Cross & Crown

Julian wiped at his shoulder, still glowering.



Nick pulled Kelly to the side, dropping his voice to an almost inaudible whisper. “What did they want?”



“He just demanded to talk to his boyfriend before he’d give them information.”



“They want an update on his progress. Means they’re getting nervous. Fuck.”



“They’re going to kill this kid if he doesn’t find that treasure,” Kelly said.



Nick was watching Julian over Kelly’s shoulder. His jaw jumped as he gritted his teeth. “God help them if they do.”



Kelly glanced behind him. Julian’s eyes were hard as obsidian and his shoulders were rigid. He was obviously back on the phone with the kidnappers. Kelly took Nick’s elbow and pulled him toward the salon, then they stepped out on the deck and pulled the door closed.



“Are you going to be able to handle this meeting tonight? Because he’s compromised as hell and I haven’t been in a firefight in over a year.”



Nick slid his hand up Kelly’s arm, his expression softening.



“I’d take a rusty you over anyone to have my back.”



Kelly tried not to smile, but he couldn’t help himself. He swiped his finger through the drying shaving cream on Nick’s cheek. “You should have left it scruffy. I like it like that.”



Nick smirked and then pursed his lips as he nodded. “I’ll remember that. But tonight, we have to dress to the nines.



Did you bring a suit?”



“Yeah, I’ve got one. Why?”



“Because the man we’re going to see won’t speak to scruffy cops in jeans and leather jackets.”



A flutter of nerves went through Kelly’s stomach, though he wasn’t sure why. They’d faced dangerous men before.



Something about the tension in Nick was bleeding into him.



“But hey,” Nick said, putting on that bright-side mask he’d always worn in the Corps. He smiled, and somehow he forced the warmth to reach his eyes. Kelly’d always wondered how in the hell Nick did that. “At least we’ll get that romantic night we were planning, right?”



Kelly snorted. “Whackadoo.”



The door from the salon opened and Julian stepped out, still fussing with the shaving cream on his shirt.



“For Christ’s sake, it’s a cotton T-shirt!” Nick said. “I’ll let you borrow one of mine!”



Julian huffed at him.



“What’d they say?” Kelly asked.



“Cameron is still safe. He swore he was unharmed, and I tend to believe him, though it was obvious someone was closely monitoring his words. He chose them with great care.



They wanted to know where I was, and what progress I had made. I told them I’d been forced to enlist assistance. I got the distinct feeling they already knew that.”



“You think they’re following you?” Nick asked.



“If they were, I’d know it.”



“They’re keeping tabs somehow,” Nick insisted.



“Maybe they heard about the robbery,” Kelly suggested.



“Knew it was either Julian or the other crew.”



“Perhaps,” Julian whispered.



“What role did you play in that?” Nick asked him.



“In what?”



“The robbery. The murders,” Nick said, his voice hard.



“Was any of that you?”



“No, Detective. I was merely tailing them. And doing so from quite a distance. I never saw them, other than the van they drove. I got there and the scene was already as you found it.”



“You were tailing them?” Nick shouted. “Why didn’t you say that before? Where’d they come from? Are they based somewhere in Boston?”



Julian remained irritatingly calm in the face of Nick’s outburst. Kelly was impressed.



“They came from the airport. I followed their trail. I’m not concealing information from you, Detective. I want them stopped as badly as you do. More so than you, I would wager.”



Nick pointed his finger at Julian, wagging it threateningly. He calmed quickly though, acknowledging the logic in Julian’s explanation. “I’m going to go finish shaving,” he said through his teeth as he left them.



Julian watched him go, then turned back to Kelly with a sigh. “He seems tense.”



Kelly nodded.



“He struck me as the sane one when I met him before.



Relaxed. Well-adjusted. He’s not anymore.”



Kelly pressed his lips into a thin line, nodding in agreement. “You said you were in the military?”



“Briefly, yes.”



