Cleopatra�s Perfume Read Online Free PDF Page A

her spicy fragrance wafted off the black ribbed seat and hung in the air around him, torturing him with its power. What happened to the Englishwoman? Lady Eve Marlowe of Mayfair was how he’d known her in Cairo. Where was she? Though her beauty haunted him, her death haunted him more. Nothing was left to show she’d ever been there, shivered in his arms, teased him with her beguiling smile, pleasured him when he stroked her with his cock until she cried out at the peak of her desire.
    Nothing. Just the redolent scent of her perfume.
    Damn her.
     
    It took him less than five minutes to change his mind and turn the car around and head back toward Berlin. It wasn’t that he faced a nearly impossible journey in enemy territory to get to France and the underground that made him change his mind. He’d survived worse. It wasn’t that he was certain Lady Marlowe had cash in her suite he could use in his escape, since when hesearched through her clothes and purse before tossing them behind some brush, he’d found nothing. No, it was something he didn’t dare put into words. A hunch that this gorgeous woman was mixed up in more than sex and decadence, that she’d begged him to help her and if he didn’t, her life would have been in vain. Whatever they’d had in Cairo, it ended here, today. He couldn’t change that. He could change course, play out this insane caper and see where it led him. He hated the feeling eating at his insides, that her death was his fault. He owed her that much.
    An hour later, he parked the big, black sedan blocks away from the Adlon then ducked in under the hotel awning and strode past the doorman and into the lobby, saluting and mumbling “Heil, Hitler!” to anyone who crossed his path. He avoided the black-suited desk clerk and the admiring eyes of the uniformed bellboy wearing white gloves and made his way upstairs, then grabbed a maid and threatened her with gestures and grunts until she allowed him access to the blonde’s suite. Who would deny an SS officer? He didn’t know more than a few words of German, but it worked. He was inside.
    There, in the middle of the room, was a steamer trunk. It stood three feet long and two feet high with four rollers, edged in leather with wood strapping and brass rivets. He tapped his fingers over the cracking Damier pattern, noting the tiny tears in the canvas covering the trunk—
    Rrring.
    He waited.
    The phone rang again and again and still he did nothing. He dare not answer it, but the presence of its irritating sound filledthe air between himself and the unknown caller. Then the ringing stopped and the silence became his ticking clock. He glanced at the phone then looked at the door. Whoever had called could be on their way up here.
    What was he waiting for? Staring at the trunk wasn’t going to bring back the Englishwoman. He tugged on the brass lock, but it wouldn’t give. Locked.
    And no key in sight.
    That wouldn’t stop him. He had plenty of practice picking the lock on his father’s gun cabinet when he was a kid, so he could practice shooting tin cans with his kid brother when the old man was away. He searched through the female items on the vanity table until he found what he needed: a nail file and a long hatpin. With the hatpin in one hand and the nail file in the other, he got to work on the lock. Using the hatpin, he picked the lock by raising the pins to their so-called breaking point as a key would, then used the nail file to rotate the cylinder to operate the cam at the rear of the lock’s cylinder to unlock the mechanism. It took a few tries, but it wasn’t long until he heard the welcome click and the lock popped open. Inside, he found a blue suit, navy pumps, chemises, garters and silk stockings. Beneath the clothes, he found a square box wrapped in black velvet about the size of a small jewelry box. He felt along the bottom of the trunk until it gave way and he uncovered a red silk-bound diary, its deep lush color still as