the Vaccarellis were a law-abiding family, and now the evidence pointed in the opposite direction. She didn’t always have to have her way, but she hated being wrong. She didn’t want to be wrong about the marshal too.
She needed a constant.
She needed him to be corrupt.
The marshal looked at her with a brazenness that reminded her of Edwin Daly. Not brazenness. Chutzpah—yes, that’s what the marshal had. For all his flaws, Mr. Daly knew art, loved it more than his job. What did this man love, know and breathe? What gave the marshal personal confidence and courage? What reigned in the core of his soul to give him that assured serenity he wore like a cloak? What—?
Stop! Who he was didn’t matter to her. No more pondering him. In three weeks, she would walk, to her delight, out of his life and never see him again.
Malia shook the soot off the damp cloth into the sink and resumed wiping the coat. “I ate earlier with Irene. Tuesdays are our weekly lunch date at Delmonico’s. Fridays we have dinner. Instead of eating at the restaurant for lunch, she had it delivered to—” She cut herself off upon realizing her chattiness. He didn’t care to know this. She was insignificant to him.
She didn’t have to turn her head to know he continued to study her. The man had perfected the art of thinking before speaking.
Then he broke the silence with, “The next twenty-one days will be more pleasant if you would start trusting me.”
“You’re a stranger to me.” Malia kept her attention on the coat. She wiped the collar. “I have no cause to trust you.”
“Neither do you have cause to distrust.”
“You. Are. A. Copper.”
“I’m a marshal. Not all coppers are corrupt.”
She turned to him. “Then tell me what you’re hiding.”
“Hiding?” His eyes widened, stunned. “I am not hiding anything. You, on the other hand, have already proved you will withhold information,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t—” With a grumble under her breath, she tossed the cloth into the sink and gave him her full attention. “What were you doing at the art exhibit this morning?”
“Following a lead.”
“Me?”
“No.”
“Then who was it?”
“That’s not information you need to know.”
Then what did he think she needed to know? Nothing? Shield her because she was a woman, therefore too fragile to handle the truth. Shield her as the Vaccarelli men had because they didn’t— Her chest flinched as if it’d been pierced, which it had, figuratively, by her family, and she was realizing the depth of it only now. Her family hadn’t trusted her with the truth about them.
“What you are saying,” she said with deliberateness, “is that you don’t trust me with information because you don’t believe I can be discreet. Or loyal. Why should I extend to you what you are unwilling to extend to me?”
* * *
Frank ran a hand through his hair, soot dust sprinkling to the carpeted floor. She was a witness. What he was doing at the exhibit was classified information. But the woman was neck deep in the mafiosi, the government needed her testimony and, realistically thinking, this was an extraordinary circumstance. He needed a truce between them, so it made sense to do whatever necessary to tear down her wall of animosity. And considering his plan for getting her somewhere safe meant having a plan separate from the one he’d arranged with the special prosecutor and her lawyer, he needed that truce within the hour.
He leaned against the doorframe in order to take some weight off his sore foot. “Edwin Daly is a mafiosiinformant.”
“He’s an assistant district attorney. He prosecutes gangsters.”
Prosecution and conviction weren’t the same thing, and Edwin Daly’s conviction record of gangsters was small.
“I have enough evidence to arrest him, but I also want the man who has been padding his pockets.”
She nodded, just nodded.
“Billy O’Flaherty.”
She frowned.
“His photograph was the
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Lori Ryan [romance/suspense]
Tahereh Mafi