“The team was called back last year. Whatever work they had them doing, it fucked them all up a little.”



“Why?” Julian asked. His concern seemed genuine.



Kelly’s stomach roiled and he looked away, into the yacht to see if Nick was anywhere near. “He won’t say.”



Kelly excused himself before Julian could ask more questions. He almost barreled into Nick as he came back out onto the deck.



Nick had already finished getting dressed. He’d forgone the suit today, instead staying in the jeans he’d been wearing and putting on a plain black T-shirt. His favorite leather jacket was over his arm, and his badge was on a chain around his neck. He was also wearing a shoulder holster with a gun on each side, rather than the one he usually kept on his hip.



“What are you doing?” Kelly asked.



“Going to work.” He held up his phone. “The trace didn’t get their location, call wasn’t long enough.”



Julian sighed shakily and nodded.



“It did give us a region, though,” Nick added.



“Really?” Julian blurted. “Where are they holding him?”



Nick’s expression hardened, and he met Julian’s eyes.



“They’re in Boston.”



It took a few moments for Julian to get his temper and nerves under control; Kelly could actually see the emotions playing across his face. “I suppose that makes sense. They knew Boston was going to be in play in the end.” He stood there a moment, and Nick and Kelly were both silent, letting him work through it. “Excuse me,” he finally whispered, and he stepped past them into the salon.



“He’s handling that well,” Kelly said. “If they had you tied up somewhere and I found out you were in the same city, I’d be ripping things apart.”



Nick hummed and nodded as he watched Julian disappear down the steps.



Kelly studied his profile a moment before jabbing him with an elbow. “Hey. What’s wrong?”



“Something . . .” Nick shook his head and met Kelly’s eyes again with a weak smile. He slid his phone into his back pocket, then pulled Kelly closer to kiss him. “Stick with Cross, will you? See if you two can make some headway with this treasure shit.”



“You’re the history buff, babe, I’m not sure I’d know where to start.”



Nick nodded as if he understood that he was basically asking Kelly to sit on his hands all day. He looked annoyed with himself. “See what you can come up with anyway. Please? Don’t let Cross out of your sight.”



“You don’t trust him?”



“Nope.”



“You got it.”



Nick gave him another kiss, lingering over this one, then headed off for the dock and the parking lot beyond. Julian joined Kelly soon after, wearing a shirt he’d pilfered from Nick’s closet. Kelly and Julian stood together on the deck, watching Nick walk off.



“Care to take an unsupervised field trip?” Julian asked after a few moments.



“If I say no, are you going to ditch me the first time I take a piss?”



“Yes.”



Kelly nodded dejectedly. “Let me put some shoes on.”



Nick left his Range Rover for Kelly and Julian, knowing that as soon as he was out of sight, both men would be off. He trusted Kelly to take care of himself, though; he didn’t need his hand held. And hell, maybe they’d drum something up.



He left a note on his windshield for Kelly, then went to the storage unit where he kept his motorcycle. He liked to ride the bike when he was running down leads anyway. It was easier to find parking, even with the police plates.



He headed for the station first, checking in on the requests they’d put in for JD’s identity. A report had come in on the other robberies they’d searched for. Nick sat to read over it, then noticed a message on his desk from Boston College. One of the professors had responded to their inquiries, saying he recognized JD.



Nick tossed the robbery files aside and reached for his phone instead. When he called the number that had been left, a woman answered.



“This is Detective Nicholas O’Flaherty, I’m looking for a Professor Kris Singleton.”



“This is Kris,” the woman said. Nick had been expecting a man, but he shrugged it off. He liked her voice; it was smooth and a little hoarse.



“Professor, do you have a moment to speak to me in regard to the photos my officers were circulating yesterday?”



“Oh! Yes, of course, Detective. What can I tell you?”



“You recognized the man in the photo?” Nick asked.



“Yes.”



“Is he a professor at Boston College? An employee?”



