Page 12 of Out of Nowhere

The Tuesday of their sixth week guarding Brand Nichols started out busier than normal. The day before had been Labor Day and people were coming in to make up for skipping their gym time on the long weekend. Dex and Seo-jun had discussed the case with West, Logan, and Jase, and considered the possibility that Brand might be imagining the threat, or that Matt Pierce had given up on stalking Brand. The only piece of evidence they had that the stalking had occurred was the concert ticket left in Brand’s car. Neither Dex nor Seo-jun had seen anything suspicious in the five weeks they’d been with him. They’d decided to give it another week and then reassess with Brand. If Brand still felt unsafe and was willing to continue paying for protection, they would work something out with him.

The night before, upon Logan’s request, Dex had searched online for information on an elusive woman involved in a case West and Logan were working on. Dex wound up getting only two hours of sleep before his alarm woke him up, and, because of that, he fell asleep while eating lunch the next day, jerking awake when fingers carded through his hair. “Seo-jun?” he said, squinting up at him.Had he really been stroking Dex’s hair, or had Dex been dreaming?

Seo-jun reached out for Dex’s face with slender fingers. Dex’s eyes widened then clamped shut in embarrassment when Seo-jun peeled a slice of avocado stuck to Dex’s cheek.

Grabbing a napkin, Dex wiped his cheek, mortified to find a little ham and tomato had been stuck there, too.

“You’re not getting enough sleep,” Seo-jun said seriously. “Why don’t you go back to Brand’s apartment and take a nap?”

“I’m fine.” Dex stood, wobbling a little before regaining his balance and taking his trash to the can at the back of the employees’ break room.

“You’re dead on your feet. Go take a nap. It’s not busy. You could at least catch a couple of hours and then come back.”

Dex was tempted. Weeks of losing hours of sleep every night because no one else at Falcon Security could do the online work that he did, had finally caught up to him.

“Go on,” Seo-jun urged. “Brand and I discussed it already. Go.”

Dex considered. Maybe if he did it just today, he’d rally and be able to go on as usual.

“Okay. Just this once.”

They both had a key to Brand’s apartment, so Dex took a cab back to the building. He yawned in the elevator all the way up to the fifth floor, anticipating kicking off his shoes and sinking into the mattress—maybe on Seo-jun’s side so Dex could breathe in his scent while he slept, creepy as that sounded. He knew it would comfort him and help him sleep. When he turned the key in the lock of Brand’s apartment door, he was thinking about that spicey scent when it registered that the bottom lock had turned too easily. It had been locked, hadn’t it? The top lock was definitely engaged. After a moment, Dex decided he’d imagined that it had felt unlocked. Or possibly, since Brand had been the one to lock up that morning, he had forgotten to lock the doorknob and had only engaged the dead bolt.

The apartment was dark, cool, and quiet. Slipping off his shoes off at the door, Dex headed straight for the bedroom. Just before he reached it, he sensed a movement beside him and then pain exploded in his head and everything went dark.

Chapter Eight: Seo-jun

“Seo-jun!”

After Dex had left for Brand’s apartment, Seo-jun had finished his lunch and was about to start restocking the juice bar when Brand called to him.

“I just got a call from Sarah, next door.” Brand looked worried, and Seo-jun immediately walked around the bar to meet him. Sarah was a woman in her fifties who lived alone with her three cats in the apartment next to Brand’s. Dex was always giving them treats.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She saw someone suspicious leaving my place a few minutes ago.”

Seo-jun frowned. Sarah knew Dex. Besides, Dex would have barely gotten there—he wouldn’t be leaving so soon.

“The person she described sounded like Matt,” Brand said.

“Call the police.” Seo-jun wiped his hands on the apron he was wearing before taking it off. “I’m going over there.”

“I’m going with you,” Brand said, cell phone already to his ear. Seo-jun didn’t argue. They didn’t have time, and Brand would be safer with Seo-jun than at the gym without him.

While Brand hung the closed sign on the door and locked up, telling Kaitlyn to go on home, Seo-jun took out his gun from the holster inside his pants and scanned the area outside the gym before hustling Brand to the car.

The six-minute drive to Brand’s building had never seemed so long. At the first red light, Seo-jun shot a text to Jase about the situation. Fortunately, he made every light after that one. In front of Brand’s building, Seo-jun parked illegally and hustled Brand inside, the sound of sirens in the distance assuring him the police were on their way. He was tempted to take the stairs, but the lobby was vacant and the elevator opened immediately when Seo-jun pressed the button.

As soon as they got to Brand’s floor, Seo-jun’s heart rate tripled when he saw that the door of Brand’s apartment stood ajar.

Sarah stepped out of her apartment. Seo-jun guessed she must have been watching for them through the peephole of her door.

“The police are coming,” he told her before turning to Brand. “Go inside Sarah’s apartment with her and stay there until the police get here. Lock the door behind you.”

With that accomplished, Seo-jun considered his next move. He should wait for the police. The sirens were louder now—just outside the building. But hell if he was going to waste more time when Dex could be hurt. The inside of the apartment was dark. Gun at the ready, Seo-jun pushed it the rest of the way open and charged into the apartment. A scan of the living room and kitchen showed them to be empty. Seo-jun quickly checked the balcony before heading for the bedrooms.

That’s when he saw the body on the hallway floor.

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