The Griffin Marshal's Heart (U.S. Marshal Shifters 4)

She cut herself off.

“Monroe and Roger must have been pretty close,” she said to Cooper. “If Roger wanted to get Monroe to turn him somehow, and if Monroe agreed to it.”

Cooper still looked almost gray with shock, but that was changing: he was getting angrier now, which was better. “I don’t know that either of them could get close to anyone, but I guess if they were close to anyone, they were close to each other. And yeah, there were two men in the car. If you’re asking me if I think Roger’s in on it too... I do.”

That meant they were going up against respectable, high-ranking US Marshals—one of whom could play with their minds. And take the form of a giant snake.

Gretchen would have preferred taking on the mob.

*

After their phone call, breakfast was understandably quiet.

They ate with Ford, who showed them into a little kitchen in the suite of rooms tacked onto the back of the motel’s front office. The walls were yellowed with years of cigarette smoke, but the kitchen was neatly kept, with scrubbed plastic placemats and a faded blue gingham tablecloth. Cooper thought that Ford was lonely, and the kitchen showed it, but he also thought that Ford was mostly happy, and the kitchen showed that too. The calendar on the fridge was up-to-date, with a few birthdays marked down there in red ink.

And the food was good, even if he had trouble concentrating on enjoying it.

Eggs, cornflakes, orange juice, coffee, bacon. It was certainly the best real meal he’d had in months, and as a matter of fact, it was actually better than any free continental breakfast he’d snagged in all the days he used to spend on the road.

All the days I used to spend on the road with the team who murdered my partner.

“You two are awfully quiet,” Ford said, and for once, he didn’t seem to be on the verge of making a suggestive, eyebrow-waggling remark about it.

“We figured out some bad news,” Gretchen said, glancing over at Cooper. She chewed, and the expression on her face said she wasn’t tasting the food any more than he was.

“Well, you don’t have to tell me,” Ford said comfortably. “I don’t need to know more than I already do. That’s a good rule to live by, if you own a motel.”

He pushed back from the table, studying them. His left eye, Cooper noticed, was a little clouded with cataracts, but his gaze was as sharp as any Cooper had ever encountered. Yesterday, Ford had looked old and a little scruffy, but today, even though he was still rumpled and in a bathrobe, his face was smooth and he smelled of soap and aftershave. He looked years younger than he had last night.

“We’ll pay for the room and the inconvenience, obviously,” Gretchen said.

Ford shook his head. “Don’t bother, dear. That just makes a paper trail proving you and your young man came through here, and I don’t figure any of us need that.”

It clearly went against Gretchen’s grain to deliberately put herself off-the-grid—to imagine herself being on the wrong side of the law—but she knew as well as he did that they had to accept that that might be the case, at least for now.

“Well, I can still pay you in cash.”

“Save it,” Ford advised. “You should always keep some cash on you anyways. People today don’t value cash the way they should. And I don’t need your money—it doesn’t take more than a bird’s worth of feed to keep me alive these days. And you two are the most interesting thing to happen here in years.”

That got Gretchen to break into her first real smile since their call with Martin had ended, and Cooper was grateful for that.

He decided to return the favor and give Ford a kick, too. Everyone liked hearing good, exciting gossip.

He leaned forward.

In for a penny, in for a pound, right? If Ford wants to screw us over, he already has more than enough material.

Don’t turn into a griffin, though. The last thing you want is to give the guy a heart attack—that doesn’t make for a good thank-you at all.

He said, “I was framed for murder. We think we just figured out who did it.”

Ford looked like all his Christmases had come at once. “Just like in The Fugitive.”

“You do kind of look like a young Harrison Ford,” Gretchen said to Cooper. “Mostly your jawline. You’ve got prettier eyes, though.”

Cooper touched his jaw, trying to figure out if she was right about that.

Ford didn’t seem interested in the respective merits of Cooper’s eyes vs. Harrison Ford’s. He said, “Now that you’ve found this fellow, you think it’ll clear your name?”