elly groaned when the light lanced through his eyelids. He buried his face in the mattress, burrowing under his pillow.
Someone picked the pillow up and tapped his shoulder.
“No!” Kelly griped. “Fuck PT, dude.”
“Get dressed, babe, it’s almost six.”
Kelly sat up too fast, and his head swam. His stomach churned briefly, but he got it under control. He was surprised to find not just Nick in the room, sitting on the end of the bed, but also Julian and JD loitering near the doorway. “Jesus, how long did I sleep?”
“What happened to your neck?” JD blurted.
Kelly gingerly touched his neck. “Something about… holding on to the headboard. I can’t remember. Jesus, what was in those drinks?”
Nick chuckled darkly. He pulled a boot on and stood to stamp his foot against the ground. Then he sat again and laced it up.
“How’d you come up with cemetery?” Julian asked Nick.
“Call it divine inspiration.”
“Yeah, I’m betting God was invoked a lot last night,” JD said under his breath.
“Shhh,” Kelly begged. He put a hand to his head. “What are we doing, why are we up? Oh my God in Heaven.”
“There are two main cemeteries we need to look at,” Nick explained. “If we start early, we won’t have to split up to cover the ground.”
“I think we’ve proven we work better as a hive mind than we do solo,” JD added.
“Indeed,” Nick agreed cheekily.
Kelly was groaning when he rolled out of bed. He had to hold his head to make sure it stayed attached. “Let me shower and throw up,” he muttered. He wobbled toward the bathroom, not even self-conscious about being bare-assed naked. Especially odd since he was pretty sure there was a bite mark on his ass. If they didn’t want to see him post-fuck, though, they shouldn’t have been in his room at six in the morning.
Julian merely rolled his eyes as Kelly walked by, but JD tried his best not to look. Kelly patted him on the shoulder, then slid the pocket door to the bathroom closed and promptly threw up everything he’d had to drink the night before.
“Charming,” he heard Julian comment after a few seconds of gagging with his head in the toilet.
It was going to be a long day.
Rather than piling into the Range Rover and driving to the cemetery, Nick suggested they walk it. It was a glorious day, full of sunshine and birds singing and a nice cool breeze.
Kelly had to stop occasionally, apparently to make sure he didn’t hurl again, and Nick did his best not to laugh at his lover’s misery. He distinctly remembered trying to discourage the last two rounds. He slipped his arm around Kelly’s shoulders, patting him in the same way he’d done a hundred times before when they were suffering through a morning after.
The fact that they’d started fucking after almost fifteen years of knowing each other hadn’t changed many of their habits.
“I hate you,” Kelly groaned.
“Poor Boo Boo.”
“I hate your high tolerance,” Kelly groused. “I hate that I can’t drink you under the table or knock you out with normal drugs ’cause your stupid body is immune to chemicals. I hate that when I try I wind up in a ditch in Mexico.”
“There there,” Nick cooed.
“I hate you so much.” Kelly’s hand in his back pocket as they walked told a different story, though.
They headed for Boston Commons, which was a nice easy stroll from the Liberty, and from there Nick explained that the city had created a red brick line through the old town that led tourists along the Freedom Trail. It was a nice easy walk that took people from historic spot to historic spot, all related to the American Revolution. They picked up the red trail and followed it toward the Granary Burying Ground.
The morning sun hadn’t yet risen over the buildings around them, casting the cemetery in a gloomy haze. Nick led the way through the gate, glancing around at the crooked headstones with their macabre carvings. It was an odd little lot. It included the graves of Revolutionary heroes, including Sam Adams and Paul Revere. In the center was a massive monument dedicated to Ben Franklin’s family. The buildings that had cropped up around the old burial ground had come so close to the boundaries that their brick walls incorporated headstones into them. Many of the headstones that had once been here had been removed and used as sidewalks, and there were estimates that hundreds of bodies still remained beneath the ground, unmarked and lost to history.
What remained was a mixture of veneration of the past and compromise toward the future. Nick had always felt a little uneasy when he’d visited this place.
“The headstones are… irreverent, to say the least,” JD commented. He was kneeling in front of one. Many of them had skulls grinning impishly, with wings behind them. Nick has seen a few with dancing skeletons, capering around as death chased after them.
