Stomach twisting, I met his mocking gaze. I was going to do just what he wanted. He had manipulated me into helping him. Damn, damn, and double damn. Crossing to his side of the bridge, I put my elbows atop the thick railing with my back to Glenn. Sharps was deep underwater, only the lack of ducks to say he was here. Beside me stood Trent.

“Did you send Sara Jane to the FIB with the sole intention that Edden would involve me?” I asked bitterly.

Trent shifted, putting himself so near I could smell the clean scent of his aftershave. I didn’t like how close he was, but if I moved, he’d know it bothered me. “Yes,” he said softly.

In his voice was the sound of truth I had been waiting for, and a trickle of excitement pulled my breath tight. There it was. Now I had it. He’d never be able to lie to me again. Looking back over our past conversations in a new light, I realized that apart from the reason he’d given me for being at his father’s camp, he never had. Ever.

“She doesn’t know him, does she?” I asked.

“A few dates to get the picture, but no. It was a calculated certainty that he would be murdered after he agreed to work for me, though I tried to protect him. Quen is very upset,” he said lightly, his gaze on Sharps’s ripples. “That Mr. Smather turned up in my stables means the killer is getting cocky.”

My eyes closed briefly in frustration as I scrambled to realign my thinking. Trent hadn’t killed those witches. Someone else had. I could either take the money and help Trent solve his little employment problem or not take the money and he’d get it for free. I’d take the money. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

Seeing my new understanding, Trent smiled. It was all I could do to not spit in his face. His long hands hung out over the edge of the railing. The sun turned his tan a warm golden color that almost glowed against his white shirt, and his face was shadowed. Wisps of his hair moved in the breeze, almost touching my own wayward strands.

With a casual movement, he reached into his shirt pocket, and with our bodies hiding the action from Glenn, he extended the envelope. Feeling dirty, I took it, shoving it out of sight behind my jacket and into my waistband.

“Excellent,” he said, warm and sincere. “I’m glad we can work together.”

“Go Turn yourself, Kalamack.”

“I’m reasonably confident that it’s a master vampire,” he said, easing away from me.

“Which one?” I asked, disgusted with myself. Why was I doing this?