“You outbid me?” Ivy shouted, and Ceri slipped between us and into the sanctuary, Rex twining around her feet. “That was you I was bidding against? I thought it was my mother!”

The click of Quen’s car door opening was lost in the hush of rain, and Jenks still hadn’t answered me. Quen glanced at me across the top of his car before he got in and drove away. “Damn it, pixy!” I shouted. “You’d better start talking! Where did you get the money?”

“I…uh, pulled a job with Quen,” he said hesitantly.

The masculine murmur of Keasley and David rose, and I shut the door against the damp night. Jenks had said “job,” not “run.” There was a difference. “What kind of job?” I asked warily.

If a pixy could hover guiltily, Jenks was. “Nothing much,” he said, darting past Ivy and me into the sanctuary. “Nothing that wouldn’t have happened anyway.”

My eyes narrowing, I followed him back to the party, setting Ceri’s hat on the piano in passing. Ivy was right behind me. “What did you do, Jenks?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t have happened on its own,” he whined, shedding green sparkles onto the pool table. “I like where I live,” he said, landing behind the side pocket in his best Peter Pan pose. “You two women are too flaky to put my family in your hands. Just ask anyone here. They’d agree with me!”

Ivy huffed and turned her back on him, muttering under her breath, but I could tell she was relieved her new landlord wasn’t her mom.

“What did you do, Jenks?” I demanded.

Ivy’s eyes narrowed in a sudden thought. Faster than I would have believed possible, she snatched up a pool cue and slammed it down inches from Jenks. The pixy shot up into the air, almost hitting the ceiling. “You little bug!” she exclaimed, and Ceri grabbed Keasley and the cake and headed toward the kitchen. “The paper says Trent’s been released.”

“What!” Appalled, I gazed at Jenks up near the ceiling. Keasley jerked to a brief halt in the hallway, then continued on. David had dropped his head into his hands, but I think he was trying not to laugh.

“The fingerprint they lifted from Brett and the paperwork was lost,” Ivy said, smacking a beam with the cue to make Jenks dart to the next one over. “They dropped the charges. You stupid pixy! He murdered Brett. She had him, and you helped Quen get him off?”

“Wha-a-a-at,” he griped, moving to my shoulder for protection. “I had to do something to save your pretty little ass, Rache. Trent was thi-i-i-i-is close to taking you out.” His voice went high in exaggeration. “Arresting him at his own wedding was stupid, and you know it!”