Theo made a beeline for Keith, ready to fall on his sword in the name of being a good host, and Gretchen silently wished him good luck before she turned back to Martin.
“Outside?”
Martin nodded. “Take a coat,” he said, which was so reflexively parental that it made her have to suppress a laugh.
Once they were outside, Gretchen had to admit she was glad Martin had advised her to bundle up. It was freezing. Temperatures had plummeted lately, and all the weather reports were warning of big snowstorms up ahead. Her nieces and nephews were already eagerly planning all the sledding they’d do once school was inevitably cancelled.
She could almost smell the snow in the clear, dark air.
That was something she’d never told anyone. She’d always felt like she had some kind of sixth sense for how the weather was going to turn—a hyper-awareness of the sky above her and the way the wind felt against her skin. A yearning to be up there. She’d taken piloting lessons a few times in her early twenties, but while she’d gotten a kick out of taking a little plane up in the air, it hadn’t scratched whatever itch was deep down inside her.
By now, she was pretty good at ignoring it. She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging the wool fabric of her coat closer to her, and said, “So—what’s up?”
“I have a special assignment for you,” Martin said.
Gretchen relaxed.
“You look relieved,” Martin said, his mouth quirking. “I haven’t even told you what it is yet.”
“You had me worried! If it’s really just work, why the long face?”
“Because—wait, is that a horse joke? Horse walks into a bar, the bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’”
“Since it’s you,” Gretchen said, “it’s a pegasus joke.”
He shook his head in what she was guessing was supposed to be world-weary resignation, but she could see the deepened laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes; his solemnity had lifted at least a little. Good. It was strange seeing him so solemn. Once, she’d taken it for granted that he was just a naturally somber kind of guy. It was only after knowing him for years that she had been able to see that he hadn’t really been grave, he’s just still been grieving. The loss of his wife had hit him hard. Only time—and meeting his mate, the effervescent Tiffani—had helped heal him.
He smiled a lot more now, and Gretchen had gotten used to it. And she liked that she’d gotten used to it. She wanted to do whatever she could to make sure he stayed happy.
So whatever the special assignment was, in her mind, she had already agreed.
Besides, she was curious.
“You did look all doom and gloom,” Gretchen said. “Whatever I can do to keep that look off your face, I’m for it. Just tell me.”
Martin sighed. “Two days ago, someone tried to kill Cooper Dawes.”
It took a second before the name rang a bell. Then a whole host of memories came flooding in.
Gretchen had never met Cooper Dawes. But he had been a US Marshal, just like them, and his deliberate, malicious betrayal of all the principles they were supposed to stand for had hurt. It was a black eye on every Marshal everywhere. And it had led to a sharp drop in the number of witnesses willing to testify and trust the Marshals for their protection—and Gretch
en couldn’t blame them for it at all. Why would anyone want to put their lives in the hands of someone who might sell them out to the highest bidder?
Organized crime had a long reach and even longer memory; Dawes had taken advantage of the fact that it had deep pockets, too. They still hadn’t traced all the money he had raked in, but it was most likely in the millions.
Two witnesses had died because of it, and after the second, people had started getting suspicious. There had been questions. At least some of them had been asked by Phil Locke, Dawes’s partner—and then Locke had turned up dead. The bullet in him had been a perfect match for a gun found in Dawes’s house, and all the leaked information had been traced to computers Dawes had access to.
The trial had been a cakewalk for the prosecution. They had an easy story to tell.
Cooper Dawes, on the other hand, had nothing.
I don’t know anything about that. I would never do that. Phil was my partner, and this job is everything to me. I believe in the work we’re doing.
Gretchen had watched parts of the trial live, and that last sentence of his had struck a strange chord in her, mostly because of the way Dawes had straightened up when he’d said it. He’d had trouble not slumping when he was on the stand, and it had made everything he was saying come off as somehow half-hearted. But there was nothing half-hearted about him right then. He had looked straight at the prosecutor, his green eyes burning almost feverishly bright.
I believe in the work we’re doing.
And for a second, she had believed in him.