Black, Blue, and Gold (Book 2)

One Step at a Time (Part 5)

The door to the small office opened with a loud bang, startling everyone around the work area.

"Inspector Kang Seulgi, Assistant Inspector Kim Joonmyun, you two are coming with me!" said Jisoo as she rushed past her astonished team. "Now!" She shouted from the exit when she realized that the two were still frozen in place, staring at her.

Seulgi and Joonmyun dropped whatever it was they were doing and grabbed their jackets, running after their captain under the curious stares of Chaeyoung and Jongin.

"What's wrong?" asked Seulgi as soon as she had caught up with Jisoo.

"Chanyeol was attacked," muttered Jisoo through gritted teeth.

"WHAT?!"

"I just got the call." Jisoo rushed towards her car, unlocked it and went inside in a flash.

The two followed her just as quickly and soon they were out in the evening streets of Seoul, heading to the hospital.

"What happened?" Joonmyun asked from the back seat.

"Not sure. The officer in charge of shadowing Chanyeol lost him for a minute when he made a sudden detour to the market on his way back to the station. He found him again soon after, unconscious in an alley." Jisoo gripped the steering wheel.

"Who did it?" Seulgi asked.

"No one saw a thing. The talk on the market was that the local bullies did it. But I don't buy it," answered Jisoo as she maneuvered the traffic. She was glad that it was a Sunday night so the streets weren't as crowded as usual.

"Shall I alert Lis and the rest?"

"Not yet. The people shadowing them have been alerted and are now standing by so they should be fine. I want to confirm that this isn't just some random robbery before we let them know."

"How could it be random robbery? Chanyeol is a trained officer of the law! It must be a planned attack, an ambush, to be able to have him beaten up like that!" said Joonmyun.

"Robberies can be ambushes too, Joonmyun," Seulgi tried to calm the young man. "It could indeed just be the market thugs, knowing that Chanyeol's a cop and taking an intense dislike to him. There had been random attacks on cops just because some people held grudges towards us."

"It's too random," muttered Joonmyun, sitting back and frowning. He still thought that he was right.

"Let's talk to Chanyeol first before we do anything, okay?" Jisoo ended the conversation so she could focus on her driving.

—-

"Uh-oh."

Chaeyoung heard the low mumble right after she finished buttoning up her jacket. "What?"

Jongin moved aside, letting Chaeyoung see his computer screen. "Found this among the doctor's photos."

"What is this? His Facebook?" asked the tall inspector as she walked up to Jongin's desk, squinting at the old-looking picture on the screen.

"Yeah. I got bored so I thought I tried searching for his social networking accounts. Lisa did ask for kindergarten classmates, right? Well, they're not kindergarten kids but I think they're his schoolmates – or at least some of them are. The photo's not his, though. He's just tagged in it."

"By?"

"One of his old friends, by the looks of it." He then pointed his mouse at one of the young men in the picture. "Recognize him?"

Chaeyoung raised her eyebrows, not really sure whom she was looking at. The face looked familiar but she couldn't pinpoint where she had seen that man before. Besides, the blurry picture appeared as if it was taken from another, old photograph. She was about to ask Jongin when the person's name appeared on the screen – as tagged by the photo owner. "Seungjin?!"