Luther tossed her a sideways glance. “So there are no copies in existence.”
Katie gave him a sheepish smile. “I bluffed.” Then she looked back at Blake. “I have the letters. They’re in my purse in my car.”
“We didn’t see your car outside,” Wes commented.
“We had to abandon it when we fled the prison,” Luther explained. “I can give you the exact location.”
Blake nodded, then motioned to Katie. “By prison I’m assuming you mean the vampire penitentiary near Grass Valley.” He shifted his gaze to Luther. “From which our friend here was just recently released.”
“Yes, the vampire prison. When I couldn’t get a hold of you and ran into Luther…”
Luther clasped her forearm. “Maybe I should explain from here.” He looked at the three Scanguards men. “When I saw the letters, I realized that somebody connected to the prison had to have sent them. So I decided to help Katie locate the person who wrote them.”
That Katie had practically blackmailed him by threatening to set all of Scanguards on his ass and use witchcraft on him—witchcraft she didn’t even possess!—was immaterial. He was certainly not going to admit to the men standing in front of him that he’d been tricked by a woman.
“You could have let us do that. No reason to get involved. Samson told you to stay out of our way,” Blake said.
Luther scoffed. “Yeah, and the moment you learned about the letters coming from the prison, you would have put two and two together and chased me instead of the real culprit. Samson isn’t acting rational right now. He would have just—”
Grayson jumped at him, baring his fangs. “How dare you talk about my father like that?”
Luther didn’t budge an inch. “You’re just like him, hothead!”
“You fucking—”
“Shut up, Grayson!” Blake ordered and pulled him back. “He’s right. Samson would have pulled resources off other leads and chased down Luther. And considering that Katie is still alive and Isabelle isn’t here, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s got nothing to do with Isabelle’s kidnapping.” He lifted his chin. “Go on.”
“I’d seen a cell of one of the V-CONs plastered with posters of Katie. I figured he was obsessed with her. Had to be him. I had to find out his name, and I could only do that from inside the prison. So we broke in.”
“How?” Blake asked.
“You don’t need to know the details about that. What’s important is that we got the information we were looking for and got out.”
“Apparently you ran into a few problems.” Blake motioned to the bloodstain on Katie’s shirt.
“They kind of don’t like it when you break in and then try to break out again,” Luther said nonchalantly. “Anyway…” He turned to Katie. “The printout.”
Katie dug into her jeans pocket and pulled out the folded sheet. Blake reached for it and unfolded it. His eyes flew over the information printed on it.
“Cliff Forrester. You sure?” he asked.
Luther nodded. “Has to be him. He was released a week ago. He had ample time to plan this. And the letters he sent to Katie over the last year seem to suggest he was preparing to come for her.”
Blake looked up. “Good work.” He handed the piece of paper to Wesley. “Call HQ and give them this information.”
“And what do we do about him?” Wesley asked, glancing at Luther.
Blake took a step toward Luther. “Thank you for your help. In light of all this, let’s forget what happened here. But I think it would be best for all involved, if you left the area like Samson suggested.”
“Well, that’s just not gonna happen,” Katie snapped.
Luther spun his head to her, as did the others.
“Excuse me?” Blake said.
“You heard me. Luther risked his life to get us this information, and now you’re gonna just dismiss him?”
“By the looks of it, he risked your life, too!” Blake grunted. “So excuse me, if I’m not too keen on having him around. Nor will Samson or Amaury tolerate him getting involved in this.”
“Well, he’s already involved. Without him, you wouldn’t have anything! Maybe his methods are a little unorthodox, but at least they produce results. We now know who’s got Isabelle. Now we just have to find him.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest. “So you have a choice here: either you let Luther help us find Isabelle, or you turn around now and I’ll investigate with Luther on my own.”