“Oh, no no. He’s a writer.”



Nick frowned and scrambled for his notepad. “A writer?”



“I teach one of his books for a course. I recognized him from the photo on the back jacket. My students ask me every year if I can convince him to come and guest lecture.”



Nick smiled. He could see why college kids would want to sit and stare at JD for an hour. “Okay. What course is it you teach? Literature of some sort?”



“Archaeology and anthropology. I’m afraid I’ve misspoken, Detective; I recognized him from a book he wrote, but writing is not his profession. See, I teach a course on pop culture, and we discuss the differences between reality and fiction in the field of archaeology.”



“I see.”



“Expectation of the job versus the realities?”



“Right, telling them they’re not Indiana Jones,” Nick said.



“Exactly. But I try not to skew the course, so I offer readings from archaeologists and other scientists who . . . quite frankly are more like adventurers. Hiram Bingham III, Roy Chapman Andrews, Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, and Mark Moffett, to name a few.”



“Okay. Scientists who are also kind of badasses, I follow.”



“I’m impressed, Detective, that you would know those names. They’re rather obscure bits of history.”



“I knew the first two,” Nick admitted.



She laughed. “Fair enough. He’s arguably one of those. His books are full of . . . treasure hunts and gunfights. Entertaining reading, but not the way it’s done. Not really.”



Nick’s stomach turned with this new piece of information.



“What’s his name?”



“Hunt. Casey Hunt.”



Kelly could see the parking lot from the flybridge, so he knew Nick had left the Range Rover. After going through all the drawers in the house, though, he couldn’t find a spare set of keys.



“We’ll either call a cab or hot-wire it,” Julian finally told him when he reached the end of his patience. He swept out of the yacht and onto the dock without giving Kelly a chance to argue. Kelly had to jog to catch up with him.



“You know, you lose something without the long black coat. Little air of mystery is gone,” Kelly told him as they headed for the parking lot. Julian gave his khakis and borrowed T-shirt an offended grunt. Kelly shrugged. “It’s true.”



Kelly’s steps slowed when they came to the car and he saw a white note beneath the windshield wiper, fluttering in the breeze. He plucked it off and unfolded it.



Keys are in the wheel well. Please don’t hot-wire her. O.



Julian read it over Kelly’s shoulder. “He knows you well,” he commented before making his way to the passenger door.



Kelly grinned and knelt to search for the keys. Of course Nick knew him well. That was part of the attraction. “Where are we headed?” he asked as soon as he had the Range Rover running.



“The bookstore.” Julian held up Nick’s badge, the one he clipped on his belt when he wore a suit. “I want to look around.”



Kelly whistled and shook his head, putting the car in drive. “You’re going to be in so much trouble,” he sang.



“It’ll be fine. He won’t know if you don’t tell him.”



“Fat chance.”



“I just need to get the accent down.”



Kelly spent most of the drive critiquing Julian’s imitation of Nick’s accent. He’d heard some Boston accents that were damn near unrecognizable. Others, like Nick’s, were softer or had faded due to being away from home for so long. Nick’s grew heavier when he was drunk or ranting about something, usually baseball but also anything that required the word “fuckers” said with it.



Sometimes Kelly tried to rile him just to hear the original accent, but Nick was usually unflappable. He had to resort to saying “Go Yankees” to really get Nick worked up.



“You might get by with that one,” Kelly advised after Julian’s last attempt. “Just . . . don’t say much. And don’t use Nick’s name; they all know him around here, and you definitely don’t pass as a six-foot-one redhead.”



When they reached the bookstore, Kelly parked on the street, trusting the police plates on Nick’s vehicle to keep him from getting towed. Glass still littered the sidewalk, although it had mostly been swept into a pile. The shattered windows were boarded with plywood. Police tape sealed off the door, with a red tag attached near the doorknob that warned whoever entered about chain of custody. They were supposed to sign the little tag.