Cross & Crown

“We’ll only need a minute,” he told her.



She took a deep stuttering breath and glanced furtively over her shoulder. “If you’ll come back tomorrow,” she said, her voice shaky.



Nick cocked his head, looking behind her into the ancient home. The stairs still sported bullet holes from the fighting over two-hundred years ago, and everything had been restored to its original state. Like most homes built in Massachusetts during the early days, the front faced south.



The afternoon light streamed through the western windows, and Nick could see a shadow moving on the floorboards in front of the stairwell.



He gave the woman a nod and a smile. “Tomorrow it is then,” he said kindly. “Thank you, ma’am.” He turned away from the door and pulled Kelly with him.



“Someone had a gun on her,” Kelly whispered.



Nick hummed and pointed toward the car, slipping Kelly his gun while their backs were turned to the house. “I want you to go around back, get in the house quiet.”



“Got it.”



Kelly headed around the corner of the house, disappearing within seconds. Nick took out his phone and dialed Hagan. It was still ringing when the door creaked open behind him. He turned, holding the phone away from his ear.



A man stood with the woman in the bonnet, his arm around her neck and a knife to her cheek. “Put that mobile down,” he ordered. His was another Irish accent. “Get inside.”



Nick dropped his phone to the ground without ending the call and put his hands behind his head, walking toward the door obediently.



“You’re a cop?” the man spat. “Son of a bitch.” He slammed the door behind Nick, and shoved the woman at him, forcing them both through a doorway. “Get in there!”



Nick caught her and put an arm around her shoulders.



“You okay?” he asked as they moved into the other room.



She nodded jerkily. Nick walked her over to a nearby chair and she sat, then he turned and stood in front of her. Only then did he get a good look at the other players in the room.



There was one more man with a gun, and a third hunched against the wall near the fireplace. It took a moment for Nick to recognize him. Cameron Jacobs.



“Cam?” he blurted. “Are you okay?”



“Detective O’Flaherty?” Cameron made to stand, but he winced away from one of his captors when the man made a move toward him. He had a few bruises around his face and arms, and his lip was cracked and bloody. He’d obviously been kept under control through physical means.



“Hey!” Nick shouted. “Touch him again and you deal with me.”



“You want to get hard, motherfucker? Come on!” the man challenged. His accent sounded like home to Nick. It almost made him laugh. Some Southie thug with a gun coming at him like he’d last a minute hand-to-hand with Nick.



“Sit the fuck down!” the other kidnapper shouted at Nick.



Nick remained standing, meeting the man’s eyes without flinching. The guy moved closer, putting the muzzle of his gun against Nick’s cheek. “I said sit your arse down.”



Nick cocked his head, lips twitching. “Make me.”



Before the man could react, Kelly whistled behind him.



When he turned, Nick grabbed the gun, hitting a pressure point in the man’s arm that would immediately incapacitate his fingers. Kelly hit him with a roundhouse punch that threw him back into Nick, and Nick picked him up and slammed him to his back. The floor shook beneath him, artifacts around the room rattled. Nick kicked the heel of his boot into the man’s head to put him down. The museum curator screamed, covering her face with her bonnet.



Nick turned his stolen gun on the other man, but he had grabbed Cameron and was using him as a shield.



“Oh, son,” Nick drawled. “That wasn’t your smartest move.”



A dark shadow passed in the corner of Nick’s vision.



“You might want to let him go,” Nick warned.



“Fuck you! Put your guns down or he gets one in the skul !”



The door creaked open behind Nick, and Kelly turned to cover their new guests as Nick kept his gun on the Southie kid.



“Looks like we’re having a party.” It was the smooth honey tones of Alex. “Are we invited?” She moved around the corner, a gun pointed at Nick.



“Drop your weapon,” Kelly ordered.



“You first. Ladies can’t be too careful these days.”



“All of you drop your weapons!” the Southie kid shouted.



