Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,122
and it broke her fall. With no other way out, she knew she had no choice but to go with the dead Russian’s original plan.
She levered herself off the bed, then quick-stepped over to the nearest window and went through it, first one leg over the sill, then the other, cursing Givenchy for making this season’s skirts so tight. Holding on to the windowsill with both hands, she felt around below until her feet came in contact with the narrow ledge that, according to the Russian, would be there. Jackie looked down and saw that it was six dizzying stories to the courtyard below. The Russian said to follow the ledge around the building and escape to the roof of a neighboring building in the next rue. As forbidding as it looked, she would take this dangerous route to avoid the killer, who looked much too big to follow her onto the ledge. Before moving any farther, she kicked off her shoes—there was no way she could negotiate this narrow ledge in black satin peep-toe stiletto heels—and heard them land with a clatter in the courtyard below.
Just then, the ledge beneath her feet crumbled away, and she lost her grip on the windowsill. So much for the Russian’s plan. Jackie could feel herself falling and closed her eyes, her panic mercifully turning into stoicism. She braced herself, hoping that the impact wouldn’t hurt too much or make a grisly mess in the courtyard.
Something unexpectedly arrested her fall. She opened her eyes, looked up, and saw that the man, blinking rapidly from the sting of the perfume spray, was gripping her by her right hand. He had the iron clasp of a catcher in a trapeze act, and it was this steadfast grip that had saved her life. Jackie’s body swung like a pendulum from her one outstretched arm. But she was wearing silk evening gloves. Her hand began to slip ever so slowly but inexorably out of its glove, and she knew that her salvation was only temporary. This is what happens when you’re a slave to fashion, she told herself as she felt her hand slip even farther.
As she dangled six stories above the courtyard, alone except for a dead body in the room above her and a killer providing a lifeline just so he could do her in himself, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier asked herself, For God’s sake, how did I get into this mess?
Also by Maxine Kenneth
Paris to Die For
Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Preface
Epigraph
Prologue
PART ONE: THE MEXICAN DRACULA
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
PART TWO: EL TEATRO DE CINEMA
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
PART THREE: OUR WOMAN IN HAVANA
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
A Privew of Paris to Die For
Also by Maxine Kenneth
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, some names of real people or places have been included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.
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