”
    He didn’t respond.
    “Mr. Cady,” Irene said, “that Maranzano put a hit out on Van Kelly makes me suspect Mr. Vaccarelli knows more than what his fellow gangsters want shared. The most you can get him on is possession of illegal currency, and that is only with my client’s testimony. It’s in your best interest to keep him alive and convince him to talk.”
    Mr. Cady tapped the binder against his thigh, his lips in a thin line. Malia couldn’t tell if he didn’t like being told something he knew, or didn’t like being told it by a female who was as smart as any male lawyer and pretty as a Gibson Girl.
    A knock resounded on the library door, which then opened. A secretary stepped inside the room. “Sir, the deputy marshal is here.”
    Mr. Cady nodded. “Send him in.”
    She stepped to the side. A blond man, as tall yet bulkier than the special prosecutor, entered. He wore a silver star on his left lapel and a scowl on the very face Malia had seen that morning at the Park Avenue Hotel. She held her breath. It was him—the handsome stranger. Only now his formerly clean-shaven face bristled with whiskers, and two guns hung on the belt at his waist.
    Good gracious, he had better not be here for her.
    “Frank!” Irene stood, smiling, and met the marshal next to the round mahogany table in the middle of the library where both Irene’s and Malia’s hats rested. “I’m glad Henkel sent you.” If he was uncomfortable with Irene’s exuberant handshake, he didn’t show it.
    “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
    “Same goes here. After I insisted on protection for my client—” Irene glanced at Malia. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about my request earlier.” She turned back to the marshal. “I expected Henkel to send Winslow.” Malia noted the wistfulness in her friend’s tone.
    “Winslow’s tracking a lead,” he answered matter-of-factly.
    Irene introduced him. “Van Wyck Cady, Frank Grahame Louden.”
    The men shook hands and exchanged “How do you do?” and “Nice to meet you.”
    Irene then said, “Frank, this is my client, Miss Malia Vaccarelli, the one you are here to protect.”
    The marshal looked Malia’s way. His intense blue eyes studied her for longer than made her comfortable, enough that Malia stood at the same moment he said, “You’re Van Kelly’s sister.” He voiced it as one would say turncoat.
    Maybe Irene was right that not all coppers were corrupt, but how was Malia to know a good one from a bad one? She looked about the room for another means of escape. Across the library was a second door, but she had no idea where it led. And if the marshal’s build was true to form, she doubted she’d make it to the door before he caught her. Or maybe she could, considering how he favored his left leg.
    He followed up with a smile and a cordial, “I am very glad to meet you.”
    She was supposed to be polite and say, I’m delighted to meet you too, but she wasn’t delighted or glad or pleased or relieved. She wanted him gone. Or her gone without him.
    “Irene?” she said with a serenity that belied her nerves. No matter how fearful she felt, she would maintain good form as a