Gilt_ By Invitation Only - Geneva Lee Page 0,41

will and testament make me guilty as sin in the eyes of the Belle Mère Police?" He's yelling now and I flinch at the brutal accusation running through his words. I'd brought this response on myself. "Or maybe you want to know about earlier when he came out onto the patio and found us there, and I pulled him inside before he could wake you up? Or about the argument we had after? If you like I can give you a timeline. It’ll be an easier sell to the gossip magazines. Be honest, this is just another one of your little games. I only want you to tell me one thing.”

“Is this what you think of me,” I break in, choking back my own rage, “because if so, there’s the door. Get the fuck out."

"I asked first.” He ignores my request completely. Maybe I need to be a little less polite about it.

He leans so close to me that we're nearly kissing. “Are you looking for fame or fortune Duchess?”

I want to scream at him that I want the truth, but it’s a little too A Few Good Men for me. Instead, I settle for walking over to the door and throwing it open.

“Out.” I don’t scream, I say it softly.

He strides past me, casting one hottie glance before he walks back into the store. I follow him out only to spot Jerry scurrying as far away from the two of us as possible.

“You get what you came for?” he asks Jameson as he walks toward the door.

“No,” Jameson barks at him, “you have nothing I want here.”

Jameson West is as hot and cold as a bad faucet. If I turn him on I don’t know what I’ll get. I spend the rest of the day replaying the conversation in my head, wondering how it got exactly from lighthearted banter to serious topics to accusations so quickly. But like everything centered around him, I’m left with more questions than answers.

Chapter Thirteen

A few hours later, I'm still fuming. I slam down the baseball card I've been analyzing and glare at it's owner. I'm not sure how he manages to keep his eyes wide and innocent underneath the bushy caterpillars that he calls eyebrows. Usually, I try to kill them with kindness. Even scammers often have a guilty conscious. Nine times out of ten, they'll grab their own junk and take off before I have to call them out. Sometimes they even apologize, but this guy must have brass balls. Too bad I'm about to hold them to the fire. "Wow. A baseball card signed by Babe Ruth."

I play dumb for a minute, simply because I enjoy watching the puppet dance. He leans against the counter and nods his head before he adjusts the collar of his tracksuit, "Yeah. One of my clients was running a little low on cash. He offered me this. I guess he didn't know what he had."

Okay, I didn't expect that. Now I almost feel bad for the guy. "What's your business?"

"Private investigator." He magics a business card out of his back pocket and hands it to me. “Dominic Chamber."

I suck in a breath and prep myself to give him the bad news. "Mr. Chamber," I begin, but he stops me.

"Dominic, please."

"Dominic, maybe you should stick to taking pictures of married men and tracking down lost puppies."

"Oh, man," he scratches the back of his head. Are you telling me that's fake?"

"Yeah," I slide it across the glass to him. "Babe Ruth probably didn't use a blue Bic to sign autographs."

I could go into details about the Ruth’s signature or how rarely he actually autographed something, but there's no need to rub salt in the wound. Hopefully, he stops accepting payment in the form of sentimental memorabilia.

"The card has to be worth something, right?" He scoops it up and studies it for a minute.

“Reproduction,” I tell him gently. Why not tackle all the bad news today?

"Well, thanks."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I wish it was real too." Even though I'm surrounded by authentic comic books and baseball cards, vintage guitars and more, ninety percent of what passes through this shop isn't real. It's easy enough to turn away the scammers, but far too many of the people who drag their treasures into us find out that they're clinging to another man's junk.

"Don't worry about it. I sent the guy the pictures he needs in an online gallery.” He takes out his phone and swipes the screen a