“I laughed at seventy thousand.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
The Single Dad stood again.
This time they were closer.
She was tall in heels.
He was still taller.
Her confidence never moved.
Neither did his.
The Single Dad said:
“If I’m wrong, you’ve lost twelve minutes.”
“Twelve now?”
“Approximately.”
“And if you’re right?”
He looked at Lot 147.
“That depends on how wrong everyone else is.”
The Female CEO held his gaze.
Then:
“You know, men who question my judgment in my own auction house usually regret it.”
The Single Dad looked at her white blouse.
Her leather trousers.
The enormous tote.
The entire image of precision and control.
Then back at her eyes.
“That confidence would be dangerously attractive if you weren’t using it to hide how badly you want to know what I found.”
Silence.
The specialist’s expression became extraordinary.
Somewhere behind them, someone coughed.
The Female CEO’s lips parted slightly.
For the first time, she looked genuinely caught off guard.
The Single Dad regretted the sentence almost immediately.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it was far too true.
Then she did something unexpected.
She stepped closer.
Not away.
“Dangerously attractive?”
Her voice was lower.
The Single Dad swallowed.
“That wasn’t the important part.”
“It was the part I heard.”
“I noticed.”
She lowered her sunglasses slowly.
“Careful.”
“Still warning me?”
“Yes.”
“About the auction?”
Her eyes stayed on him.
“Among other things.”
The Single Dad smiled faintly.
Then crouched again.
Because the car was safer.
He placed the flashlight between his teeth and reached toward a small aluminum interior panel near the driver’s footwell.
Two screws were newer than the surrounding fasteners.
Interesting.
He removed the first.
Then the second.
The panel loosened.
The Female CEO forgot to pretend she was uninterested.
She stepped beside him.
Her expensive trousers nearly touched the filthy bodywork.
The specialist looked horrified.
“Ma’am, the paint—”
She lifted one hand.
He stopped talking.
The Single Dad pulled the panel away.
Dust fell.
He aimed the flashlight inside.
There.
Stamped into a reinforced inner section of the frame.
Six characters.
The first three appeared beneath grime.
C.
G.
T.
The Single Dad’s pulse changed.
The Female CEO bent lower.
“What is that?”
He wiped the surface gently with one finger.
More characters appeared.
R.
The Single Dad stopped breathing for half a second.
The Female CEO read it.
CGTR001.
Her face went still.
Not confused.
Not skeptical.
Recognition.
The specialist whispered:
“No.”
The Single Dad looked toward her.
“Still think it’s scrap?”
She did not answer.