“Then it’s time they were made aware, because this is a very worrying situation,” Trevor said. “Do you have their contact information?”
More tapping on this tablet. “Yes, sir.”
Trevor pulled out his phone and tried calling both phones, but the calls went to voicemail. He left messages on both before turning back to Wilford. “The father?”
“I already called him this morning and left a message. Voicemail. I doubt we’ll receive a call back from him soon.”
“What about a home number?”
“No, sir. No landline.”
Trevor knew frustration could be as dangerous as impatience when it came to executing plans, but he was on his last nerve. “As Pack Alpha, I’m pulling rank and talking to his mother and sister. I’d rather be doing something than uselessly sitting around. Call me as soon as you make contact with Fredrik.”
“Yes, sir.” Wilford picked a man to stay, then Trevor and the rest piled into the three rental cars they’d obtained and headed out.
Garrison, Trevor’s Head Enforcer, drove the vehicle Trevor rode in. “I have a bad feeling about this, sir,” Garrison said. “I wish Peyton hadn’t gone ahead alone.”
“Yes, well, so do I, but the man obviously knows how to assess risks as well as, if not better than, we do. He is a Prime, after all.”
“Something’s not right about this situation,” Garrison insisted.
Since the slaughter at the safe house, Garrison had changed—understandably so—but Trevor wasn’t sure those changes were positive ones.
Like the fact that Garrison now second-guessed himself all the time, almost to the point of indecision, out of fear he’d make the wrong choice.
“Peyton would have notified me immediately if there was an issue with Wilford,” Trevor said.
“No, not with him,” Garrison said. “This situation is too…convenient. I don’t like it.”
“Explain.”
“Faegan’s previous tactic is to lose himself and blend in, either in human form or as a dog. While he’s taken to the wilds to put distance between himself and us, he never stays there. Why would he suddenly set up a semi-permanent camp in the wilderness here, of all places? Especially where we know he doesn’t speak the language? Where it’d be nearly impossible for him to blend in with the locals? Near a town or city with greater populations, that I could see him doing. Able to move in and out of busier areas as needed. Immediate access to transportation and the ability to blend into crowds.”
Trevor didn’t like the fact that Garrison was giving voice to dark tendrils of doubts attempting to lodge themselves in Trevor’s mind.
“We’ll talk to the mother and sister and find out where our contact is,” Trevor said. “Remember, this is rural Norway. Life moves at a slower pace here. Especially this far north. From what I’ve gleaned, they make Shetland residents look positively frantic in comparison.”
Garrison slowly shook his head. “I’m telling you, sir, I don’t like this.”
The family home sat alone in a lightly wooded hollow flanked on one side by a sheer rock face. No immediate neighbors, and not a large enough parcel for farming, but Trevor immediately recognized it would give a shifter and his family the kind of privacy that would likely be far out of reach of the average urban shifter.
A long, rutted driveway led from the road up to the house, where an ancient mud-spattered Toyota Land Cruiser sat parked on an area of gravel near the front door. To Trevor, it appeared there should be at least one more vehicle, based on the grooves he saw worn into the gravel and grass in the parking area. Despite the chilly morning, no smoke wafted from either of the two chimneys poking from the roof. The curtains in all of the visible windows were pulled closed.
When the three vehicles were shut off and Trevor opened his door, an eerie silence immediately met him, setting his hackles on edge before he’d even set one foot on the ground.
“Wait,” Trevor called out to everyone as he slowly emerged from the vehicle, Garrison doing the same on the other side.
Remaining shielded behind the open doors, Trevor called out. “Vera? Katarina? Frederik? It’s Trevor Clarke.”
Only eerie silence met them.
“Honk the horn,” Trevor said to Garrison, who reached in and tapped it twice. “Vera?” Trevor called out again. “Katarina? Frederik?”
Still nothing. Not even a dog barking.
That’s when the whiff of a scent hit Trevor at the same time it did Garrison, if the other man’s expression was any indication. Trevor and Garrison looked at each other over the roof of the car before Trevor turned toward the others, who were also now out of their cars. He pointed, selecting four of the men and whispering to them just loudly enough that he knew they’d hear him. “Circle around back and check it out. Quietly. The rest of you follow us.”
“Let me go first, sir,” Garrison said.