“So?” Julian asked. “What now? Is the treasure supposed to be buried here?”
“It couldn’t possibly be,” JD answered. “Not if the stories surrounding its theft are true.”
“There’s another marker here somewhere,” Nick added.
“Are you fucking telling me we came out here before the fucking sun for another clue to where this treasure is and not the treasure itself?” Kelly asked. He had Nick’s aviators on despite the lack of light.
“It makes sense; if he was leaving clues behind for someone to follow to this treasure, he would have done it on permanent fixtures. Or, things they would have considered permanent then. Graveyards, churches, buildings of importance he had to trust wouldn’t be torn down.”
“So, you believe we’re looking for a gravestone,” Julian said.
Nick nodded. “The date of death would be 1775.”
“Why?” Julian asked.
“A clue carved on a tombstone would have been left as soon as it could be commissioned, when they still had access to the city,” Nick explained. “Had to be that year because they evacuated shortly after.”
“What else?” Julian asked.
Nick shrugged and dug in the pocket of his jeans for the napkin JD had left on the table last night. “No clue. That’s where JD’s diamonds come in.”
JD took a deep breath to steady himself and stepped closer to take the napkin. Nick touched his arm gently.
“I’m sorry,” Nick offered.
JD held his gaze for a few seconds, then nodded and gave him a weak smile. “I tried putting myself in your shoes last night, when I went to bed. I get it. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
Nick cocked his head, raising both eyebrows in surprise. “I do trust you. I’m sorry for making you feel like I didn’t. And I made you a promise. I intend to keep it. Let’s do this.”
JD squared his shoulders. “Right.”
Kelly groaned off in the distance. Nick glanced around for him and found him sitting on the steps that led down to the sidewalk, resting his head against an iron fence. He was pretty hungover, but the last historic graveyard Kelly had been in had almost killed him. Nick couldn’t help the shiver that ran up his spine with the memory.
“Hey, babe, you alright?”
“I hate you!” Kelly called back.
“Okay, well… keep lookout for us then,” Nick said, his voice shaking with laughter.
He turned, and Julian fell in step beside him. The man was actually smiling. “One night, Detective, you and I will sit and have a drink just so I can say I survived it.”
Nick laughed. “It’s a date.”
They split off, each of them wandering the crooked lanes of the graveyard, examining each headstone for any sort of clue. They didn’t know what they were searching for, though, and it was a large graveyard.
Nick kept glancing back to the steps, where JD now sat beside Kelly, his head bent over the napkin. Kelly was still leaning against the iron gate.
“What if it’s a grid?” JD called.
“Oh my God,” Kelly grunted. He covered the ear JD had just shouted into. “Dude.”
“Sorry,” JD offered with a wince.
“A grid,” Nick repeated, drawing closer to them.
JD nodded and stood. “If you turn it on its point, with the X forming a cross-like grid instead, then the symbols start to make a little bit of sense. Look.”
Nick stood at JD’s shoulder, eyes going from the napkin to the graveyard. JD was right. One of the symbols that had looked like a less-than symbol now appeared to represent the obelisk monument of the Franklin family in the center of the burial ground. Another, which Nick had assumed was an infinity mark, appeared to represent a barrel-vaulted tomb near the edge of the ground.
“Nice,” he said with a pat on JD’s back.
JD was grinning, looking pleased with himself. “It’s a legit map. I mean, we have to take into account that I freehand drew it from memory, so it might be iffy on exact locations. But still.”
“What are we looking for, then?” Kelly asked. He still sounded miserable, but he was up and peeking over JD’s shoulder.
“Is there an X on it?” Julian asked, his voice laced with sarcasm. “An X would make this easy.”
“No. But there is a cross,” JD told him.
“It’s a cemetery,” Julian grunted. “There are crosses everywhere.”
“The treasure he buried was a cross,” Nick pointed out. “What better to mark it with?”
“Are you thinking the treasure itself is buried here?” Kelly asked again. “’Cause I don’t have my grave-desecrating boots on.”
“No, this is just another hint. The treasure would have to be northwest, somewhere along Battle Road,” Nick guessed.
Julian pulled up short. “How do you know that? And why the fuck are we here rather than there?”
