Cross & Crown (6 page)

“Seriously?” Kelly whispered.

“I thought… I thought Detective Hagan was your partner,” JD said, frowning and looking between them.

“Partner,” Nick said gently, pointing at Hagan. Then he transferred the finger to Kelly. “Boyfriend. You want to sit down and tell me what happened?”

JD cleared his throat and nodded, glancing again at Kelly and Hagan as a flush rose to his cheeks.

“Guys, give us a minute, huh?” Nick said as JD headed for the beds in the hotel room. Nick stopped and took Kelly’s arm, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry, this’ll be a couple minutes.”

“It’s okay.” Kelly’s heart was still fluttering from the fact that Nick had so readily claimed him in front of anyone and everyone, from the possessive glint in Nick’s eyes. He would have sat out in the hall waiting all night just to see that glint in Nick’s eyes again.

He headed out of the room with Hagan, glancing back to see JD sitting on the end of one of the beds and Nick settling onto the dresser opposite him so they could talk. He looked very professional about it, if you discounted the sweatpants that were drenched at the bottom and the plastic flip-flops he was wearing.

The door fell closed and Kelly was left with the two cops in the hallway. He stuffed his hands into his pockets
and bounced up onto his toes. “So!” he said cheerfully. “This is fun.”

“This guy’s a fucking basket case,” Hagan grunted. “Might be here awhile. Want some coffee?”

Kelly shook his head and leaned his back against the wall. He slid down to sit, propping his arms against his knees. If there was one thing spec ops knew how to do, it was sleep sitting up.

Nick kept crossing his arms and then forcing himself to stop, resting his hands in his lap instead. He didn’t want to give off body language that said he was irritated, impatient, or closed off. It was hard, though, when he was going on a few hours’ sleep and had been interrupted during what was supposed to have been an entire weekend alone with Kelly.

“What happened?”

“I had a dream,” JD said with a helpless shrug. “I woke up in a panic, bolted for the bathroom, and sat in the tub until I could breathe.”

Nick nodded, his expression carefully neutral. “You remember the dream?”

JD shook his head, wincing. He was wringing his hands, rocking a little. “I feel stupid. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry they called you down here.”

“Hey.” Nick leaned closer, lowering his voice. “People aren’t built for this kind of stress, all right? You handle it however you can, no shame in that.”

JD sniffed and laughed ruefully. “Have you ever woken up in a bathtub, Detective?”

Nick opened his mouth and then closed it fast, looking over JD’s head as the memory flashed through his mind. “Yes. But I was hungover and… not alone. My point, though, is that waking up and bolting for safety is nothing to be ashamed of. I wake up swinging all the time. I tried to kill my boyfriend with a TV remote one time, so… I get where you’re coming from. There’s no shame in fear.”

JD took in a shaky breath and rubbed a hand over his face.

“You still can’t remember anything?”

“I think I dreamed about the bookstore. I was there.” JD shook his head. “But then we knew that already, huh? All I remember is something about a book, I don’t know.”

Nick had his Moleskine pad out, jotting down notes. He nodded for JD to continue talking as he wrote.

“I think… I felt like I wasn’t in the right place, you know? Like I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there. I couldn’t get away though.”

Nick made an asterisk and wrote out the possibility that JD had been forced to accompany someone to the robbery. He glanced up to find JD rocking faster. It was a habit he was familiar with, and it usually signified it was time to switch topics. “Okay. Tell you what, bud, why don’t you try to get some rest tonight. Monday morning I’m hoping I’ll have some pictures to show you; we’ll see if they jog anything else loose.”

JD nodded.

“I’ve also got someone running down your prints, going through missing persons reports. By morning, those results should be back.”

JD tensed, glancing up to meet Nick’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“What if they come in and tell you I’m someone horrible?”

A pang of sympathy hit a little too close to home. It was one thing to struggle with your humanity. It must have been torturous to do so without the benefit of past actions or even past thoughts to back up your conclusions.

“I can’t imagine it will,” he offered gently. He leaned forward and patted JD on the knee. “Try to get some rest, okay? I’m going to call Hagan back in and—”

“You can’t stay, can you?” JD blurted. When Nick raised an eyebrow at him, he paled, looking shocked that he’d spoken at all. “I mean… he’s nice and all, but you’re the only person I’ve felt comfortable with. I…”

Nick had to fight hard not to groan. He always managed to pick up the strays somehow. He shook his head, feeling guilty for blowing off such a sincere request because he wanted to go home and fuck his boyfriend. “I’m sorry, we can’t just switch things up without reporting it and giving a compelling reason to do it.”

JD lowered his head, looking crestfallen. He nodded, though, and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“You good for tonight?”

JD nodded again, more confidently this time. “I’m good.”

Nick sat with him for a few more minutes, letting him know he was merely a call away, that he’d be right back on the case on Monday, and there was nothing to worry about as long as he stuck with Hagan or one of the officers assigned to their door.

“I’m sorry I brought you out so late. Tell your boyfriend I’m sorry too; this must be weird for him.”

“We met in Recon,” Nick said.

“He’s used to weird.”

He stood and gave JD’s shoulder a last pat before heading for the door. When he stepped into the hall, Hagan was leaning against the wall, his head back and his mouth open
as he snored. Kelly had fallen asleep sitting ramrod straight against the wall right beside the door.

