“This is Cross.”
Kelly was close enough to hear the murmur of the voice on the phone, but he couldn’t make out what it was saying.
“I want to speak to him,” Cross demanded. “I want to know he’s alive before I give you anything.”
Kelly mouthed the word, “Kidnappers?”
Julian nodded.
Kelly darted for the stairs, sliding down the railing with his hands and feet like he’d been taught twenty years ago when he’d joined the Navy. “Nick!” he hissed.
Nick poked his head out of the bathroom. Half his face was covered in shaving cream, and he was wearing no shirt, just his jeans and a towel resting on his shoulder. He held his razor in his hand like a weapon.
“Kidnappers on Julian’s phone.”
Nick tossed his razor over his shoulder and hustled after Kelly up the steps. He went to the banquette in the pilothouse and ripped one of the cushions off, then rummaged inside the bench. Kelly hadn’t even known those benches were hollow.
Nick came out with a contraption that looked like one of the original mobile phones that had come in bags.
He dropped it on the table and opened it up. Inside was an array of listening and GPS devices. Nick gestured for Julian to come closer, and as Julian spoke on the phone to his kidnapped boyfriend, Nick plugged the device into his phone. They had to contort to do it, and Julian wound up with shaving cream all over his shoulder.
He gave Nick one of the dirtiest looks Kelly had ever seen a man make, but Nick merely shrugged and turned the tracking device on. He rolled his finger through the air, telling Julian to stall and draw out the conversation. Then he handed him his towel almost sheepishly.
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 f**ked 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.”