“And his sons?” Drake prompted. Someone was killing in the swamps and it had to be stopped. There was no question whoever was doing it was a shifter. He still hadn’t checked out Amos Jeanmard or his son. He was not disclosing information to the man and as long as he was staying at the inn where Saria was, she would either be in his room, or one of his men would be sitting outside her door in the building, and another outside.

Amos frowned. “I don’ know what to think about those boys.” He rubbed at his chin, his frown deepening to a scowl. “Like their daddy, we didn’ see much of them. Like I said, Buford was a mean drunk and he ruled with his fists. I don’ think they had much of a childhood and they didn’ go to school much. The three of them were close though. You fought one Tregre, you fought them all. Renard was the oldest and he had it the worst. He looked out for his mother and the other two boys. When he went away for a while, it shocked everyone. I think that’s when the old man got worse.”

“But then he came back with a wife. A shifter,” Drake prompted when the older man went silent.

Amos shrugged. “Yes, he brought back a beautiful wife and I knew I had mismanaged everything. I had thrown away my life with Pauline and doomed our lair to extinction. I was born and raised in the swamp. Worked most of my life here. Never left, never thought of leavin’. I thought this was all there were until Renard brought her home with him.”

“The other brothers married someone from the outside, not a shifter, didn’t they?” Drake guessed.

“Buford despised anyone who wasn’t a shifter. He even grew to hate his wife and children—all but Renard—his other two sons because they married non-shifters, and his wife because she wasn’t his true mate.”

“You knew that and you didn’t stop him?”

“I didn’t know it until Renard came to me and told me all the boys were gettin’ out. He said his father was insane. He told me he was certain the old man had killed his mother and that he had attacked his wife one night when he was workin’ out in the swamp. The other women admitted to their husbands that Buford had been doin’ the same thing to them and threatened to kill them if they told.”