Kill Me If You Can by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780316097550
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2011-08-30T20:13:34+00:00

Chapter 57

KATHERINE WHISPERED ACROSS the room. “Is she dead?”

“Unfortunately not,” I said.

“Matthew, I can’t believe it. She tried to kill us. We have to call the police.”

“No, Katherine. That’s one thing we can’t do,” I said.

“What are you talking about? Of course we call the police. That woman is insane. She knows about your diamonds. She knows our names. What if she comes back?”

“Listen to me,” I said. I put my hands on her cheeks. Her eyes were filled with fear. “Sweetheart, we don’t have a lot of time, and I hate to play the do-you-love-me card, but do you love me?”

“Of course. Yes. Always.”

“Do you trust me?”

She hesitated.

“Let me rephrase the question. I didn’t ask if you understand everything that has happened in the past three days, but do you trust me enough to believe that whatever I ask you to do in the next few minutes will be because I love you madly and will do anything to keep you safe?”

“Absolutely,” she said. No hesitation, and with a hint of a smile.

“We don’t have to call the police,” I said, “because in a few minutes this place will be crawling with cops. If we’re still here, they’ll arrest us.”

“Why? We’re innocent.”

“Even if these cops speak perfect English, there’s no way they’re going to believe a word we say. There’s a bullet hole in our TV, a body went flying through our window, and there are millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds scattered around our room, which—oh, by the way, Officer, just happens to be totally trashed. We have exactly two minutes to grab whatever we can and get out. Trust me. Please.”

I hit the floor and started scraping diamonds off the rug and tossing them into the medical bag. A second later Katherine was scooping them off the bedspread.

The desk, the dresser, and two chairs had been knocked over, and I stood them upright. Then I moved the rest of the furniture so we could get whatever had rolled underneath.

“Ninety seconds and we pop smoke,” I said.

“Pop smoke?” Katherine asked.

“It’s Marine-speak for get the hell out of this hotel room before we wind up doing some serious time in an Italian prison.”

We crawled on the floor, scavenging among the broken glass, shattered furniture, and overturned room-service cart, grabbing as many loose stones as we could find.

A minute later I pulled the plug. “Time’s up,” I said. “You have thirty seconds to throw your clothes in a bag or leave them behind.”

At the two-minute mark I grabbed Katherine by the arm and pulled her toward the door.

“Over there,” Katherine said, pointing to a corner. “Is that diamonds or broken glass?”

They were diamonds, and my trained sniper’s eye could spot at least half a dozen spots where the sparkle was definitely not glass. But we didn’t have time to get them all.

“Leave them. They’ll be a nice tip for the maid,” I said, looking around our formerly glorious room. “Believe me, she’ll have earned it.”

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