“Cam, stay calm,” Nick called across the room. There were way too many guns in play now. Nick moved just enough to put his shoulder to Kelly’s, both of them facing opposite directions in the middle of the two forces.



“Cameron?” Julian called. He stepped out into the open.



Nick couldn’t see him, but he could tell where he was from his heavy footsteps on the old floorboards. He felt Kelly tense against him.



“Julian!” Cameron cried. He tensed, but the gun at his cheek dug deeper.



“Don’t fucking move!” Southie shouted.



The man on the floor groaned, and Nick turned, preparing to deliver another swift kick to the man’s temple.



“Don’t,” a new voice said urgently. “He’s got information we need.”



Nick’s head jerked up. JD was standing behind Southie, obviously having snuck in from the kitchen. He had Nick’s gun in his hand, but he wasn’t pointing it anywhere. Yet.



“JD,” Nick said in warning.



“Hunt!” Alex called.



Kelly hummed under his breath, and the sound vibrated through Nick’s entire body. They pressed closer together, their first instinct when they were hemmed in. “There are way too many people here.”



“Everyone stay calm,” Nick said in a loud, clear voice. “We can all leave here with what we want. No one has to get hurt.”



“He keeps that gun pointed at my husband, and someone will indeed be hurt,” Julian snarled.



“Tell him to put his gun down,” Southie shouted, nodding his head at Nick. “Or I blow his head off!”



Nick felt Julian move, and Kelly tensed beside him but couldn’t take his attention off Alex and her gun. Nick glanced back in time to see Julian with the barrel of his gun aimed at Kelly.



He sounded apologetic, but deadly serious. “Drop your gun, O’Flaherty.”



The man on the floor groaned again and raised his head, shaking off the stupor. He rolled to his stomach and began to crawl toward his compatriot. His hand went to his belt, where a backup weapon was likely hidden. Nick transferred his aim to the man. “Stop!”



In rapid succession, Southie turned his gun from Cameron’s head to Nick, and JD raised his gun and put it to the back of Southie’s head.



“Don’t!” JD ordered.



No one moved.



“Everyone have a gun on them now?” Alex called. “Is this what boys do for fun?”



Nick grunted, afraid to move with so many nervous and inexperienced personalities involved. Not to mention Julian, who would definitely blow out the brains of an ally to save his husband.



“Okay,” Nick said slowly. “No one move, let’s talk this one out, huh? Bottom line, Cross is here for Cam and the rest of you are here for treasure. I think we can accommodate everyone.”



“What are you here for, cop?” the man on the ground asked.



“I heard they had doughnuts,” Nick said through his teeth.



“Treasure?” the woman in the bonnet asked. She was nearly screaming. “What are you talking about?”



“The Continental payroll,” Nick said to her. “Know about it?”



“Of course,” she said, wiping a hand over her face. “You’re in the wrong town! The Continental payroll was stolen from Buckman Tavern in Lexington!”



“It would have been brought this way,” JD said, speaking to the entire room. “I remembered why we had to break into that bookstore. I remembered everything, Nick.”



Nick glanced up at him briefly, afraid to take his eyes off the kidnapper on the floor for too long.



“They took me from my hotel room,” JD continued.



“Alex, I’m sorry, I didn’t leave you guys. Two men came in with guns and said I was dead if I didn’t come with them.”



If Alex responded, she did so silently, because Nick heard nothing from behind him. JD’s blue eyes pleaded with Nick.



“I’m not a bad person, Nick. I swear. I remember. Please.”



Nick tried not to examine the melancholy feeling settling in his chest. “I believe you,” he finally whispered. “Tell us what happened.”



“There were three of them,” JD said as he poked his gun at Southie’s head. “Two Irish guys, and this one. They had Cam with them, had him tied up. I kept promising him I’d try to get us out of there and he kept saying his husband would find us, that he was some sort of spy.”



