Luther pulled a chair for Katie and motioned her to sit down, before taking the empty seat next to her. The tension in the room was punctuated by the silence and the looks the other vampires and hybrids gave him. Any other man would have felt nervous at so much scrutiny, but Luther ignored it. He needed to keep a cool head.

Blake knocked on the table to draw everybody’s attention to him. “I want everybody on the same page. So, here’s what we know so far. We know that Isabelle was kidnapped by a vampire named Antonio Mendoza, who was hired to abduct Katie, but mistook them because they wore similar clothes and hairstyles, and had changed roles. Mendoza wasn’t privy to the fact that Isabelle is a hybrid and Katie a witch, or he wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

“We already know all that,” Zane grumbled under his breath, clearly impatient.

Blake shot him a displeased look, but continued, “When Mendoza tried to pass Isabelle to the man who hired him, he was killed.” He pointed to Luther. “Because of Luther’s and Katie’s efforts we know now who this man is.”

He clicked a small remote control in his hand and stepped to the side so everybody had a view of the large monitor behind him. The headshot of a man was displayed on it. He had short dark hair, brown eyes, an oval face, and looked to be in his late thirties.

“The perpetrator’s name is Cliff Forrester. He was released from the vampire penitentiary near Grass Valley nine days ago. Letters he wrote to Katie seem to suggest that he was planning for a long time to kidnap her once he was released.”

“Why wouldn’t he kidnap her himself, and instead hire Mendoza? Seems odd, considering he was released from prison and could do it himself,” Gabriel said.

“Good question,” Blake said. “We believe that Forrester was afraid that due to his stint in prison he might be recognized by council agents who keep tabs on released prisoners for a while. We must assume that he believed it was safer to have somebody else handle the kidnapping. He must have known that there was a chance that the kidnapper would be caught on security cameras.”

“Any news from the council agents about where Forrester is?” Amaury followed up with a question.

“Regretfully, we have not received any cooperation from the prison authority or the council agents.” He motioned to Thomas. “Do you want to update us on that?”

Thomas stood quickly. “In light of the fact that the prison authority is dragging its feet on providing us with the information we need, Eddie and I have taken the issue into our own hands and have our team working on hacking into their system. We’re close and should soon have everything on Forrester, including recordings of his voice as well as his fingerprints, so we can confirm that the letters were written by him, and the voice on the recording we found at Mendoza’s house was indeed Forrester’s. We should know more in a few hours.” He sat down.

“Thanks, Thomas,” Blake said. “But we won’t have time to wait for that confirmation. Forrester made contact.”

A collective mumbling went through the room. Samson pushed himself away from the wall, his hands clenching, his jaw tightening. His lips moved. “Finally,” he murmured.

Luther felt Katie tense next to him and instinctively reached for her hand under the table, squeezing it in reassurance.

“We know that Isabelle is alive. He let her speak to me. He wants to exchange her for Katie. But he didn’t give us any information yet as to where this exchange will take place. Only the time: two hours before sunrise.”

Luther exchanged a look with Katie. She appeared calm and collected. She had expected this, maybe even prepared herself for it mentally.

“Did you get a trace?” Zane asked.

“He didn’t stay on the phone long enough for us to trace the call. And most likely it would have only led us to a burner phone anyway.”

“What are we doing now?” Gabriel asked.

“Now that we have a picture of the kidnapper, thanks to Luther, we have patrols everywhere in the city, canvassing, searching for every possible hiding place. They know not to engage in case they endanger Isabelle’s life.” Blake glanced at Samson, before continuing. “But we’ve had no luck so far. We’ll have to do the exchange. It’s our only way to get Isabelle back.”

Before anybody else could say anything, Katie said, “I’ll do it.”

Haven shot up from his seat at the same time Luther did. “There must be another way,” Haven pleaded, looking at Samson and Blake.

There was a sad look on Samson’s face. “I wish there were. But you heard it yourself. We’ve got nothing. We don’t know where he’s hiding her. She’s still a child, Haven! Can you imagine what she must be feeling?”