Free The Amber Room by Steve Berry Page B

such a butterball. She flipped the box over and traced her fingernail over the initials.
    B.N .
    Its craftsman.
    She yanked a cloth from the pocket of her jeans. The case, less than four inches long, easily dissolved into its crimson folds. She stuffed the bundle into her pocket and then crossed the ground floor to the den.
    Growing up on the Loring estate came with obvious advantages. A fine home, the best tutors, access to art and culture. Loring made sure the Danzer family was well cared for. But the isolation of Castle Lou-kov deprived her of childhood friends. Her mother died when she was three, and her father traveled constantly. It was Loring who took the time with her, and books became her trusted companions. She read once that the Chinese symbolized books with the power to ward off evil spirits. And for her they did. Stories became her escape. Particularly English literature. Marlowe’s tragedies on kings and potentates, the poetry of Dryden, Locke’s essays, Chaucer’s tales, Malory’sMorte d’Arthur .
    Earlier, when Jeremy had shown her around the ground floor, she’d noticed one particular book in the library. Casually, she’d slipped the leather volume from the shelf and found the expected garish swastika bookplate inside, the inscription reading:EX LIBRIS ADOLF HITLER . Two thousand of Hitler’s books, all from his personal library, had been hastily evacuated from Berchtesgaden and stashed in a nearby salt mine just days before the end of the war. American soldiers later found them, and they were eventually cataloged into the Library of Congress. But some were stolen before that happened. Several had turned up through the years. Loring owned none, desiring no reminders of the horror of Nazism, but he knew other collectors who did.
    She slipped the book off the shelf. Loring would be pleased with this added treasure.
    She turned to leave.
    Jeremy stood naked in the darkened doorway.
    “Is it the same one you looked at before?” he asked. “Grandmother has so many books. She’ll not miss one.”
    She approached close and quickly decided to use her best weapon. “I enjoyed tonight.”
    “So did I. You didn’t answer my question.”
    She gestured with the book. “Yes. It’s the same one.”
    “You require it?”
    “I do.”
    “Will you come back?”
    A strange question considering the situation, but she realized what he truly wanted. So she reached down and grasped him where she knew he could not resist. He instantly responded to her gentle strokes. “Perhaps,” she said.
    “I saw you in the piano room. You’re not some woman who just got out of a bad marriage, are you?”
    “Does it matter, Jeremy? You enjoyed yourself.” She continued to stroke him. “You’re enjoying yourself now, aren’t you?”
    He sighed.
    “And everything here is your grandmother’s anyway. What do you care?”
    “I don’t.”
    She released her hold. His organ stood at attention. She kissed him gently on the lips. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing one another again.” She brushed past him and headed for the front door.
    “If I hadn’t given in, would you have harmed me to get the book and the box?”
    She turned back. Interesting that someone so immature about life could be perceptive enough to understand the depths of her desires. “What do you think?”
    He seemed to genuinely consider the inquiry. Perhaps the hardest he’d considered anything in a while.
    “I think I’m glad I fucked you.”

The Amber Room

 TWELVE
    Volary, Czech Republic
    Friday, May 9, 2:45 p.m.
    Suzanne angled the porsche hard to the right, and the 911 Speedster’s coil-spring suspension and torque steering grabbed the tight curve. She’d earlier hinged the glass-fiber hood back, allowing the afternoon air to whip her layered bob. She kept the car parked at the Ruzynè airport, the 120 kilometers from Prague to southwestern Bohemia an easy hour’s drive. The car was a gift from Loring, a bonus two years ago after a particularly