Cameron closed his eyes, swallowing hard.



“They had Julian after the Crown Jewels lead, so they put me on studying the contemporary writings, trying to pinpoint when and where the wagon of treasure had been spotted. I knew about the letters in the bookstore because I’d requested to read them a couple months back. I had the digital copies, but I needed to see the original ones. So much in that time period was done in secret, the originals could have had messages concealed in them. That’s why we went to the store, that’s why they robbed it. I hid the letters to slow them down until someone figured out we needed help or we could get away.”



Nick couldn’t take his eyes off JD as he spoke. His voice was shaky, his eyes were sincere. Every bone in Nick’s body told him JD was telling the truth.



“How’d you figure out it was here?” Kelly asked without turning around.



“When I started remembering things, I remembered a diary entry about this place. How a wagon was seen being guarded by the redcoats. It was the last sighting. And then the name on the headstone, Russell. As soon as I remembered everything, I knew it had to be here.”



“We did the same,” Julian offered. “As soon as I told her what I knew, she directed us here.”



Nick growled softly. “Yeah, we need to talk about the stealing evidence thing.”



“I’d rather talk about the gun to my head thing,” Kelly said wryly.



“Where is it?” the man on the ground asked. “We’ll let him go without hurting him if you tell us.”



Julian growled.



“How did you get here?” JD asked him.



“I called them,” Julian answered.



“Great, so no one actually knows where we’re looking?”



Kelly asked.



“There’s no treasure here!” the curator cried. “This museum commemorates a battle!”



“What happened here?” Nick asked her. “What’s the story? Give us the tour.”



“Are . . . are you serious?”



Nick nodded, still not looking away from the man on the ground.



The woman glanced around at all the hardware being wielded, at all the people filling a little house that must have seen so much violence in its history, if the bullet holes still in the walls were any indication. She took a deep breath.



“After their defeat at Lexington and Concord, the redcoats were retreating to Boston. Along Battle Road there were many skirmishes, and the retreating forces were ordered to clear out any houses they came across to prevent snipers from attacking.



Jason Russell, the man who lived here, evacuated his family, but then returned to his home. Nearby, along the stone wall you probably saw when you came in, the minutemen had set up an ambush. They concentrated on the main body of the redcoats coming through, but were outflanked and retreated to this home.”



She took a deep, shuddering breath. It was obvious that giving her lecture was helping to calm her a little. Nick’s mind was whirring, trying to fit the puzzle together as she gave them more pieces.



“Jason Russell was an old man, and he arrived at his home just as the minutemen were retreating. He was gunned down just outside his door and then stabbed by bayonets eleven times. The British soldiers massacred everyone else in the house, save for eight minutemen who were able to barricade themselves in the basement. When Jason Russell’s widow returned to her home, she found her husband and the rest of the dead, numbering twelve men total, laid out in rows in the kitchen. She is said to have claimed the blood on the kitchen floor rose to her ankles. Jason Russell and the dead Continental soldiers were buried in a mass grave, no coffins and no services. It took over seventy years for a monument to be erected over the grave.”



She fell silent, swallowing repeatedly, blinking rapidly as she fought off tears.



“That’s it?” the Irishman on the ground asked.



“That is . . . it. Yes. There is no treasure.”



“What about the basement?” Alex suggested.



“We’re looking for redcoat treasure; the basement was barricaded by minutemen,” JD countered.



Nick slowly lowered his gun, his eyes unfocusing.



“Nick?” Kelly whispered.



Nick didn’t answer.



“Irish?”



Nick winced and lowered his head. “Fuck,” he whispered.



Kelly lowered his weapon as well, meeting Nick’s eyes with a dawning dread. “You know where the treasure is, don’t you?”



“I know where the treasure is,” Nick confirmed. He looked at the woman apologetically. “Can you tell us exactly how big that monument is?”



“Over the grave?”



Nick nodded. Someone in the room cursed under his breath.