Page 15 of Cross & Crown

Nick straightened. JD had the look of a man who

might have recognized something. Nick glanced up at the

reproduction plaque on the wal . He had sat under it many

times, gazing at it idly as he waited for his food, reading the words when his dinner mate went to the bathroom, staring at

it listlessly as he ordered for that last drink that would send him into taxi territory.

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It was a common fake wood plaque, roughly two feet

tall and one wide, featuring a frieze of a nameless baseball

player in pinstripes—something many people had defaced

over the years because those pinstripes looked far too much

like Yankee pinstripes and this was Boston, baby. It was also

covered in Red Sox stickers and graffiti.

Nick looked up at it dubiously, then back at JD. “Are you

remembering something?”

JD was still scowling. He shook his head minutely, still

examining the plaque. “I just . . . looking at that gives me a

feeling I think is familiar.”

“Have you seen it before?”

“I don’t know. I think . . . I think maybe I hate the Yankees,”

JD answered with a shrug.

Nick snorted and couldn’t help but smile as he took a

drink.

“I guess that’s nothing spectacular, huh?”

“Well. It’s not going to help narrow you down from the

crowd any.”

The amusement faded from JD’s eyes and he returned

his attention to his hands, twisting his fingers together

and shifting uneasily in the chair. Nick watched him in

sympathy. He couldn’t begin to imagine what was going

through his mind.

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