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.