Page 57 of Renaissance Bear

"You have now," the officer said, walking up to the table. "I might just take one of those beers, if you don't mind."

Alis straightened like she'd been electrified. "Please do. Did you find Mayor Whitfield?"

"Tied up in Shelly Banks's basement," Gus said with a nod. "Did you know the old guy was a Marine, Jon?"

Jon's eyebrows flew upward. "No I did not."

"As it turns out, neither did Nelson Moore, aka Lord Argent." Gus took a long sip of beer and put the bottle down again, gazing into it before glancing up at Alis. "You probably saved his life. They'd just about decided to kill him, after spending the last few days arguing about it. It was a stupid plan," he said with a sigh. "From start to finish. But Moore thought he was on to something, and he knew Shelly from some Faires she's been to back East, so he roped her in."

Alis, fairly dancing with agitation, said, "But whatwasthe plan?"

"Therearesome people looking to buy up a trademark on the 'Renaissance Faire' name," Gus confirmed. "Moore knows a few of them and got early word about it. He thought he could turn a fat profit if he could get hold of the Renaissance, Colorado fairgrounds."

"So why didn't he just buy it?" Jon said, then shook his head and answered his own question. "Because it cost a lot more money than he had, obviously."

"Obviously," Gus agreed. "So he hatched this stupid plan to try to make some kind of land grab. But that's not even the dumbest part." He waited a suitable beat while Alis reached out to grab Jon's hand in anticipation. "The dumbest part is that he specifically wanted to do this to get one over on the Torbens."

Alis froze, then shot a quick look at Jon, seeing if he understood. He shook his head and opened his free hand toward Gus in question.

"Apparently," the officer said, "your brother broke his nose in a tournament fight a couple years ago?"

Jon did a full-fledged double-take, from Gus to Laurie and back again. "He did this because Laurie broke hisnose? The mayor almost got killed over abroken nose?"

"Looks like," Gus said with a disbelieving shake of his head. "He's been nursing a grudge ever since. He was planning to face Laurie in combat here. It was evidently going to make his victory complete: beat Laurie on the battleground, then yank the whole faire away from Renaissance and your family in particular."

"Wow," Alis breathed after a moment. "That guy needs to get out more."

"Well, that's not going to happen," Saunders said dryly. "He's almost certainly going to jail for a long time."

Alis leaned in, lowering her voice. "Do shifters go to true human prisons?"

"Yeah, although with ones like him, we might have to make other arrangements." Saunders dropped his voice, too. "He's a silver fox, and foxes run comparatively small. They can get out of places humans might not be able to."

Jon looked at his hand, making a claw of it. "Then how'd he mark up the desk like that? Even shifter foxesaren'tthat big. How'd they make such amessof City Hall?"

Gus puffed his cheeks out. "Whitfield put up a hell of a fight. Moore says he caused most of the destruction." A grin flashed across the officer's face. "He didn't say it in so many words, but I got the impression the old guy had Moore running scared with his tail between his legs. Apparently he had a shotgun in his office and took a couple shots. I haven't looked into it yet, but it might be that scarring is from pellets."

"It didn't smell like gunpowder," Jon said stubbornly.

Alis squeezed his hand. "But nothing else smelled right, either. I didn't notice pellets buried in the floor, but there was a lot of crap on the floor."

Jon stared at her briefly, then groaned. "Apples and onions. Dammit. I got fixated on the idea those scars were claw marks, and… well, hell. But..." He shook his head, slow delight crawling into his confused smile. "Not gonna lie, I love the idea of Whitfield up there shooting down at Argent, but wouldn't somebody have heard it?"

"How many businesses close up early on the first Friday of Faire?" Gus countered, and Jon groaned again.

"Right. Yeah. Okay. Basically all of them. Which was why he figured he could try this at all. And that's an old building with thick walls and doors. With the door closed, somebody might have just thought it was a car backfiring."

Gus nodded. "A perfect storm. And he would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."

Alis laughed. "No, he wouldn't have. The bank was already dragging its feet over that weird sales release memo."

"Well, true enough. But Whitfield might have ended up dead, and that would have been a shame. Also." Gus's eyebrows flickered up. "He knows about shifters now, so he's probably going to be an even better mayor than he was."

"Jesus, and I thought I was surprised," Alis said. "Can you imagine fighting back during an abduction and finding out your kidnapper can turn into a fox?"

"It's probably a little more surprising than finding out the notorious Black Knight, also known as Lord Edward, is a woman." Gus grinned at her. "Congratulations on your win today, Lady Alessandra. Onallyour wins." He finished his beer, rose, and left them alone while Alis blushed happily, then suddenly grabbed Jon's hand again.

"Oh. Oh, I've got to introduce you to Jasmine, I mean for real, but also, Jon, can I tell her about you? About shifters? Because there's no way I can not. We share everything."

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