Page 144 of Cross & Crown

staring up at Nick with wide blue eyes, like a puppy being

scolded. Kelly and Hagan shared a concerned glance.

“This is the staff sergeant coming out,” Kelly told Hagan

quietly. “I’m used to it.”

Hagan looked him up and down, narrowing his eyes. “You

come like a fire hose when he gives you an order, don’t you?”

“Only if he tells me to,” Kelly countered with a smirk.

Hagan rolled his eyes. Nick called him from where he

was standing on the sidewalk in front of the shop door, and

Hagan strolled over to join him. They were far enough away

that Kelly had to strain to hear what they were saying. Nick

was telling Hagan he was the owner who’d been gunned down

walking into the store. Then Julian obliged Nick’s request to

stand in the doorway, where the thief had been shot dead and

fallen across the threshold.

When they were all standing where the evidence

indicated they should have been, Nick walked through the

scene, studying them, a frown firmly on his face.

145

“How do you know where the van was?” Kelly called

to him.

“Window glass,” Nick answered as he circled JD. “Had

JD’s blood on it. Bullet clipped him, carried onto the van.”

He stepped back, looking first at Kelly, then at Julian. Hagan

stood to the side, out of the line of fire. But Julian and Kelly were directly across from one another, and JD formed a direct

line of fire between the two.

Nick put his hands on his hips, prowling back and forth,

chewing on his lip. “Fuck,” he finally grunted.

Julian raised his hand as if he were holding a gun, and

Kelly did the same, firing an imaginary bullet at him.