He laughed, his hat shadowing his face as he bowed his head and chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded, feeling foolish.

“You.” His eyes were bright. “You were never in any danger in that rat pit. I was only using it to knock home your current sordid state. But I did make a few astounding contacts while I was there.”

“You son of—” Lips pressed tight, I clenched my hand into a fist.

Trent’s mirth vanished and his head tilted in warning as he took a step away. “I wouldn’t,” he threatened, raising a finger. “I really wouldn’t.”

I slowly rocked back, my knees shaking in the memory of the pit. The gut-twisting feeling of helplessness, of being trapped and forced to kill or be killed, washed through me. I had been Trent’s toy. Him running me down on horseback was nothing compared to that. After all, I had been thieving from him at the time.

“Listen to me really good, Trent,” I whispered, the thought of Quen forcing me to retreat until the concrete pressed cold into the small of my back. “I’m not working for you. I’m going to take you down. I’m going to figure out how to tie you to every one of those murders.”

“Oh please,” he said, and I wondered how we went so quickly from a Fortune-twenty businessman and a slick independent runner to two people squabbling over past injustices. “Are you still on that? Even Captain Edden realizes Dan Smather’s body was dumped in my stables, which is why he sent his son to watch me instead of filing charges. And as for having contact with the victims, yes, I talked to them all, trying to employ them, not kill them. You have a very strong skill set, Ms. Morgan, but detective is not among them. You are far too impatient, driven by your intuitive skills, which seem to only work forward, not backward.”

Affronted, I put my hands on my hips and made a sound of disbelief. Who did he think he was, lecturing me?

Trent reached into a shirt pocket, pulling out a white envelope and handing it to me. Leaning forward and back, I snatched it, flipping it open. My breath caught as I realized it held twenty crisp hundred-dollar bills.

“That’s ten percent up front, the rest on completion,” he said, and I froze, trying to look cavalier. Twenty thousand dollars? “I want you to identify who is responsible for the murders. I’ve been trying to hire a ley line witch for the last three months, and every one of them ends up dead. It’s growing tiresome. All I want is a name.”

“You can go to hell, Kalamack,” I said, dropping the envelope when he didn’t take it back. I was angry and frustrated. I had come here with information so fine, I was sure I was going to get a confession. What I got was threatened, insulted, and then bribed.

Looking unperturbed, he stooped to pick up the envelope, smacking it against his palm several times to get the grit off before tucking it away. “You do realize that with that little stunt you pulled yesterday, you are next on the killer’s list? You fit the profile nicely, having shown yourself as proficient in ley line magic, and then adding our little tryst today.”