“The wagon was intercepted on the road to Concord and Lexington,” Nick told him. “It had to be hidden before it reached the checkpoint at Boston. See, at the time, Boston was a peninsula; there was only one way in by land. The British troops occupied the city, but the Colonial troops controlled the countryside. They had a gentleman’s agreement to allow passage to and from the city as long the traveler was unarmed. A stolen wagon full of gold being driven like hell by British soldiers wasn’t going to be making the cut. They would have had to have hidden it between Lexington and here.”
Julian frowned. “Fair enough.”
JD was watching Nick, his blue eyes unreadable.
“What?” Nick asked.
“You know a hell of a lot more about this than you let on.”
Nick’s only response was an unapologetic shrug.
“Where’s the cross on the goddamned napkin? Let’s get this shit over with,” Kelly mumbled.
JD held it up, positioning the two main landmarks appropriately. Nick pointed to the cross on the napkin, and they all turned toward the spot in the graveyard it indicated.
Julian glanced toward the sidewalk as Nick and the others moved forward. “I’ll hold down the fort,” he offered. “I’m not very good at this stuff anyway.”
Nick stopped and looked back at him. Julian cocked his head almost imperceptibly, and Nick’s eyes strayed toward the perimeter. A city cab sat idling on the other side of the street, just out of sight unless you stood near the cemetery gate to see beyond the buildings on either side.
Nick nodded. Julian had picked up on their tail before Nick had. That was a little spooky, but Nick tried to shrug it off and trust the man to have his six as he headed for the indicated section of the graveyard.
JD and Kelly were wandering around the graves, bending occasionally to examine a headstone or wipe at the words to better read them.
“I think I got something,” Kelly said quietly. Nick came up behind where he was kneeling. The carvings on the marker had been nearly obscured by hundreds of years of weathering, which was odd since most of them had held up reasonably well. But the date was still clearly visible. There was no date of birth, merely the date of death: April 19, 1775.
“That’s weird,” JD whispered.
“That’s the day of the Battles of Lexington and Concord,” Nick told them.
“Could it be a soldier who was killed there?” Kelly asked.
“It’s not a body,” JD said. “The marker was placed here as a clue to the location of the stolen loot.”
“Would explain why there’s no date of birth, and why the carving isn’t as deep: it was done in a hurry or on the sly,” Nick added. “This must have been the only way the soldiers could tell what they’d done, leaving a monument to the theft, a map pointing the way.”
Kelly fished his phone out of his pocket, then took a picture of the gravestone.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked.
“Being awesome, how about you?” Kelly drawled. He pulled up the shot he’d just taken in his photo app and began to play with the contrast, adding to the shadows, brightening the lighter bits. Soon he had a representation of what the marker probably read. He stood and showed it to Nick.
Nick grinned and nodded. “Being awesome indeed.”
“What’s it say?” JD asked, and they crowded around the phone.
“Russell B. North,” Kelly read. “Is that significant?”
“Not to me,” Nick admitted.
“North,” JD said with a wave of his hand. “And the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Old North Bridge. It was where the first shot of the war was fired.”
“How would he have gotten back there to leave something?” Nick argued.
“He obviously stuck around Boston long enough to commission a fucking headstone be carved. That would have been what, at least a week? A few days? Time for him to range out of Boston while it was being done. A single man traveling out of the city with no weapons would have had free passage, you said so yourself. Maybe the treasure itself was hidden there.”
Kelly and Nick shared a look, and Kelly nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Okay. Let’s roll.”
They rejoined Julian as he loitered near the entrance. “Find it?”
“We think so. How are our friends?” Nick asked. He carefully positioned himself between the cab and JD, just in case.
Julian grunted. “Nosy.”
“Should we deter them?” Kelly asked.
Nick stared at the cab for a few moments. He wanted their tail to know they’d been spotted. “No,” he finally growled. “We’ll lose them on Battle Road. If they can keep up, they’re welcome to come and get us.”
Kelly had commandeered Nick’s spare set of sunglasses in the car and was nursing a cup of the strongest coffee he’d been able to buy on the walk back to the hotel. He was slumped in the front seat, trying not to watch the scenery pass by.
He felt a million times better than he had when he’d woken, but he’d much rather be in bed on Nick’s boat being cuddled than here right now.
