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I gave my head a shake, pulling myself slowly straight and smoothing my hands down my terrycloth-clad hips. Deep breath. I was just acting irrationally because I’d been shocked and was still scrambling to understand the situation at hand.
But really? There was no need to run after Aurora Castle, or whatever her real name was, because I knew exactly where to find her.
CHAPTER TEN
Rory
“Wait. Gage Buchanan is pool table guy?” Faith asked, her mouth dropping open after I’d told her how I knew the man whose family estate we’d recently left, the one who’d made it obvious he knew me.
I groaned, and then practically threw myself on the black velvet chaise lounge which was situated at the back of Faith’s gallery. I heard a crack and pulled out the fake glasses that I’d worn to look studious. Another element of “Aurora Castle, art appraiser,” snapped in two. I tossed them aside. “The universe is playing a practical joke on me!”
Faith nodded, taking a seat on one of the two chairs across from where I was sprawled. “It’s really the only explanation,” she agreed. “You must have been a real villain in a past life. Dr. Evil or The Joker.”
“Or Genghis Khan.”
She laughed.
I let out another groan and covered my face. No one should look at me. I was the reincarnation of a real-life criminal. There was no other explanation. Karma had found me at last.
“You never asked where pool table guy lived?” she asked.
I shook my head miserably. “No. And when I glanced at his credit card, I only looked at his first name. His friend gave me the information for their car that broke down, and it was a Connecticut plate. I just figured it was where they were all from. Honestly, I didn’t think a lot about it and I tried to avoid details.” I pulled myself up so I was in a sitting position. “I didn’t really want to know.”
Faith blew out a breath. “Okay, well this definitely complicates the plan.”
The plan. I gave her a weak smile. She’d been kind to say yes to my request for help. Faith was the daughter of a woman my mother had met during the short time she’d lived in Calliope. They’d become friends and had remained so for the duration of my mom’s life. Faith’s mother, Donna, had brought Faith to Mud Gulch for my mother’s funeral and even though it was an obviously difficult time for me, Faith and I had hit it off and we had kept in touch over the years, mostly via email and through social media.
Donna had eventually remarried and moved away to Florida, but her daughter had stayed and opened an art gallery a few years before. When I’d proposed pretending to be an appraiser who worked for her gallery in an effort to gain access to art that might be gathering dust in specific attics, she was game. As a matter of fact, I sensed that Faith was excited about engaging in a bit of a treasure hunt, perhaps because of the artistic troves that might by lying in wait, or perhaps because the life of a gallery owner didn’t provide quite the adventure she craved.
She’d reassured me that though the old money crowd knew her well from the art-focused charity events she frequented, they preferred Sotheby’s over the current artists she showcased and that her gallery wasn’t dependent on their patronage, or lack thereof.
So, here I was, pretending to be an art appraiser in the town where the man I’d recently had sex with on the pool table at my family bar lived. The man who knew very well I was not an art appraiser from New York City or anywhere else. The man who would naturally want to know what scheme I was running.
The plan hadn’t only been made more complicated. It’d been completely compromised. “It’s over,” I said dejectedly.
“No it’s not,” Faith said. “We only need to visit four more homes, and we have appointments at two. We’ll just keep a low profile until we can gain access to the others.”
I shook my head. “We won’t be able to keep a low profile. He’ll expose me.” And why shouldn’t he? I was obviously lying to these people who’d kindly welcomed me into their homes to dig through their personal possessions. I wasn’t doing it to harm anyone or damage their property in any way. I just wanted to get a glimpse of what might be locked away somewhere, just waiting to be discovered. Not any art pieces themselves, but the name scrawled in a corner—a small hidden corner that might provide a clue. The clue. An identification.
But Gage wouldn’t necessarily see it as an innocent investigation.
And maybe it wasn’t.
Because the truth was, I was gaining people’s trust through deception.
And yet the reason my heart had squeezed with both shock and deep disappointment was not because of being found out by Gage, but because of discovering who he was. Who he might be.
I groaned again. Oh, God.
“I don’t think he’ll expose you,” she said. “He could have done that today and he didn’t. Speaking of being exposed, though,” she went on, “did you see his body in that towel? Holy hell.” She paused. “Wait, of course you saw his body. You had sex with him on a pool table!”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes I did.” I met her eyes, waiting for the moment reality dawned for her.
Faith’s brow was knitted, eyes squinted as she obviously considered the situation. “Oh, God,” she said after a minute, her eyes popping wide. “Gage might be—”
“Yes!” I wailed in misery.
She clapped a hand over her mouth and kept it there for several moments before lowering it and looking at me sadly. “Definitely Genghis Khan,” she whispered.
