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56ff681
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We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it. Maybe we all survive the destruction we have wrought.
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Harlan Coben |
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e17a851
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The lacrosse game took place in the optimistically dubbed SuperDome, an air-inflated sports facility made from some sort of pliable material. Thomas was playing in an indoor league for the winter season. Ryan had come along too. He half watched his brother, half played catch in the corner with a couple of other kids. Ryan also kept looking over at his father. He did that a lot now, looked for his father, as though Adam might suddenly vanish..
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Harlan Coben |
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1c9996c
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I actually had to close my eyes, rub them,
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Harlan Coben |
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0e02c75
|
I can be over in ten minutes." "You'll stay for dinner?" "Depends on what's on the tape," I say. "Right, yeah, that makes sense." Ellie hears something in my voice and knows me too well. "Everything else okay?" "We'll talk." I hang up first."
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Harlan Coben |
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c30d2df
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I'm sorry," my dead wife mouthed."
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Harlan Coben |
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4b37adb
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Too often, show muscles meant useless muscles.
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Harlan Coben |
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0b2a4cb
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I treat every student who walks through those doors the same because we are here to teach, if not political science, maybe a little something about critical thinking or even--gasp!--life. If students came to us fully formed and without insecurities, what would be the point?
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Harlan Coben |
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7c891d8
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What I mean is, everything is pretty much decided by the time these children leave here and enter kindergarten. I can tell who will be successful and who will fail, who will end up happy and who will end up in prison, and ninety percent of the time I'm right. Maybe Hollywood and video games have an influence, I don't know.
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Harlan Coben |
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7659377
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Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. - T. S. Eliot
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Harlan Coben |
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e419392
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They say it takes a long time to comprehend a tragedy. You're numb. You can't adequately accept the grim reality. Again, that's not true. Not for me anyway.
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tragedy
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Harlan Coben |
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f02e7b9
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Grief can be inordinately selfish.
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Harlan Coben |
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657b1a4
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Three days ago, I was a dedicated doctor sleepwalking through my own life. Since then, I had seen a ghost, gotten emails from the dead, had become a suspect in not one but two murders, was on the run from the law, had assaulted a police officer, and had enlisted the aid of a known dug dealer.
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Harlan Coben |
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452d849
|
Intuition was often a way of cutting corners, a nifty technique of replacing hard evidence and facts with something far more elusive and capricious. The worst investigators Carlson knew relied on so-called intuition.
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Harlan Coben |
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e9f2010
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Suzze T just stopped by," Myron said. Win nodded, jaw jutted. "I saw her on the way out." "Did she look upset?" "Didn't notice," Win said, taking a seat. Then: "Her breasts were engorged." Win. "She has a problem," Myron said. Win leaned back, crossed his legs with his customary coiled ease. "Explain."
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Harlan Coben |
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0c5795e
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Dimonte spit into the can again, trying hard to cover up his obvious body language. "We're still working on it." "Uh, let's pretend for a brief moment that I'm not a mentally dehydrated numb nut."
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Harlan Coben |
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91b0ec8
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He just said the base did boring agriculture stuff. Counting cows and crops, that's how he put it." "What's the second thing?" "The closing of the base." "Right, when was that?" "Fifteen years ago," Kaufman says. "Three months after your brother and Augie's daughter were found dead."
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Harlan Coben |
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69d8307
|
boy is getting all Ds and Fs in math so his parents send him to Catholic school. On his first report card, his parents are shocked to see their son getting straight As. When his parents ask him why, he says, "Well, when I went into the chapel and saw that guy nailed to a plus sign, I knew they were serious." --
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Harlan Coben |
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a84e55b
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I blinked and the images were gone. But I remembered how the laugh and the howl and the splash would ripple and echo in the stillness of our lake, and I wondered if ripples and echoes like those ever fully die away, if somewhere in the woods my father's joyful yelps still bounced quietly off the trees. Silly thought, but there you go.
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memories
nature
harlan-coben
tell-no-one
vacation
father
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Harlan Coben |
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0b878da
|
The pain flooded in again. It was always there, of course. Through the shaking hands and slapping of the backs, the grief stayed by his side, tapping Griffin on the shoulder, whispering in his ear, reminding him that they were partners for life.
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Harlan Coben |
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b1b8321
|
Dreams are fragile. Dreams don't last.
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Harlan Coben |
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7614ab8
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Children view their parents as both intrepid and omnipotent--yet here their parents are, gazing up at me, the doctor, with a fear-filled longing normally reserved for religious rapture. What
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Harlan Coben |
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a510994
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There was an awkwardness to him, a stoicism that most people, with their need for appearances and fake smiles, found off-putting. Shane couldn't handle small talk or the excess bullshittery of modern society. When
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Harlan Coben |
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2f02e77
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The media, an entity with the collective attention span of a Twinkie-filled two-year-old, immediately focused on this shiny new toy, kicking the old one under the bed. Carlson
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Harlan Coben |
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6d4a812
|
Chloe barked at a movement in the bush. A squirrel sprinted across the street. Chloe growled and feigned a chase. The squirrel stopped and turned back toward us. Chloe barked a boy-you're-lucky-I'm-on-a-leash sound. She didn't mean it. Chloe was a pure thoroughbred wimp. Kiss
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Harlan Coben |
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8347911
|
You learn a lot about relationships when your job, in some ways, is to break them up. But the truth is, almost every relationship has breaking points. Every relationship has fissures and cracks. That doesn't mean it's meaningless or bad or even wrong. We know that everything in our lives is complex and gray. Yet we somehow expect our relationships to never be anything but simple and pure.