“Doing okay?” Nick asked him. He’d stopped sounding amused, and his voice was laced with more concern every time he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kelly grunted. “Don’t look at me. Stop looking at me.”
“Forgive my ignorance of this particular war, but what is the importance of this bridge we’re going to see?” Julian asked.
“The North Bridge was part of the Battle of Concord,” Nick answered. “Four-hundred minutemen and Colonial militia against just under a hundred British regulars. It was the first battle of the war, the opening bell that told the British the Americans were going to put up real resistance.”
“I see,” Julian said.
Nick handed his phone to Kelly. “Call Hagan for me, will you? I told him we might have to go off grid last night, but he’ll call out the cavalry if I don’t check in.”
Kelly pushed Nick’s aviators down his nose and flipped through Nick’s recently dialed numbers. He paused when he saw that Nick had called Ty Grady several nights ago. He glanced at Nick in surprise. Nick hadn’t spoken to Ty about anything that didn’t have to do with work since they’d come home from Scotland.
“You talked to Ty?” Kelly asked.
Nick glanced at him, then again before returning his attention to the road. “Yeah, he called to check up on us. I called him back, he pegged JD’s accent for us. Why?”
Kelly shrugged. “If you two are on speaking terms again, he’d be a good one to call in for this shit, you know?”
“Are we talking about Tyler?” Julian asked, leaning forward to put his face between the two of them from the backseat. “Please do call him, I have missed being handcuffed to every possible surface whenever I speak.”
Nick glanced at him in the rearview mirror, smiling slightly. Then he tapped Kelly’s knee and shook his head. “We got this. Call Hagan.”
“Okay.” Kelly found Hagan’s number and dialed, then handed the phone to Nick. He watched him, though, his hangover forgotten. Ty and Nick had known each other since they were both seventeen years old. To think that their friendship was crumbling, or worse, coming to an end, made Kelly immeasurably sad. It was like losing a family member.
“Hagan. Yeah, I’m sorry, I should have checked in last night. I know.” Nick glanced at Kelly and rolled his eyes. “We got distracted. Anyway listen, we’re on our way to Concord.”
Kelly returned his attention to the passing scenery as Nick filled Hagan in. He shifted around, trying to get comfortable. He wasn’t sure what Nick had done to him last night, but he hoped he would do it again when Kelly could remember the specifics of how he’d gotten so fucking sore. It was probably fun.
It was about a thirty-minute drive to the bridge, and Kelly was surprised when they arrived to find a visitor’s center, loads of tourists, and stone monuments commemorating the battle.
“It’s a national park?” Kelly asked when he joined Nick at the bumper of the Range Rover. He’d expected a little parking lot next to a creek with a bridge over it. But there were monuments and walkways and visitor centers and tour bus parking. He couldn’t even see the river, much less the bridge.
Nick leaned against it, his arms crossed. “And it’s the first Sunday of summer.”
Julian was pacing, eyeing the crowds like they might be filled with hidden assassins gunning for him. Kelly would have been amused by it, but he had to acknowledge that it might actually be true.
“What’s our plan?” JD asked them.
Nick pursed his lips, his expression mostly hidden behind his sunglasses. He lowered his head. Kelly glanced from him to JD with a wince, then looked over to Julian, who simply shrugged.
“Do we have a plan?” JD asked, sounding a little more agitated.
“You’re the treasure hunter,” Nick told him.
“Look, I’m not a hound dog who’ll point on command, all right? I don’t remember any of my fucking training.”
“Let’s do a recon of the bridge,” Kelly suggested. “If he carved a message in it, it’s got to be somewhere accessible, but hidden enough to escape notice all these years. Can’t be too many places like that on a bridge in the middle of all these tourists.”
“We’ll split up along the scenic paths,” Nick agreed. “Approach it from each side. Kels, you and Cross circle around the north end, JD and I will take the south. We’ll meet you at the bridge’s head.”
“Right.” Kelly patted Julian on the shoulder and they headed off together as Nick and JD went the other way.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Julian asked almost as soon as they were out of earshot of the others.
“I guess, sure.”
“Does it bother you that he orders you around like he does?”
