His cell phone began to sing, a raucous fiddle tune that belonged to only one person in his contacts. Definitely the only one who would call him this late at night. Nick glanced at the phone, Ty Grady’s picture on the display. He let it go to voice mail, though the song grated on his mind because he’d always reached to answer that call before. He still hadn’t forgiven Ty for the last two debacles they’d gotten themselves into, for the lies his friend had told him, and frankly he didn’t really feel like talking to the man much lately. He almost immediately felt guilty for not answering, though, and he picked up the phone to check the message.
It was curt and to the point, just like Ty. “Hey, Irish.
Haven’t heard from you in a while. I’m starting to get worried, so give me a cal .”
Nick shook his head and hit the button to call back. He kept in touch with his Recon boys, usually sending at least a text or something every few days. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been compelled to send Ty anything. The feeling of having lost something precious made his chest ache, but it was tempered with so much anger he tried not to touch it at al .
“You better be shacked up with something spectacular,” Ty said in greeting.
Nick huffed before he could stop himself. He put the phone on speaker and set it on the table. “I am, actually. Doc is in town.”
“Oh. I take the spectacular comment back, then. Gross,” Ty nearly whined. “What have y’all been up to? Zane said you called him today.”
“I did, needed some info.”
“I know things too, Irish. You couldn’t call me? Say a f**king hello or something?”
“I’m sorry, Ty, I’m working a case. It’s a little off. Haven’t had much time for small talk.”
Ty cleared his throat, wordlessly acknowledging the dig.
Nick had always had time for Ty before. “Fair enough. What kind of off?”
“Nothing like the crap you get up to, but weird enough for me.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
“It’s late, Ty.”
“I got time.”
Nick stared at the phone, wishing with all his heart that talking to his oldest and dearest friend didn’t feel so hard. He took a deep breath and nodded. He told Ty about JD, about finding him at the scene and his memory loss. He told him about trying to decipher the bits and pieces of information he’d gathered and make sense of whether JD was friend or foe. He didn’t mention Julian at al . Julian had asked him to keep it quiet, and Nick was nothing if not good on his word.
Finally, he told him about the suspicions that the basis of the case came down to missing treasure. Ty perked up at that.
“Treasure sounds fun,” he said, tone hopeful. Since Ty had resigned from his job at the Bureau, he was going a little stir-crazy. He’d probably love it if Nick asked him to come to Boston to hunt for missing treasure.
Nick stared at the phone, trying to find the urge to invite him, trying to find the genuine desire to want Ty here to help them. “Yeah,” he finally said, voice a little choked. “You’d think, but it’s not. Not when my only witness is a f**king John Doe.”
Ty was silent, mul ing it over. “You should get a shrink in to question him,” he finally suggested, his voice losing a little of its buoyancy. “Try to trip him up if he’s faking.”
“Yeah, he’s got an appointment with one in the morning.
Guy I’ve been going to, I trust his judgment.”
“You been seeing a shrink?” Ty asked.
“My hands don’t shake as much anymore. Worth the hour a week,” Nick said, voice going colder.
Ty was silent for a long, tense moment. “That’s good,” he finally said in a rush, sounding like he was trying to catch up to the conversation. “That’s good, it’s good. So your amnesia guy, what’s your take on him?”
“I don’t think he’s faking. I mean, could you pull that off 24/7 and never once slip?”
“Never tried,” Ty said in all seriousness. “And you have nothing on him? Is he at least local? Does he have an accent?”
“Yeah, about that. I never heard this accent before.”
“Really.”
“It’s like . . . Southern with a curlicue.”
“What?” Ty was laughing, but Nick didn’t find his frustration all that amusing.
“I’m serious. It’s like yours, but not. Like he came over from England and put the two accents together. I . . .”
“Can you mimic him?”
“No! I’ve tried, and my tongue does not make that sound with an R.”
“Your tongue can’t make any kind of an R!”
“Whatever, hillbilly.”
“Well, if you want, send me a recording tomorrow or let me talk to him. Maybe I can pump my FBI contact for info.”
“Jesus, Ty, we’ve talked about Garrett and the sex jokes.”
Ty snickered. “I’m serious. If I don’t recognize it, maybe Zane can get it to the linguistics people at the Bureau. They owe me a few favors.”
“Can you listen to him now?”
“What, like right now? You have a recording of him sitting around?”
“No, but I have him.”
Ty was silent for a few breaths. When he spoke again, all teasing was put aside. “You have your suspect on your boat with you?”
“He might be a suspect, there’s a difference.”
“Might and suspect are synonymous, Irish! They mean the same thing!”
“Ty—”
“The ‘might’ is implied in the ‘suspect’!”
“He’s also a witness and could possibly be a victim himself,” Nick said calmly, trying to head off what he recognized would be a pretty impressive Grady rant. “We don’t know. Someone took a shot at him today. Right outside a cop bar, Ty. We had to move him from his safe house, and my boat is the safest place in the f**king city. He’s either a witness in need of protecting, or he’s a doer in need of—”
“Being in jail.”
“Shut up. We’re trying to get his memory back, and he needs the right environment for it. Not to be sitting in some cell, alone, thinking he’s a bad guy. He just needs to remember.”
“Okay, so when he remembers that he kills people—”
“Ty, I had this conversation with my superiors today; shut up and be helpful.”