“That’s impossible.” Luther pointed back to the monitor. “Where’s his gun?”

For a moment Blake said nothing.

“Did your guys remove Forrester’s gun before I walked into the building?” Luther asked.

“No. Nobody touched anything until after you and I left.”

“Then how could he have shot at you when there was no gun? The explosion wasn’t strong enough to pulverize his weapon. Hell, I saw parts of a radio and some metal bits. But nothing that looked like a gun.”

Blake ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck!”

Luther turned back to the monitor, staring at it again. He felt the other vampires in the room come closer, also looking at the monitor.

“Play it again from where we see Forrester’s face.”

Thomas followed his request and replayed the image.

“It looks like he’s screaming,” Eddie said next to him.

Luther looked over his shoulder at Blake. “Did you hear him scream?”

“No. Not a sound. And we were close enough. We would have heard him.”

“Thomas, can you zoom in on his mouth?”

Luther focused his eyes on Forrester’s mouth as Thomas increased the image by two hundred percent. That’s when he saw it.

“Oh shit!” Luther slammed a fist on the desk. “You know what this is?” He pointed to the charred looking inside of Forrester’s mouth. “Forrester’s mouth and throat were burned with a UV ray gun to prevent him from speaking.” He pivoted, facing the other men in the room. “Forrester was a patsy.”

“But how?” Blake stared at him in disbelief.

“Get Isabelle in here. She can identify her kidnapper,” Luther ordered.

Gabriel rushed outside, leaving the door open.

“Thomas, put the photo of Forrester up on another monitor.”

Without a word, Thomas executed the command and displayed the picture. Footsteps came closer a moment later and Luther looked to the door. Samson rushed in, followed by Delilah who had her arm around Isabelle. Samson’s two hybrid sons were behind them.

“What’s going on?” Samson asked, his voice tense.

“I believe Forrester was a scapegoat.” Luther looked at Isabelle. “Isabelle, was this the man who kidnapped you?” He pointed to the screen.

Isabelle took a few hesitant steps closer, clutching her mother’s hand. Her eyes moved, looking at the picture on the screen. Then she met Luther’s gaze. “No. That’s not him.”

Luther felt as if a vise was tightening around his heart and squeezing all life from it. “Shit!” The wheels in his head began to turn. There had to be a way to figure out who had been using Forrester to lead them on the wrong trail. “Thomas, you said you had a recording of when the kidnapper killed Mendoza and took Isabelle. Let me hear it.”

“Give me a sec.” Thomas clicked on an icon on the computer, then opened various folders, until finally, he clicked an audio file and turned up the volume for all in the room to hear.

“Here she is.”

“That’s Mendoza,” Thomas said.

Somebody grunted. “Who the fuck is that? That’s not Kimberly Fairfax! What am I paying you good money for?”

“That’s him,” Isabelle said, her voice shaking. “That’s the man who took me after killing Mendoza.”

Luther’s heart turned to ice. “Turn it off, Thomas.” He stared at the people in the room. “I know him. It’s one of the guards from the prison. It’s Norris.”

No wonder he’d been able to use Forrester. Norris knew everything about him. It all made sense now.

“He would have known about Forrester’s obsession with Katie, but I don’t think Forrester was the one who wrote the letters. Norris was. He set it all up. Forrester had movie posters with Katie in his cell. Maybe Norris saw her there for the first time and developed his own obsession.” Luther ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Norris went on leave the night I was released. He must have hired Mendoza to snatch Katie for him, and then when he realized that Mendoza got Isabelle instead, he changed his plan and grabbed Forrester.”

“But why?” Samson asked.

“He knew he needed to do an exchange. And he needed a fall guy for that. So he got Forrester, tied him up and let us believe he was the kidnapper.” Luther pointed at the monitor. “I saw something blink silver in the light when I was in the storehouse where Forrester supposedly blew himself up. There were remnants of a speaker or a radio. My guess is that Norris piped all the sounds in remotely via a radio, the gunshots you heard. He must have been watching via a camera. He made us believe that Forrester spoke to us and shot at us. That’s why there was no gun. Forrester was a sitting duck. Norris waited for us to get close enough and then blew him up. And so Forrester couldn’t warn us, he singed his mouth and throat with UV rays.”