Kelly’s head jerked up. “No,” he answered. “If we were making breakfast or going to a movie, he’d be asking for opinions left and right. This is a tactical situation, though, and he’s reverting to his training. If he hadn’t, I’d be worried about him.”
Julian arched an eyebrow as they walked along the paved path.
Kelly just shrugged. “People see Nick in all kinds of ways.” He smiled fondly. “He’s so much more than you see on the surface, though.”
“If you say so.” Julian returned his attention to the crowd as they meandered along the path, trying to blend with the tourists.
Kelly briefly let his mind wander to Nick before he did the same. He didn’t care if he was the only one who saw through all Nick’s layers. He knew the man who’d hold the hand of a dying enemy, who would let a kid tie a piece of yarn around his wrist for luck and still be wearing it five years later, who would lay his head in Kelly’s lap and sigh as if he’d just dropped a huge weight from his shoulders. He was the man who would never, ever make a promise unless he intended to keep it or bleed trying.
“There’s the bridge,” Julian said, pulling Kelly out of his reverie.
Ahead of them was a large stone monument, rising over the bank of the river. A concrete path led around it toward an arched wooden bridge.
“It’s wood,” Kelly blurted.
He and Julian shared an uneasy glance. “There are covered bridges in the area that are over two hundred years old, right?” Julian asked. “It could have survived, being an important landmark.”
“I guess…”
They loitered near the monument until Nick and JD came into sight. JD was talking animatedly, and Nick had his head down as he walked. Kelly could tell he was staying aware of his surroundings by the tension in his shoulders, but he also looked irritated.
“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked as soon as they approached.
Nick just looked away and shook his head.
“The bridge is a reproduction,” JD told them. “It’s been rebuilt three times since the Battle of Concord.”
Kelly swiped his hand over his mouth. “Well fuck.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t on the bridge itself; perhaps it was carved somewhere near,” Julian tried. “The bank of this river is littered with large boulders.”
“Yeah.” JD nodded, eyes sparkling. “I was telling Nick, we passed a sign for something called Egg Rock, apparently it’s a big deal. The city even carved a memorial into it. It can’t be the only one.”
“What are we supposed to do, inspect every rock on the riverbank?” Nick snapped.
“We can try the area around the bridge, at least.” Julian sounded almost desperate. He took a step toward Nick, one hand up. “We’ve come all this way.”
Nick met Kelly’s eyes briefly. He seemed at his wit’s end with this. Kelly knew it was frustrating for Nick to fail, especially when lives hung in the balance. But it wasn’t his boyfriend who was being held prisoner, and Julian was asking for nothing but a little more patience. So they headed for the bridge as a brisk wind plucked at their jackets and ruffled Kelly’s hair.
Nick stepped onto the wooden bridge and peered over the edge. It was made entirely of wood, but the ends were built into rock walls. Spring had brought a lot of rain, and the river was swollen with it. To see the faces of the stones, they would have to get wet. He gestured to Julian. “You two check the other end.”
Julian and JD headed across the bridge, their footsteps echoing on the planks. It was a peaceful day, filled with the sounds of birds chirping, groups of chattering tourists, and the babbling of the water as it flowed beneath them. Kelly was kind of enjoying this.
“Who’s going in the water?” Nick asked Kelly.
Kelly held up his fist. Nick mimicked him, and they counted off. Kelly threw paper, then laughed as he covered Nick’s fist with his hand. “Always the rock.”
“Which makes me wonder why you throw scissors half the time.”
Kelly grinned impishly. “Depends on the punishment. Sometimes I like to lose.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. “Next time I’m taking vacation days and we’re never wearing pants.”
“Deal.”
“Help me out here,” Nick grumbled as he shrugged out of his leather coat. Kelly took it and slung it over the railing.
Nick swung around the end of the bridge and edged his way down the steep bank. The ground was mushy and oversaturated; Nick’s boots made deep furrows in the mud, and he reached up to grip the wooden boards of the bridge. Kelly laid himself out and slipped his arm under the railing, his hand hanging down so Nick could grab for it if he started to slip further.
Nick held on to the bridge as he examined the wall of rocks. Every couple minutes he would bend and wipe away dirt or pull moss from one of the rocks, his movements growing jerkier and more frustrated the longer he searched. Finally he was low enough that the water was lapping at his boots.
