Kill Me if You Can Read Online Free PDF Page A

the top floor. There’s a closed-circuit TV system in the vestibule, and most nights I wave at the camera, and whoever sees me opens their door and gives me a “Hi, Matthew.”
    But tonight I ran up the five flights, opened my door, double-locked it behind me, and exhaled. I hadn’t been arrested or killed and I still had the diamonds. I was safe. For now.
    I always feel good about walking into my apartment, and tonight I felt even better. It’s hardly the biggest space in New York, but it feels homey. That’s because it’s wall-to-wall me. Literally. Every inch of wall space is covered with my paintings. I don’t know if I’m any good, but I like my stuff enough to want to look at it all the time.
    My cat sauntered in. I got him at the shelter two years ago. He’s black and white, with about fifteen shades of gray. His name was Hooper when I adopted him, but I changed it to Hopper, after my favorite painter.
    It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t come no matter what I call him.
    “Look what Daddy brought home,” I said, showing him the bag of diamonds. He couldn’t have cared less, but I had been dying to show somebody.
    “Well, you might not be interested, but I hear this stuff can be catnip for some women.”
    I grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down on the sofa, opened the bag, and let the diamonds trickle through my fingers. I was in I’m-Rich-Beyond-My-Wildest-Dreams euphoria when the doorbell rang.
    Someone was coming for the diamonds! That had to be it. Shit!
    I jumped up, sloshing beer on my pants, and headed for the cabinets where I store my paints, brushes, and a Beretta M9 semiautomatic. I’m an ex-Marine. Whoever was downstairs thought I was just an art student. Advantage: for me.
    I gripped the gun and moved over to check the closed-circuit monitor. The cat, just as curious to see who was at my front door at ten minutes after midnight, followed me.
    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