Isaac let his ring out for another couple of seconds, and just as he was about to hang up, someone answered.
“Hello?”
It definitely wasn’t Logan’s mum—the voice was male, for starters—and Isaac froze for a moment, wondering whether to reply or hang up. The voice sounded vaguely familiar though.
“Hello?” he said eventually, trusting his gut.
“Isaac?”
Michael’s head snapped up. “Put it on speaker.”
Isaac did it without question.
“Jacob, it’s Michael,” Michael said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Isaac.
“Jacob?” No wonder it sounded familiar. “I didn’t recognise your voice.”
“Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t sure who was calling.”
But more importantly, “Why have you got Marie’s phone?” Isaac asked, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach, because that couldn’t be good.
Jacob’s weary sigh had Michael glancing at him, eyebrows drawn together. “When neither she nor Andrew answered their phones for over twenty-four hours, I went round to their house on the pretence of asking about Logan.
“There was no sign of forced entry, but McKillan pack scent was all over the back door. Faint, but it was definitely ours. Both Marie and Andrew were interviewed at the hospital after they brought Baker in. There’s no record of any McKillan official pack visits to their house, and the scent wasn’t anyone I recognised. I know where they keep these phones, and I have a key, so I went in and retrieved them in case anyone came back to search the house.”
“Fuck,” Isaac hissed and nodded at Michael. “We need to tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Isaac handed Michael the phone and turned to stare out the window at the beautiful blue sky as Michael filled Jacob in on everything Paul had said.
Had it only been that morning that he’d sat in the darkness of the early hours waiting for him?
“Fuck’s sake!” Jacob groaned. “I knew something was going on with the HRU, but they’re all so fucking tight-lipped over there, especially after what went down. I have another guy I trust in there, but getting to talk to him is virtually impossible at the minute. If Simon has Logan’s parents, then I have no idea where he’s hiding them.”
“What about Baker?” Michael asked, clenching Isaac’s phone so tightly he feared it might crack. “Is he doing okay?”
“I have no idea. No one can get to see him because he’s all tied up with Shifter Alliance and council crap, which I’m pretty sure is Simon’s doing. But of course I can’t prove it.”
Jacob sighed again, sounding as frustrated as Isaac felt. “He’s still alpha, if that’s what you’re asking, but there’s rumours spreading around the pack that he might not be for long. And that has to be fucking Simon’s doing. With Baker tied up with red-tape, he swans around the pack house and the London offices like he’s already taken over.
“I say this with complete understanding that these things take time, but Paul is absolutely right: whatever you’re planning, you need to do it soon, or I’m not sure what sort of pack you’ll be coming back to.”
Isaac flinched at the reminder that Michael was expected to return to London after this was all over. Too busy listening to Jacob, Michael hadn’t noticed, and Isaac had schooled his features by the time he looked up.
“I need to go,” Jacob said quickly. “Need to get back to the office.”
They said their goodbyes, and Michael ended the call as voices sounded on the stairs.
Smith walked into the kitchen, followed by Logan and Cole, with the rest of them not far behind. When they’d all taken their seats around the table, predictably, it was Logan who spoke first.
“Have you heard anything about my mum and dad?”
Isaac shared a look with Michael and nodded for him to explain.
Logan’s expression darkened as he listened, and Isaac didn’t blame him. While it seemed to confirm their suspicions that his mum and dad had indeed been taken, the information they’d got from Jacob didn’t give them any sort of clue as to where they were being held.
Or if they were still alive, even.