“See anything?” Kelly asked after a few moments.
Nick glared up at him, his eyes flashing. He gave a single jerk of his head in answer. Kelly heard footsteps on the bridge, then felt them in his chest. He twisted to see JD and Julian walking back toward them. JD was wet up to his chest.
“You can see the original pilings,” JD called down to Nick. “You got to get wet, Detective.”
“I don’t get paid enough for this,” Nick griped. He grasped Kelly’s hand and slid further down like he was surfing a wave. Then he was in the water. He moved beneath the bridge, his fingers slipping out of Kelly’s grasp and finally moving out of Kelly’s sight.
JD and Julian both leaned over the railing, trying to see him. Kelly stayed where he was, though, his hand still hanging down. Nick was moving upstream, so if he lost his footing and the water took him, he could at least try to make a grab for Kelly’s hand as he went by.
“Fucking morons,” Nick shouted after several more minutes of silent searching. “Who writes a goddamn message on a wooden bridge?”
“Oh boy,” Kelly muttered. He pushed to his knees and headed to the end of the bridge, stepping out onto the rocks so he could see where Nick was. He was standing in waist-deep water, one hand gripping the piling of the bridge, one hand on a rock in front of him.
“In the middle of a fucking war, where bridges were literally being burned!” Nick shouted.
Kelly beckoned with his fingers. “Come out of the water, bud.”
“He had to know wood wouldn’t stick around!” Nick shouted. “Fucking idiot.”
“There there,” Kelly said.
“This shit was gone by the time they put that message in the diamonds,” Nick railed. “What was the point? It’s a fucking dead end!”
“Babe, come on, get out of the water,” Kelly tried again.
“We have a problem,” Julian said.
Kelly glanced up at him, then followed the direction of Julian’s gaze. A couple was strolling toward them. The woman had a mop of wavy auburn hair, almost the same color as Nick’s, and she was quite striking. High cheekbones, full lips that curved into a smirk. Kelly looked her up and down out of habit. The man was considerably less attractive, with a hard edge to his eyes and a scar that went from one of his heavy eyebrows to his rather square chin. They definitely didn’t look like they fit as a couple.
Julian positioned himself in front of JD.
Kelly watched their approach, the gun on his belt feeling heavier as they came closer. He gave Nick a quick look over his shoulder, but Nick was gone. The water flowed peacefully over the spot where he’d been. Kelly stood, making certain his jacket covered his gun. He didn’t have time to get back up to the bridge, but at least this way they were offering two separate targets.
“Good afternoon, gents,” the man called in a genial Irish accent.
“Hello, Dr. Hunt,” the woman added with a kind smile. “I hear you’re having a rough few days.”
JD took a tiny step sideways so he could see them over Julian’s shoulder. He was smart enough to stay behind Julian, though.
“Where’s the detective?” the woman asked.
Kelly and Julian shared a glance, then Kelly looked over his shoulder into the water.
“Oh my,” the woman cooed. “I do hope he can swim. My name is Alex Kincade. And I understand we’re all searching for the same thing.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Kelly challenged.
“Doubt all you like, it’s true. The Golden and Rosy Cross. You’re quite the resourceful little group; we’d like to combine forces.”
Kelly grinned when he saw movement behind the pair. “Good luck with that.”
“Hands up,” Nick said as he stepped behind them, his gun out. He was dripping from head to toe, his curly hair plastered to his head. “On your knees, both of you. You’re under arrest.”
Nick only had one pair of handcuffs on him. He pestered Julian until the man rolled his eyes and provided a handful of white zip ties from one of the pockets of his jacket.
“Where do you keep all that stuff?” Kelly asked.
“Doc, help me,” Nick grunted. He yanked the woman’s hands behind her back and tightened the zip tie. “You have the right to remain silent,” he said against her ear. “Professor Singleton.”
“Wait, you know her?” Kelly blurted. He had the man restrained and on his knees. Both suspects were staying quiet.
“She’s the one I spoke to on the phone. Told me who JD was.”
“JD,” she said, her voice like smooth honey. It was even nicer in person than it had been on the phone. “Like John Doe. That’s cute.”
“You teach pop culture archaeology huh? Nice cover.”
