Page 61 of Risky Obsession
“Well, maybe it was made on purpose to give the enemy a bum steer.”
She scowled at me.
“GPS didn’t exist back then, so they had to rely on maps. Maybe they made ones to look real, but everything about them was false, and then they made sure the maps got into enemy hands.”
“That’s feasible.” She moved back to the table. “I wonder why Carinhall is featured on both maps then?”
“Good question.” I joined her side. “Maybe because Hitler and Goering went there.”
“Maybe. Let’s see if we can find anything else that matches other than Carinhall.”
My mind raced. Were we on the verge of a discovery? I’d been trying to follow the clues on the map, the handwritten note, and photograph for nearly ten years. My gut told me this was another dead end.
“Carinhall is marked on both maps,” Tory murmured. She traced her finger across the name written on Pops’ map, then she moved to the bed and leaned over the glass map. “But the area around the map doesn’t match up. Whole areas are different. Yet the maps are dated just seven days apart.”
Groaning, she stood and tilted her hips forward, stretching her back.
It was damn hard not to look at her amazing tits.
I cleared my throat. “It’s strange, all right. I’m beginning to lean toward one of the maps being a deliberate fake.”
Tory lifted the framed map to look at the back of it. “Maybe there’s something hidden behind this one, too.”
I burst out laughing.
She glared at me.
I raised my hands in a peace gesture. “Only one way to find out.” I helped her flip the map over, so the glass rested on our bedcovers. Brown tape secured the backing board to the frame. She ran her fingernail along the seam.
“We’ll need something stronger. Don’t suppose you have a flick knife?” I joked.
“What about the car keys?”
“That could work.” I plucked the keys from my jacket pocket and put one knee on the bed. “You do know this will vastly devalue this map.”
“No, it won’t. It’s the map that’s worth six hundred.”
I shook my head. “It’s not worth that much. That slimy bastard Gunter ripped us off.”
I slid the key along a groove in the tape, separating the backing from the wooden frame.
“It will be priceless if it leads us to that gold.”
“Don’t go getting your hopes up, sis.”
She smacked my ass. “Stop calling me that.”
“Ooh.” I peered at her over my shoulder and wiggled my butt. “Do that again.”
“Oh my god. You’re impossible.” She tugged her lips into her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the smile from reaching her eyes.
I cut through the tape with the car key, and the sound of the adhesive slicing filled the room, like a sinister scrape ruining a priceless vase.
“Careful, we could find something important in there,” she said.
“Or maybe nothing,” I muttered, trying to keep her expectations real.
The last piece of tape gave way and curled up like a snakeskin. Working together, we wedged our fingers beneath the backing board.