Rather than piling into the Range Rover and driving to the cemetery, Nick suggested they walk it. It was a glorious day, full of sunshine and birds singing and a nice cool breeze.
Kelly had to stop occasionally, apparently to make sure he didn’t hurl again, and Nick did his best not to laugh at his lover’s misery. He distinctly remembered trying to discourage the last two rounds. He slipped his arm around Kelly’s shoulders, patting him in the same way he’d done a hundred times before when they were suffering through a morning after.
The fact that they’d started f**king after almost fifteen years of knowing each other hadn’t changed many of their habits.
“I hate you,” Kelly groaned.
“Poor Boo Boo.”
“I hate your high tolerance,” Kelly groused. “I hate that I can’t drink you under the table or knock you out with normal drugs ’cause your stupid body is immune to chemicals. I hate that when I try I wind up in a ditch in Mexico.”
“There there,” Nick cooed.
“I hate you so much.” Kelly’s hand in his back pocket as they walked told a different story, though.
They headed for Boston Commons, which was a nice easy stroll from the Liberty, and from there Nick explained that the city had created a red brick line through the old town that led tourists along the Freedom Trail. It was a nice easy walk that took people from historic spot to historic spot, all related to the American Revolution. They picked up the red trail and followed it toward the Granary Burying Ground.
The morning sun hadn’t yet risen over the buildings around them, casting the cemetery in a gloomy haze. Nick led the way through the gate, glancing around at the crooked headstones with their macabre carvings. It was an odd little lot. It included the graves of Revolutionary heroes, including Sam Adams and Paul Revere. In the center was a massive monument dedicated to Ben Franklin’s family. The buildings that had cropped up around the old burial ground had come so close to the boundaries that their brick walls incorporated headstones into them. Many of the headstones that had once been here had been removed and used as sidewalks, and there were estimates that hundreds of bodies still remained beneath the ground, unmarked and lost to history.
What remained was a mixture of veneration of the past and compromise toward the future. Nick had always felt a little uneasy when he’d visited this place.
“The headstones are . . . irreverent, to say the least,” JD commented. He was kneeling in front of one. Many of them had skulls grinning impishly, with wings behind them. Nick has seen a few with dancing skeletons, capering around as death chased after them.
“So?” Julian asked. “What now? Is the treasure supposed to be buried here?”
“It couldn’t possibly be,” JD answered. “Not if the stories surrounding its theft are true.”
“There’s another marker here somewhere,” Nick added.
“Are you f**king telling me we came out here before the f**king sun for another clue to where this treasure is and not the treasure itself?” Kelly asked. He had Nick’s aviators on despite the lack of light.
“It makes sense; if he was leaving clues behind for someone to follow to this treasure, he would have done it on permanent fixtures. Or, things they would have considered permanent then. Graveyards, churches, buildings of importance he had to trust wouldn’t be torn down.”
“So, you believe we’re looking for a gravestone,” Julian said.Nick nodded. “The date of death would be 1775.”
“Why?” Julian asked.
“A clue carved on a tombstone would have been left as soon as it could be commissioned, when they still had access to the city,” Nick explained. “Had to be that year because they evacuated shortly after.”
“What else?” Julian asked.
Nick shrugged and dug in the pocket of his jeans for the napkin JD had left on the table last night. “No clue. That’s where JD’s diamonds come in.”
JD took a deep breath to steady himself and stepped closer to take the napkin. Nick touched his arm gently.
“I’m sorry,” Nick offered.
JD held his gaze for a few seconds, then nodded and gave him a weak smile. “I tried putting myself in your shoes last night, when I went to bed. I get it. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
Nick cocked his head, raising both eyebrows in surprise.
“I do trust you. I’m sorry for making you feel like I didn’t.
And I made you a promise. I intend to keep it. Let’s do this.”
JD squared his shoulders. “Right.”
Kelly groaned off in the distance. Nick glanced around for him and found him sitting on the steps that led down to the sidewalk, resting his head against an iron fence. He was pretty hungover, but the last historic graveyard Kelly had been in had almost killed him. Nick couldn’t help the shiver that ran up his spine with the memory.
“Hey, babe, you alright?”
“I hate you!” Kelly called back.
“Okay, well . . . keep lookout for us then,” Nick said, his voice shaking with laughter.
He turned, and Julian fell in step beside him. The man was actually smiling. “One night, Detective, you and I will sit and have a drink just so I can say I survived it.”
Nick laughed. “It’s a date.”
They split off, each of them wandering the crooked lanes of the graveyard, examining each headstone for any sort of clue. They didn’t know what they were searching for, though, and it was a large graveyard.
Nick kept glancing back to the steps, where JD now sat beside Kelly, his head bent over the napkin. Kelly was still leaning against the iron gate.
“What if it’s a grid?” JD called.
“Oh my God,” Kelly grunted. He covered the ear JD had just shouted into. “Dude.”
“Sorry,” JD offered with a wince.
“A grid,” Nick repeated, drawing closer to them.
JD nodded and stood. “If you turn it on its point, with the X forming a cross-like grid instead, then the symbols start to make a little bit of sense. Look.”
Nick stood at JD’s shoulder, eyes going from the napkin to the graveyard. JD was right. One of the symbols that had looked like a less-than symbol now appeared to represent the obelisk monument of the Franklin family in the center of the burial ground. Another, which Nick had assumed was an infinity mark, appeared to represent a barrel-vaulted tomb near the edge of the ground.
“Nice,” he said with a pat on JD’s back.