“I try,” she said with a shrug.
JD stalked toward her, and Nick put a hand out to keep him from getting close enough for her to hurt him. “How do you know who I am?” JD demanded.
“You really don’t remember anything?” she asked.
“Answer the question,” Nick growled. He poked her hard in the back.
Alex cleared her throat. “If you’re going to court me, Detective, I like roses. Red ones.”
“How do you know who I am!”
“We were colleagues, Casey,” Alex said with a hint of injury in her tone. “We find lost works of art and liberate them from their prisons.”
“Wow,” Kelly drawled. “That’s the fanciest ‘I steal things’ I’ve ever heard.”
Nick hummed in agreement.
The woman laughed. “I imagine you think it’s along the same lines as Mr. Cross’s ‘I deal antiques’ in reference to cold-blooded murder.”
Julian’s eyes widened. “You know me?”
“I know of you. I was warned you’d be out here.”
Nick recognized the signs of Julian coiling to attack, but there was no way he could get to him in time to keep it from happening. He wrapped an arm around Alex and turned her, instead, putting himself between her and Julian. Kelly intercepted Julian as he launched himself at them, wrapping him up and trying to talk him into being calm.
“They have him!” Julian snarled. Kelly had his hands full trying to restrain him.
JD edged away from them, a hint of a wild animal in his eyes, which were darting from Julian to Nick and back.
“It’s them, they took him!” Julian railed.
They were drawing way too much notice from the crowds of tourists. Nick tucked his sopping wet shirt in under the badge on his belt so it would be visible.
“We didn’t take anyone,” Alex insisted. She looked over her shoulder, and Nick turned a little so he could see Julian. Kelly had him in a headlock, but he was trying not to hurt him so they were both struggling. “Good Lord,” Alex said quietly. “You have a leash for him, right?”
Nick tightened the zip tie, and Alex winced. “What was your endgame here, huh?” he asked. “You followed us hoping we’d lead you to the treasure?”
“Pretty much, yeah. When the clues led you here, though, I realized you were as stuck as we are. This isn’t the right place.”
Nick’s brow furrowed, and he glanced again at the others. Alex’s Irish henchman was standing calmly aside, his hands tied behind his back, watching. He hadn’t tried to make a run for it. Julian was on his knees, head hanging, chest heaving. Kelly stood over him, a hand on his back, murmuring words to calm him.
Nick wiped his wrist over his forehead to stop the water from dripping in his eyes. As soon as he’d heard Julian give his warning on the bridge, he’d sunk below the ripples and let the current take him downstream, then doubled back to get the drop on their unexpected company.
“Okay,” he said almost to himself. “Okay. Hold on.”
Julian glared at him, seething.
Nick turned Alex again, making her stumble as he forced her to face the others. “Tell us a story, Professor,” he growled. “From the beginning.”
Alex cleared her throat. “You seem like a CliffsNotes crowd.”
Kelly stood and shook out his shoulders. He helped Julian to his feet. JD came closer.
“Okay, let’s start with the basics. Do you know who the Rosicrucians were?”
“Secret society precursor to the Masons,” Kelly grunted.
“They were esoteric, focused their efforts on nature, healing, and chemistry,” Nick added.
“Impressive. They are rumored to have made incredible breakthroughs, including gaining mastery in alchemy and, most famously, creating the philosopher’s stone.”
“Like Harry Potter?” Kelly asked.
“No,” Alex said, her voice cold. “Not like Harry Potter.”
“Get to the point a little faster,” Nick urged.
“The point is, those are myths and legends, but the reality behind them is true. The Rosicrucians made valuable advances with their equations and formulas. They could cure illnesses in the Middle Ages we could only hope to fight against today. There are even contemporary sources that imply they were able to cure cancer.”
“The Rosicrucians had a cure for cancer?” JD asked. He’d pulled to his true height as Alex spoke, a look of recognition dawning on his face. He winced and smacked his forehead. “They wrote the formulas on gold scrolls to keep them from being destroyed.”
“Exactly,” Alex said. “He hasn’t lost all that knowledge up there after all.”
“Golden scrolls?” Nick repeated.
