I will give you more pain than you can imagine. Your brains will leak out of your ears, and your bowels out of your ass. I will cause that to happen without leaving a mark, and every cop here will swear you died of natural causes.
I know love, and what it does to you, for you. I know that it can bloom out of friendship, or that friendship can open out of love. Both are precious. And when you have both, there’s little that can’t be done.
I’ve eliminated everything else. This is what’s left. And when you’ve eliminated everything else, what’s left should be true.
When someone believes they’re smarter, more talented, just plain more right than anyone else, and they harbor this kind of need, they’re very, very dangerous.
One might be a coincidence.” Hands on her hips, she turned back. “Put them together it’s a pattern.
Even though February was the shortest month of the year, sometimes it seemed like the longest.
That was another thing about partners, she decided. They knew what would make you laugh, often before you did.
Do you think any of us go anywhere until we have the truth? Do you think there’s peace without justice?” “No, I don’t,” Eve admitted, knowing it would always drive her.
Cops are good at keeping secrets.
Cops and food, she thought. Put them in the same room, invite chaos.
Oh, come on. People see ghosts all the time.” “That’s because people, by and large, are whacked.
Peabody only smiled. Guilt was the best tool, she knew. She’d learned that one at her mother’s knee.
The man missed nothing. It was almost spooky.
It’s lunacy out there. Christmas makes people insane. And that bit about goodwill toward men? It sure as hell doesn’t apply to retail.
To have birthed and bred her, beaten and raped her all for selling her to other scum. What god made such creatures as that and set them to prey on innocents?
She wished she had candy, but she hadn’t settled on a new hiding place to thwart the nefarious Candy Thief.
Likely both. If you’re going to bust them, I’ll wait.” “Only take a minute.” She stepped to the curb, shouted over the dented hood of an ancient Mini, “Hey!” And waved her badge in the air. Both bulky dealer and skinny junkie pounded sidewalk in opposite directions.
Parenthood always has its individual structure. And it’s a risky business. You do your best.
She strode away, steeling both her heart and her belly against the hurt. It wasn’t just the body, she thought, that could shatter. And it wasn’t only fists and pipes and bats that could shatter it.
How can I love you and not be afraid? You’re my life, Eve, my heart. You’re asking, you’re wondering if I ever worry, if I ever fear, that one day Peabody or Feeney, your commander – a cop who’s become a friend – will knock on my door? Of course I do.
He did something he rarely did. He touched her. Just a pat of his hand over the back of hers. But it was, Eve realized, a kind of intimacy. An affectionate contact between comrades, and more personal than any act the victim had ever exchanged with a client.