Page 33 of Renaissance Bear

She looked pleased but also rolled her eyes, which made Jon laugh. "I guess that puts me in my place."

"Not your best line," she agreed. "Too cliched. The hatchet face one was much better."

"You're the one who said you had a hatchet face!"

"But you turned it around so well. Which one's the mayor's office?"

"It's in City Hall." Jon offered his hand, and Alis took it as they walked up to the big yellow-brick building with its ornate door. The door usually stood open when the weather permitted, an invitation for anyone to come in and talk to the town government, but this morning it was closed. Not locked, though: Jon pushed it open and stepped inside, squinting briefly as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.

Even after they had, it took a moment to understand what he was seeing.

Half the interior doors were broken, either the glass in them shattered or the doors themselves halfway off their hinges, bent and misshapen. There were papers scattered everywhere, and the front counter, a massive thing that had been there since the1880s, was scarred from some kind of fight. There were score marks across it, the kind of thing a bear or wildcat might make. Jon fought the powerful urge to shift and see if his paws would fit the size of the scarring. He was almost certain they would.

But a bear or wildcat that size couldn't possibly wander through downtown Renaissance unnoticed. Even more to the point, a bear or wildcat that size almost certainly wasn't a true animal. Only shifters got that big, which meant that whatever problems Jon had thought Renaissance was facing, they were suddenly much, much worse.

Chapter 15

Picture perfect dissolved into cinematic carnage, and Alis didn't know what to do about that. Some kind of fight had clearly taken place in the city hall: she could see spatters of blood, dried brown on the scattered paperwork, and staining the floor and walls. Glass and broken wood was everywhere, making the floor treacherous. It looked like a tornado had blown through, smashing everything up and leaving confusion in its wake. There were even railings broken upstairs; the city hall had two floors, with balcony-style walkways in front of the glass-plated doors up there, like some kind of old saloon. Only one or two of the upstairs doors were wrecked, though almost everything downstairs was.

Right in front of her, in the middle of the ground floor, a large, scarred reception counter had a wall behind it, like a free-standing room had been built in the middle of the otherwise-open floorspace. She leaned to the side just a little, following the line of the central room down the length of most of the building, but the blood drew her attention again.

It was rusty brown, dried all the way through. Which meant whatever had happened here, hadn't happened this morning. "Jon?"

The big man with her flinched, then looked toward her with a grim expression. "Alis…"

"What time does City Hall close on Fridays?"

He blinked, obviously not expecting that question, then passed a hand over the braids he'd put into his hair. "Usually six, just like the rest of the week, but it always closes early the weekend Faire begins, so everybody can get out to be part of the festivities. Four o'clock. Maybe as early as three, if it's not a busy day."

Alis wet her lips. "So this could have happened any time from four o'clock on Friday. What time does the bank close?"

"Five." Jon's eyes widened. "Shit. You think somebody forged paperwork?"

"Or forced it." Alis gestured at the mess around them. "We need to call the police."

"I—we—" Jon growled, a startling deep sound that made Alis take a startled step back. "I need to see the security footage, if there is any." He gestured toward the corners, drawing her attention to cameras, then picked his way through the wreckage with grim determination.

Alis followed, confused and cautious. "Shouldn't the police do that?"

"Yes, but…it's complicated, Alis. I'll try to explain in a minute."

The boxed-in central room had a door halfway down it, the wordSecurityetched into the still-whole glass plate that made up its upper half. Jon tried the door and grimaced unhappily when it opened. Alis, still following him, saw the bolt had been kicked out, but somebody had still taken the time to close it behind them.

The security room had desks, screens, an air conditioning unit that Alis bet was critical in the summers, and a series of hard drives that had been completely trashed. Most of the screens were black. When she turned one on, it flipped into a blue screen of death rather than show anything from anywhere in the building. Jon swore, said, "Maybe that's good," and swore again.

"Why would it be good?"

"It's—it's not good, but it's…we don't film well anyway, not when we're…" He was clearly talking to himself, mostly muttering while Alis waited for some kind of explanation.

When it didn't appear to be forthcoming, she took her phone out. "I'm calling the police."

"Alis." Jon's attention all came to focus on her, and he put his hand on top of her phone. "Wait."

"Wait for what? Whatever happened here needs to be investigated!"

"Yes, but we need to make sure the right officers come down."

She eyed him suspiciously. "That doesn't sound good, Jon. What do you mean, therightofficers?"

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