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Harlan Coben |
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deb98b3
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I turned to Otto. "Why the hell did you hit him like that?" Otto looked back at me with eyes that sent a chill straight through my heart. They were lifeless eyes, not the slightest hint of light behind them. It was as though I were looking into the eyes of an inanimate object--the eyes of an end table, maybe, or a cardboard box. From"
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Harlan Coben |
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36497bf
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Myron was just getting comfortable when he heard a toilet flush. He looked a question at Win. "I am not alone," Win said. "Oh." Myron adjusted himself on the couch. "A woman?" "Your gifts," Win said. "They never cease to amaze." "Anybody I know?" Myron asked. Win shook his head. "Not even somebody I know." The norm. Myron looked steadily at his friend. "You want to talk about this?" "No." "I'm here if you do." "Yes, I see that." Win swished..
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Harlan Coben |
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4e88e26
|
Yvonne started humming the QuickGo jingle, one of those torturous tunes that enters through the ear canal and proceeds to ricochet around the skull in search of an escape route it will never find.
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Harlan Coben |
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2547cd7
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Some people are conduits for misery.
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Harlan Coben |
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f567322
|
Introductions were made. Hands were shaken. Rear ends were seated. As was his custom in such situations, Win remained silent. His eyes slid from one side of the room to the other, taking in everything. He liked to study people for a while before speaking to them, especially in their home environment.
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Harlan Coben |
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5e5fa21
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He leaned in conspiratorially. "Do you know why the fans turned on those two guys so horribly?" Just to keep him talking, Myron shook his head. "Because those pretty boys pointed out the truth: We are all shallow. Milli Vanilli music was pure crap--and they won a Grammy! People listened to it simply because Rob and Fab were handsome and hip. That scandal did more than rip away the facade. It held a mirror up to the fan's face and let him se..
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Harlan Coben |
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0c37eca
|
Hoyt?" Hoyt turned back around. "So there's no misunderstanding," Carlson said. "I don't believe a word you just said. We clear?" "Crystal," Hoyt said."
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Harlan Coben |
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05df7ea
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The music still came from the house. It was past midnight. What kind of old lady plays rock music after midnight? One who still plays old vinyl records. One who keeps a weird tombstone in her wooded backyard. One who has strange visitors in a black car with a license plate number engraved on that same weird tombstone. One who told a teenage boy that his dead father was still alive. "What's this?" Ema asked. I snapped back to the present. "W..
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Harlan Coben |
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873ae20
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It was scary," she said. "Win was scary." "He also saved your life." "Yes." "It's what Win does. He's good at it--the best I've ever seen. Everything with him is black and white. He has no moral ambiguities. If you cross the line, there is no reprieve, no mercy, no chance to talk your way out of it. You're dead. Period. Those men came to harm you. Win wasn't interested in rehabilitating them. They made their choice. The moment they entered ..
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Harlan Coben |
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a1641f8
|
Captain Midnight is always careful." "It's not just Captain Midnight I'm worried about it. It's his alter ego." "And who might that be?" "My Love Muffin." Myron grinned into the receiver. "Hey, Jess, did you know Joan Collins was on Batman?" "Of course," Jessica said. "She played the Siren." "Oh yeah? Well, who did Liberace play?"
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Harlan Coben |
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ad637f2
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it be nicer to think your parents, who worked hard, gave you those presents instead of some creepy stranger?
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Harlan Coben |
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6653263
|
You're not a hypocrite. You aim toward lofty heights. The fact that your arrow cannot always reach them does not make you a hypocrite.
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Harlan Coben |
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71480dd
|
The reason why there are so many police officers surrounding this house is because they want to make sure that we do not remove anything before a search warrant is issued. They have made it crystal clear that they want no Kardashians on this one." Kardashian. As in O.J. The man had changed law lexicon forever."
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Harlan Coben |
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0d050d9
|
We know that everything in our lives is complex and gray.
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Harlan Coben |
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81680e6
|
The young family who'd moved into the Miller home had gotten rid of the Millers' trademark overflowing flower boxes. The new owners of the Davis place had ripped out those wonderful shrubs Bob Davis had worked on every weekend. It all reminded Myron of an invading army ripping down the flags of the conquered.
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Harlan Coben |
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4a15be7
|
The world doesn't give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems.
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Harlan Coben |
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7517ada
|
No, in the Bolitar household, the kitchen was more a gathering place - a Family Room Lite, if you will - than anything related to even the basest of the culinary arts. The round table held magazines and catalogs and congealing white boxes of Chinese takeout. The stove top saw less action than a Merchant-Ivory production. The oven was a prop, strictly for show, like a politician's Bible.
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Harlan Coben |
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b4a8712
|
When Myron was ten years old, his father had taken him and his younger brother, Brad, to a game. Brad was five at the time. Dad had secured
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Harlan Coben |
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5bca286
|
Maya had one of those sudden "pow" moments sneak up on her, the ones all parents experience, when you are simply overwhelmed by your love for your child, when you are awestruck and you can feel something rising inside of you and you just want to hold onto it and yet, at the same time, that caring, that fear of losing this person, scares you into near paralysis. How, you wonder, will you ever relax again, knowing how unsafe the world is? Lil..
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Harlan Coben |