Kill Me if You Can - James Patterson [10]
I looked at the screen and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Jeez, Hopper,” I said. “One of us is as nervous as a cat.”
Chapter 11
AT THE AGE of five I was given my first toy chest. It was a Marine Corps footlocker. While other kids got colorful wooden boxes with their favorite superhero or sports team logo painted on the front, my father decided I should have an olive-drab, steel-reinforced, double-padlock trunk emblazoned with SEMPER FI and steeped in his own personal military history.
I still have it. It’s bolted to my bedroom floor. I unlocked it and buried the medical bag with the diamonds under layers of old uniforms and a few souvenirs I brought home from Afghanistan. I shut the lid and made sure it was locked up tight.
Then I went back to the living room, tucked the gun back in the art cabinet where it belonged, and opened the front door.
And there she was, wearing a dove-gray V-neck sweater that matched her eyes and a just-to-the-knees denim skirt that showed off her legs nicely. Katherine.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” I said. “Besides looking terrific, that is.”
She threw her arms around me. “Haven’t you heard? There was some kind of terrorist attack at Grand Central,” she said, kissing my cheeks, my neck, finally my lips. “I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
“Good thinking,” I said, pressing her body against mine. “After the railroads, and maybe planes, the next logical terrorist target would be art professors.”
She stepped back. “Are you making fun of me, Matthew?”
“Never.”
“Will you watch out for me? Keep me company tonight?”
“Uh-huh.”
And I meant it. My mother raised me to be an artist, but my father trained me to protect the people I love. When I was growing up, he was more like a drill sergeant than a dad. Once when I was ten, we were hiking in Pike National Forest. One minute we were together and then suddenly he was gone, and I was all alone in the middle of the Colorado wilderness. I had nothing but a hunting knife. No food, no water, no compass. I knew we hadn’t separated by accident, either. This was a test. It took me thirty hours to pass it, but I finally found my way home.
I looked into Katherine’s eyes. Would I watch over her? Absolutely. I stroked her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. Then my lips traced the same pattern. Eyelids, cheeks, mouth.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked when we stopped for a breath.
“Absolutely.”
“How did your pants get wet?” She lowered one hand and cupped it between my legs.
“Beer. An unfortunate accident.”
“You can’t be walking around all wet,” she said, unbuckling my belt. Then she unzipped my fly and helped me out of my pants.
The beer had soaked through to my boxers. “Wet also,” she said. “And hard, too.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I said.
Within seconds I was naked and then Katherine joined me. I lay on my back and Katherine straddled my hips. I thrust up into her, not hard but firm. She arched her back, dug her knees into my thighs, and pressed down against me. She slowly took in a breath, then just as slowly let it out. She did it again. And again.
The sound of Katherine about to reach a climax is the best part of making love for me, and as her breathing got more frenetic, I matched her until—
Our orgasms came in rolling waves, one after another, slowly subsiding until she let her body fall on top of mine. Then Katherine wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pressed her lips to my ear.
“I’m crazy in love with you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too,” I said. “Never thought I could love anybody like this. But here we are.”
We fell asleep like that.
Not a care in the world.
So incredibly naive.
Chapter 12
VADIM CHUKOV WAS a survivor. When a rival mob captured him, he managed to strangle his captors from the backseat of the car with their own handcuffs. When four prison guards beat him and locked him in solitary confinement, he escaped and lived to kill them and their families. Chukov had been stabbed four times, shot twice, and thrown off a speeding train. He’d be damned if he was going to die from chronic obstructive