Page 84 of Cross & Crown

shaggy blond hair with the pilfered Red Sox hat and walking

him down the back alley behind the police station toward

Nick’s Range Rover.

Nick walked alongside him, his hand loose on JD’s elbow.

Kelly knew himself well enough to know he was a little jealous

of the chemistry Nick and JD seemed to have. But he also

knew Nick well enough to know he didn’t need to be worried.

He reminded himself what he was supposed to be doing,

and he glanced around the area, watching the shadows,

watching the narrows. Nick was supposed to lead JD into a

bottleneck, where a fence jutted out near a big blue dumpster

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and would force them to veer toward the entrance to a side

alley, and that was where Kelly headed.

He was almost too late. As soon as Nick and JD neared

the alley, Nick shoved JD to the side and pulled his gun,

obviously seeing something coming out of the corner of

his eye.

Kelly moved with lightning speed, hitting the big man

from the side and wrapping him up as they fell. He rolled with

him, then let him loose, sending him into an uncontrolled

tumble as Kelly hopped to his feet. Before Julian Cross could

right himself, Kelly was on him again. He kicked at his chest,

and Julian blocked the blow, but he wasn’t fast enough to

block the next one when Kelly came up with a roundhouse

kick that caught him in the side of the head and sent him

sprawling.

Julian was on his hands and knees, pushing himself to

his feet, and Kelly went at him again. Julian was at least four inches taller than he was, but Kelly didn’t care. Size had never fazed him before. He aimed high this time, landing a few blows

around the ribs and kidneys, missing a few as Julian blocked

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