Nick snorted and glanced at the uniformed officer, who was sitting in his chair with a cup of coffee and giving Nick a smirk. “Are you guys the cavalry?”

Hagan jerked and snorted, shaking his head as he woke. “I’m awake.”

Nick chuckled and nodded, stepping aside so Hagan could get back into the room. “I told him you’d call me if anything came up.”

“You got it, brother. You deal with this shit better than me,” Hagan said, and then stumbled toward his bed and flopped into it.

Kelly was still sitting with his back against the wall, blinking up blearily at Nick.

“You can fall asleep in under five minutes sitting in the hallway of a hotel, but you can’t sleep in my nice soft bed on my boat.”

Kelly licked his lips and reached up for Nick to help him to his feet. “Maybe we should sleep on the flybridge again,” he said as they headed for the elevators. “I slept like a baby up there on that pool float with Ty that one time.”

Nick snorted and jabbed at the elevator button. “We’re getting a hotel.”

“So, tell me about this case. The witness has amnesia?” Kelly asked in the car on the way back to the Boston Harbor Marina. He’d tried as long as he could to keep out of it, but he was just too curious.

“Yeah, he took a bullet to the back of the head. Doctors said it’s either physical damage or shock of some kind.”

“Kind of like that time I got kicked in the head by that goat.”

Nick burst out laughing. “Yeah, kind of like that.”

Kelly glanced at him, admiring his profile. He still owed Nick for that. They’d been on a mission when they’d taken cover in a gully that just happened to be sheltering several goats, including one territorial billy goat who’d taken a shot at Kelly’s head. He’d woken up as they’d been carting him back to camp, and Nick had convinced him he was a Bible salesman from Oklahoma who’d gotten fresh with the livestock and paid for it with a hoof. Kelly’d believed it for two whole hours before his memory came back. He still had trouble looking at goats without flashes of completely unwarranted guilt.

“Asshole,” Kelly muttered.

Nick very nearly giggled before he got himself under control. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. We don’t know if he has any solid information or not, we don’t even know who he is.”

“Could he be one of the robbers? Got knocked out at the scene and just pulled something out of his ass when he woke up rather than going to jail?”

“It’s a real possibility, yeah. That’s the other reason we’ve got him under protection.”

“Oh. Smart.”

“Indeed,” Nick drawled, throwing Kelly a sly smirk before he turned his eyes back to the road.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in detective mode. It’s kind of… sexy.”

Nick merely smiled. Kelly watched him, pondering the silence that fell between them. It wasn’t uncomfortable. It
never had been, not from the first moment they’d met. It could sometimes be heavy, though, especially during the months after Nick had returned from his POW experience in Afghanistan.

This silence was something different. It was easy and light, devoid of expectation. Kelly liked it. But he could sense that Nick had more on his mind than the next few weeks with him.

“Hey babe, do you want me to go back home until you get this case wrapped?” Kelly asked. “I don’t want to be in the way.”

Nick glanced at him, eyes widened in alarm. “No. No, you’re not in the way. I never said that.”

“I know you never said it, but I also know how your brain works. You’re not going to stop mulling over the mystery, but whenever you do think about it and you think you should be spending time with me instead, you’re going to feel guilty for working.”

“Not true.”

“You are the shittiest liar in the history of lying liars.”

Nick laughed softly, reached over the console, and grasped Kelly’s hand. “Fine, you’re probably right. But I don’t want you to leave. Please?”

“Okay. So tell me more about the case. Can you?”

“Technically, no. But hell, I’ve told you national security shit you shouldn’t know either so what the hell.”

Kelly gestured to himself, tracing a circle in the air around his face. “It’s this beautiful mug right here. Like a puppy. Does this look like the face of a spy?”

Nick glanced sideways at him. “Yes.”

“Fair enough. But tell me anyway.”

“The robbery was in an antiquarian bookstore.”

“Antiquarian? That’s specialty stuff, not just used paperbacks, right?”

“Right. Rare books, expensive stuff.” Nick had to release Kelly’s hand to flip the turn signal on, which apparently pissed off the car behind them because it honked at them as it passed. Nick ignored it. “Shop was busted up like they were looking for something. Security system would have been easy to bypass even for a rudimentary cat burglar, but they took it out without leaving a trace.”

“So you think it was a professional team?”

“Probably.” There were more honks behind Nick and he peered into the rearview mirror. He muttered under his breath. “What are these fuckers doing?”

Kelly glanced behind them. “Isn’t that just how Massholes drive?”

Nick flicked on the police light on the dash. The honking stopped and the offending car slowed until more space was between them and Nick’s Range Rover.

Kelly turned back around in his seat. “I’m really enjoying the power trip that comes with fucking a cop.”

“That’s what they all say. Anyway. Pro crew hits rare bookstore. They take four books and two objects out of a display case, all possibly linked to the Revolutionary War.”

“What objects?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not psychic, dude.”

“What about the shop owner?” Kelly asked.

“Dead. Killed on the sidewalk in front of the store along with one of the robbers. Reports say there were shots fired, witnesses are saying anywhere from five to a dozen. We haven’t
recovered all the bullets or casings yet, but there were at least four. One of which clipped JD.”

“God. Who would kill for a handful of old books?”

“No clue.” Nick rolled his window down and slid his security key into the marina’s gate controls.

“What’re your off-the-wall theories you’re afraid to tell your partner ’cause he laughs at you?”