Page 217 of Cross & Crown

“I’m not a bad person, Nick. I swear. I remember. Please.”

Nick tried not to examine the melancholy feeling settling

in his chest. “I believe you,” he finally whispered. “Tell us what happened.”

“There were three of them,” JD said as he poked his gun at

Southie’s head. “Two Irish guys, and this one. They had Cam

with them, had him tied up. I kept promising him I’d try to

get us out of there and he kept saying his husband would find

us, that he was some sort of spy.”

Cameron closed his eyes, swallowing hard.

217

“They had Julian after the Crown Jewels lead, so they

put me on studying the contemporary writings, trying to

pinpoint when and where the wagon of treasure had been

spotted. I knew about the letters in the bookstore because

I’d requested to read them a couple months back. I had the

digital copies, but I needed to see the original ones. So much

in that time period was done in secret, the originals could

have had messages concealed in them. That’s why we went to

the store, that’s why they robbed it. I hid the letters to slow them down untilsomeonefigured out we needed help or we could get away.”

Nick couldn’t take his eyes off JD as he spoke. His voice

was shaky, his eyes were sincere. Every bone in Nick’s body

told him JD was telling the truth.

“How’d you figure out it was here?” Kelly asked without

turning around.

“When I started remembering things, I remembered a

diary entry about this place. How a wagon was seen being

guarded by the redcoats. It was the last sighting. And then

the name on the headstone, Russell. As soon as I remembered

everything, I knew it had to be here.”

“We did the same,” Julian offered. “As soon as I told her