City of Lost Dreams Read Online Free Page A

my place,” Max said, tossing a set of keys at the little man. “I’ll be along in a minute.” They left him to the tender ministrations of Harriet, and Nico drove her to Max’s “place”—the Lobkowicz family palace at Prague Castle that Max had converted to a museum, where Max kept a private apartment.
    Sarah noted the feminine toiletries in Max’s bathroom. Harriet seemed quite ensconced. When she finished showering, she saw that Nico had rather wickedly laid out a choice of robes for her: a man’s dressing gown in heavy silk, monogrammed with Max’s initials, and an ornate Japanese kimono reeking of gardenias. Sarah searched through Max’s clothes until she found a T-shirt, sweatpants, and a cashmere sweater that had escaped the busy monogrammer.
    She found both Max and Nico in the living room, waiting for her. Max’s wolfhound, Moritz, rushed forward to lick her toes. Max handed her a glass of whiskey, not quite meeting her eye. Sarah was grateful for Nico’s presence, which would keep them from discussing anything too intimate.
    “Did anyone call the morgue?” Sarah asked. “Do we know who that guy was?”
    “He said he was John of Nepomuk,” Max reminded her. “Who was a fourteenth-century saint.”
    “Right.” Sarah took a sip of whiskey. “So our guy was either high or delusional.”
    Nico shrugged. “Our guy was speaking Medieval Latin and Bohemian.”
    “Okay, so a language history student,” suggested Sarah. “Driven mad by declensions and pursued by the Mob for unpaid backgammon debts. Someone was
shooting
at us.”
    “John of Nepomuk was pushed into the Vltava in 1393,” said Nico. “Reportedly because he wouldn’t reveal to the king what the queen’s confession was all about. John of Nepomuk is the saint of the confessional. The saint of keeping secrets.”
    Max and the little man exchanged a look.
    “You think it means something?” asked Max.
    “Everything means something.” Nicolas narrowed his eyes. “I have been feeling for months now . . . a sense that someone is looking over my shoulder. Following me. Or maybe I am following him.”
    “Maybe we’re not the only ones looking . . .” Max glanced at Sarah.
    “Looking for what?” Sarah asked, although she knew the answer to this. Max believed his family had long been members of a secret Order of the Golden Fleece. The Fleece—a book that reputedly contained the answers to the deepest mysteries of life and death—had been missing since the seventeenth century. Sarah had once tried to help Max on his quest, but she couldn’t get involved in all that now. She was exhausted and more than a bit impatient. This was always the way things were in Prague: mysterious, watery, elusive. It was like the minute you got off the plane here, all firm ground dissolved. And you did crazy things. Like falling in love.
    “I think it’s a warning.” Nico took a big gulp of whiskey. “A sign.”
    I don
’
t want signs,
Sarah thought.
I don
’
t want warnings and strange portents. I want answers.
    “I’ll be going to London tomorrow,” Nico continued. “There are some things from Philippine’s recipe that I would like to acquire for Pols. Max, I trust that this conversation will remain very much under your hat?”
    “If you mean Harriet,” Max answered stiffly, after a brief glance at Sarah, “then, yes. Yes, of course. I haven’t told her anything about . . . anything. If you think Philippine’s medicines might be helpful, I’ll go through the library here and see if I can find anything related to her work. Worth a shot.”
    “And Sarah—”
    “I’m leaving for Vienna after Pols’s concert.” She stood up. “I have my own quest.”
    “Do you have the key I gave you?” said Nico, moving forward and taking up her hand.
    “Yes,” she said, confused. Sarah fingered the key she wore on a chain around her neck. The little man had given her the key during the summer she worked in Prague. As far as she knew,