“Eh, you loved every minute of it.” Callahan stopped with one hand on the door. “But don’t forget to go home tonight. If not for sleep, to get a change of clothes. Those jeans and that shirt are about to walk right out of here.”
“Hey, I wore these so I’d fit in.”
“Sure you did. You even smell like you fit in. Night, Sean.”
“Fuck off, Callahan.”
Callahan’s chuckle was muffled as the door swung shut behind him, and as his words rattled around in my brain I took a quick whiff of myself and was relieved to discover that he was full of shit. My clothes might’ve looked a week old and well lived in, but there was no lingering odor to them. If I’d been out there any longer, that might’ve been a whole different story.
Tonight’s arrest had brought an end to a three-month case I’d been working with the guns and gangs unit, hence my shadow, Callahan. They’d been tracking down an illegal gun dealer that had left a trail of dead bodies along the way.
It’d been a long, round-the-clock case that had left little time for anything other than work, and after I logged in a gold Rolex watch—the final piece of evidence—I shut the file and ran a hand through my too-long hair. I’d let it go over the last couple of weeks, and decided the first thing I would do tomorrow was get it cut.
Jesus, I was tired, my lack of sleep and, well, life finally catching up with me as I looked at the clock and saw I’d put in yet another eighteen-plus-hour day. Shit. I switched off my computer and shoved back from my desk, my bones protesting as I unfolded myself from the unstable seat I’d been perched on for the last couple of hours filling out paperwork.
I needed a vacation. It wasn’t often I thought that—okay, I’d never actually thought that—but as I pushed my chair under the desk and grabbed my phone to see two missed calls from Bailey, one of my younger brothers, I knew it was time.
I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen my family or been able to attend one of our Saturday night dinners. I’d been so busy on this case that it had consumed all my time. But as I headed out to the parking lot, I decided I’d done the right thing in asking for some leave.
Around six months ago I’d come precariously close to hitting rock bottom. But after a come to Jesus talk from Bailey, I’d decided that maybe the bottom of a bottle wasn’t the answer to all my issues and decided to just bury them in work instead. Now it was time to unwind.
I pushed the button on my key fob to unlock the door to my black SUV, and as I climbed inside and started the engine, my phone began to ring. I looked down at the screen and frowned at the name, but as Xander’s number continued to light up my phone, my brain went into automatic panic mode. There was only one reason Alexander Thorne called me, and it usually had to do with my brother and Xander’s best friend—Bailey.
Shit, maybe something had happened to him. Like that time Bailey had been involved in a shooting on the job.
I hit accept, and it connected to my stereo system. “Xander? Is everything all right? Is Bailey?”
“Hello to you too, Sean. I’m doing fine, thanks for asking. How are you?”
I narrowed my eyes on my phone but said nothing in response. Xander sighed.
“Everything is fine. Bailey is fine. As far as I know.”
“What do you mean as far as you know?”
“Well, I haven’t seen him since Saturday, and that was six days ago, so—”
“Xander.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “Is Bailey okay?”
“Yes. I assume so.”
“Okay. Jesus.” I looked at the time and noted it was about an hour or so after Xander’s broadcast. “So what’s with the call, then?”
Xander coughed. “I, um…”
I frowned as I waited for him to continue. It was unlike Xander to be at a loss for words, but then again, it was also completely unlike him to call me…at all.
“I was wondering if I could swing by your place tonight and pick your brain about something.”
Nothing he could’ve said would’ve shocked me more. I’d known Xander nearly all of my life. He’d always been in it in some capacity. First, as the skinny little kid next door, then as Bailey’s annoying best friend, and later his boyfriend.
As far as I knew, they were back to the whole best friend thing since Henri Boudreaux had come on the scene, which seemed a little complicated to me. But as far as I was concerned, Xander had always just been there. You know, like another…brother, I guess.
“Swing by? You’ve never swung by my place, Xander. Do you even know where I live?”
“I will when you tell me.” Xander paused, and I could’ve sworn I heard him mutter something before he spoke up again. “Come on, Sean. I need some advice and I don’t want to beat down Bailey and Henri’s door at night—”
“Why not? Worried you’ll interrupt something?”
“No, I just don’t want to bother them with this when I can ask you. Stop being a shit and help me, would you?”
I couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, but Xander’s pissed-off tone had my weary brain re-engaging. “Yeah, okay. Swing on by. I’ll be home in ten.”
“Sean?”
“Yeah.”
“I need your address.”
Huh, how weird was that? In all the years I’d known Xander, he’d never known where I lived. Guess he wasn’t that much like a brother after all. Not that it mattered. Whatever was bothering him had to be something pretty serious if he was willing to drive his million-dollar self out into my neck of the woods. “I’ll text it to you now. See you soon.”
3
Xander
THERE WAS ONLY one reason I ventured outside of the city and into the burbs, and it usually had to do with one of the Bailey brothers. Granted, it wasn’t usually this Bailey brother, but since the other one was all but engaged these days, I’d decided to hedge my bets.
As I turned on to Sean’s street and pulled into the short drive behind his SUV, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made the right decision tonight. I hadn’t seen Sean in a while, which wasn’t anything unusual when he got a case. But the last few times we had been in contact, things had been a little…tense.
Sean was an “all work, no play” guy. The Chicago Police Department was the only world he seemed to know. I understood that, the “work hard and never stop” mentality, and I respected it. I was much the same. I’d had to be to get where I was today.
The difference, however, was that I knew how to stop. When the news was done for the night, and I stepped out of the ENN building, I made sure I had a life. Friends, lovers, a world that wasn’t always so serious. A world that had some kind of lightness and levity to it. Otherwise I’d wind up a cynical, jaded pain in the ass—which, of course, led me right back to Sean.
Not the most affable guy around, Sean Bailey didn’t make it easy for others to approach, and while that probably served him well in his line of work, when it came to interpersonal relationships, it made things…difficult.
Those messages Marcus had shown me tonight made braving Sean seem worth it, though. They’d left me more than a little rattled, to where I’d all but strangled my steering wheel on the way over here, while looking in my rearview mirror like some kind of fugitive. And if swallowing my pride and asking for help was what I needed to feel somewhat at ease in my own skin again, then I’d swallow that bitter pill and beg Sean for a name and number.