“When the Masons rose to power, they sought to protect that knowledge. They were at war with the Catholic Church, who was in the midst of a power grab. The Pope decreed everything the Rosicrucians had discovered was magic, of the devil, all that crap. The burgeoning Masonic powers couldn’t risk the Church obtaining the scrolls and melting them down. All that knowledge, lost…”
“I get it,” Kelly said suddenly. “The cross is made of layers of gold. It’s wrapped in the scrolls, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” Alex was solemn. “They knew the Church would never desecrate a cross. The scrolls would be safe until… well, I guess until more enlightened minds could discover them.”
“Enlightened minds like yourself?” Nick asked.
Alex rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend you’re after that treasure for altruistic reasons. Please. Dr. Hunt and I were hired by Alco Pharmaceuticals. We’re supposed to find the ancient formulas.”
Julian scoffed at her. “A pharmaceutical company hired treasure hunters?”
“Cancer is big money,” Alex stated almost sadly.
Nick loosened his hold on her arm. “Why’d you pretend to be a professor at Boston College to give me an ID? Why not just come in and claim JD?”
Alex met JD’s eyes. “Because he ran out on us. One night we figured out that the trail led us to Massachusetts, and we finished a bottle of wine in celebration. The next morning, he was gone. I thought he was after the treasure for a rival company, so I had to follow him quietly.”
JD met Nick’s eyes. He was breathing hard, realization sweeping over his face. “Oh my God,” he whispered.
“JD…”
“It’s all true then,” JD cried. “I am a bad guy! I’m a murderer and a thief and… and maybe a kidnapper! And I betrayed people who were supposed to be my friends and colleagues! You even said you trusted me! Jesus!”
He ran both hands through his hair and turned away to pace.
“How did he get murderer and thief from what I just said?” Alex asked Nick.
“It’s a long story.”
“Will you untie us now?”
Nick took his knife from his belt and sliced through the zip tie. Kelly followed his lead and released the man, whose name ended up being Colin.
Alex rubbed at her wrists, eyes on Julian. “The man who hired us told us you’d be out there too. He said you were dangerous and motivated. That’s why we bring Colin along everywhere.”
Colin gave a silent nod.
“We didn’t know anyone had been kidnapped,” Alex said. “Who is it?”
“My husband,” Julian said through gritted teeth. “I was told to give them the location of the cross and they wouldn’t harm him.”
“Your husband?” Nick blurted. Julian nodded. “Congratulations,” Nick offered lamely.
“You haven’t found the cross?” Alex asked.
“I haven’t been looking for it. I’ve been looking for them. Who are they?”
Alex’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know. We were told rival companies were after the cross and we’d have to move fast.”
Kelly stepped forward, close to Nick, and he lowered his voice when he spoke. “So we have three parties in play here? Alex’s group, JD’s group, and Julian?”
“That’s what I’m taking away from all this,” Nick answered. He reached to his belt, pulling his handcuffs from their holster. “One thing I do know…”
Kelly nodded. “Evidence is saying you have to arrest him, huh?”
Nick sighed. JD turned and halted his pacing when he saw Nick watching him. The look in his eyes was one of both resignation and betrayal. “You’re really going to arrest me now?”
Nick held up the handcuffs and moved closer to him. “Turn around,” he said softly.
JD lowered his head and turned his back to Nick, his shoulders slumping. Nick took one wrist in his hand, but before he could put the handcuffs on him, JD jerked his elbow. He landed a blow on Nick’s side, and Nick’s knees buckled. JD whirled and grabbed Nick’s gun from its holster as Nick went to the ground, and his hands were trembling. He backed away, the gun pointing from one person to the next.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Nick. “I’m sorry I hurt you. But I can’t let you arrest me, not yet. I have to find them and find out the truth first.”
Nick braced a hand on the concrete walkway, gasping and wincing as his blazing eyes tracked JD, who was still backing away from them all.
JD’s eyes darted around the hordes of tourists, and then he pointed the gun in the air, aiming it in the general direction of the river. The blast of the shot echoed off the rolling hills and stone monuments and created instant panic: tour groups screamed and scattered, families with children flattened to the ground, kayakers on the river dove out of their vessels into the water for safety.
JD met Nick’s eyes one last time as he moved away. “I’m sorry. I’ll turn myself in after, I promise!” he called, and then he bolted into the crowd.