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He looked at the time and grimaced. He didn’t relish the idea of waking anyone at this early hour, and a friend? That was even worse. But he needed to make sure Priest was aware of where his car was. Especially considering Henri had told him that he wasn’t friends with any of the grooms the day of the wedding.
The first thing Bailey did was run the plates, and when the vehicle didn’t show as stolen, he let out a relieved sigh. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything—with the way Henri had been driving, he could’ve been hightailing it away from Priest’s, and as he hit Priest’s number and waited, Bailey found himself praying that wasn’t the case.
“Hello?” As Priest’s gruff voice came through the line, Bailey kept his eyes on the car ahead of him and told himself he was doing the right thing.
“Hey there, Priest. It’s Bailey. Look, I’m sorry to wake you so early, but—”
“Bailey?” Priest said, and the sound of rustling sheets had Bailey wincing. “You didn’t wake me. My alarm just went off.”
“Oh, good.”
“Is there something wrong? Did you pick up one of our clients or something?”
Or something seemed about right, and as Bailey tried to work out how to ask this next question, Priest said his name again.
“I’m here,” Bailey said in his most professional tone. “I need to ask you a few questions, if you have a minute.”
When a long pause followed, he shut his eyes and waited.
“Of course. Is everything okay? You sound…different.”
No shit. Usually, he was calling as a friend or colleague, not to see if Priest’s ex had stolen his car. The same ex Bailey had wanted to see naked in bed, and was annoyed at because he hadn’t.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to alarm you. I’m calling because I pulled Henri over tonight, and when I—”
“Wait a second,” Priest interrupted. “Did you just say you pulled Henri over? As in, my Henri?”
His Henri? Bailey thought, as the rain began to ease and the car ahead was easier to see. Is that how Priest sees him? Is that how Henri sees himself? As Priest’s?
Then he heard his name repeated in his ear. “Uh, yes. That Henri. I pulled him over tonight for running a red light and speeding.”
Priest muttered something that Bailey didn’t quite catch, and when nothing else followed, Bailey continued.
“When I ran his plates, the car he’s driving—an Aston Martin?—came back registered to you.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Priest’s voice was so calm, so sure, that for a second, Bailey actually believed him.
“So he did steal it?”
“What?” Priest said, as if what Bailey had just said made no sense at all.
“Your car? The Aston Martin? I’m trying to find out if Henri stole it or—”
A raspy chuckle filtered through the phone. “Would serve him right if I said yes.”
Bailey frowned. “So…he didn’t steal it?”
“No, he didn’t.” Priest let out an aggrieved sigh. “He’s, uh, borrowing it.”
Priest wasn’t at all convincing in his answer, and for a man who was usually so sure, Bailey found himself doubting his friend. “Look, I get you two have a history, but if he stole your—”
“He didn’t, I promise. But can you give him a message for me?”
Bailey nodded, and when he realized Priest couldn’t see him, he said, “Yes, of course.”
“Can you let him know that I’ll be in touch to discuss this little incident further? Very soon.”
Priest’s tone told Bailey that whatever he was going to say to Henri about all of this would likely be worse than anything Bailey could do to him. So he let Priest know that he would pass the message on before he said, “I hope you three had a good time on your honeymoon.”
Bailey could all but see the smile in Priest’s voice as he said, “Oui. Paris was parfait. We didn’t want to come home.”
“I bet. Say hi to the guys for me, would you?”
Priest assured him that he would, and after they said their goodbyes, Bailey eyed the Aston Martin and took one last look at the license in his hand.
He needed to nip this in the bud, let Henri go with a warning this time around, but as he made his way toward the vehicle, he couldn’t help but wonder what Henri would be doing in an hour or so.
No, Bailey reprimanded himself.
What was that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. And Bailey quickly reminded himself that he was raised to be nobody’s fool, least of all Henri Boudreaux’s.
Chapter Seven
CONFESSION
Tell me something’s off-limits,
and I’ll want it even more.
HENRI FELT AS though he’d entered the Twilight Zone, an episode where everything had been turned on its ass, as he focused on the patrol car a couple of feet behind him where Bailey—Officer Bailey—had just disappeared to.
Christ, as if the fact that his Blue from two weeks ago was a cop wasn’t bad enough, that last name and whom Henri had just been meeting up with this morning somehow made this all feel a little…coincidental, somehow. What were the odds that there were two Baileys on the Chicago police force that shared blue eyes, a desire to fight crime, and an unfortunate penchant for the truth?
