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8b41d33
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Pike unscrewed the interior light so it wouldn't come on, then left the car. It was full-on dark now, and Pike enjoyed the darkness. Darkness, rain, snow, a storm--anything that hid you was good. He circled the house to check the windows, then slipped back onto the porch and let himself in.
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Robert Crais |
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49a27a3
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Markov nodded and the steel fingers tightened into my shoulders like pliers. Alexei backhanded me with the Glock and a starburst of pain erupted from my other ear. Some days suck. Some days you shouldn't even get out of bed. I said, "Who is Clark Hewitt and why is he so important?"
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Robert Crais |
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838ba1f
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Larkin was no longer in the living room, but her bags were gone and he heard her in the kitchen. He took off the long-sleeved shirt, then sat in one of the wing chairs to wait. He couldn't see her, but he knew she was getting a bottle of water. He heard the rattle of the refrigerator as she wrestled a bottle from its plastic wrapping. He heard the door close with a plastic kiss and a zippery crack as she twisted off the cap. Her shadow play..
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Robert Crais |
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60f952c
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Larkin hooked her arm around his, as though the Santa Anas would blow her away if she wasn't anchored. She glanced into the market.
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Robert Crais |
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0e45b42
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Jonathan said, "We'll discuss the team's progress and direction. I want you to be a part of that meeting. I don't want you to feel left out." I said, "You don't have to handle me, Jonathan." "I know that, son. I respect you." I recovered my gun, then we stepped out into the plaza and a wall of people and cameras and microphones surged forward and enveloped us. I thought that maybe this wasn't the jail anymore and maybe I wasn't me. Maybe I'..
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Robert Crais |
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ea28c76
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voice grew, and the fierce expression became outraged. He grabbed my shoulder again, and all the grabbing was making me uncomfortable. "The tyranny of evil men cannot be hidden from the light of truth! We have not only uncovered evidence of a specific crime, but also of gross incompetence, negligence, and a police department all too willing to obfuscate the truth in an attempt to hide their own shortcomings." Still cameras were clicking and..
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Robert Crais |
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337262f
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people worked us across the plaza and down to the parking structure. I moved with the crush of bodies the way a leaf is carried by the wind, a part of an unseen world, yet not.
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Robert Crais |
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ae23ec4
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Is it his job to lie?" "No, but you're assuming it's a lie. Reasonable people can disagree and have opposing interpretations of the facts. It's Jonathan's job to present an interpretation that's favorable to his client. It would be malpractice for him to do otherwise." When she said it she was stiff and testy, and it felt like we were having a confrontation."
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Robert Crais |
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5cc1d53
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Giving them room is often the better part of valor, especially when you're trying not to make things worse.
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Robert Crais |
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7be074b
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We drove slowly, neither of us speaking, and worked our way out of the Marina, up through Venice, and along the beach. It was automatic driving, going through the motions without conscious thought or direction, movement without destination or design. Pike hunkered low in the passenger's seat, his face dark in the bright sun, his dark lenses somehow molten and angry. It is not good to see Joe Pike angry. Better to see a male lion charge at c..
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Robert Crais |
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b3b3c8a
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The beer came and I said, "Joe, I'm thinking that there is something larger here than an attorney's zealous defense of his client." The master of understatement."
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Robert Crais |
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c167c5e
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I glanced at Pike, but Pike was staring out the front door. Intimidating the neighborhood. I said, "Maybe he mentioned a buddy who worked at a Shell Station or an ex-con he would have drinks with."
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Robert Crais |
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6de7fa1
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Detective Sergeant Lincoln Gibbs was a tall, thin African-American with mocha-colored skin, a profoundly receding hairline, and tortoiseshell spectacles. He looked like a college professor, which was a look he cultivated. He had twenty-eight years on the job, less than Tomsic, but more time in grade as a detective sergeant, so Linc Gibbs would be in charge. He arrived with Detective-three Pete Bishop, a twenty-two-year veteran with an M.A. ..
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Robert Crais |
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757aae9
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Bishop had the muscle tone of Jell-O. Rossi
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Robert Crais |
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77710a4
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Martin nodded, his head snapping up and down. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and no shirt. His torso was soft and undeveloped and covered with a thick growth of fine hair. He squinted against the bright morning sun. "Yeah, sure. What do you want?"
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Robert Crais |
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4c51069
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Hey, we've got this guy, Dan! He's ours!" Dan Tomsic stared at her with the disdain he reserved for shitbirds, defense attorneys, and card-carrying members of the ACLU. He said, "It's easier to cut off your own goddamned leg than convict a rich man in this state, detective. Haven't you been around long enough to know that?"
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Robert Crais |
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49a0665
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videographer stopped taping and looked me up and down as if he found me lacking but wasn't quite sure how. Then it hit him. "Don't you have a gun?" He glanced around the office as if there might be one hanging on a wall hook."
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Robert Crais |
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4e23fc9
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Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right's. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister's voice. He wasn't a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile cr..
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Robert Crais |
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5ed5904
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Not yet, but they made a very interesting offer." Her green eyes were amazing. Absolutely without bottom."
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Robert Crais |
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11ee639
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Khat runner. Check out these teeth. Fuckers get green teeth from chewing the khat. Ain't this green rotten?" "Stop"
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Robert Crais |
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f98bd75
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Fifteen minutes later I parked behind Teri Haines's Saturn and went to the door. I kind of expected to find the house in smoking ruins, but I guess Charles had passed out from overeating. Lighten up, Cole. He's only a kid. Sure. They probably said that when Attila was a kid, too.
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Robert Crais |
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6f15253
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Michaels was an overweight guy in his early thirties with a wide butt and a hairline that hadn't seen his eyebrows in years. He had pale skin and washed-away eyes and dry lips that he continuously licked. The lips made me think he was feeling short and thinking about his next fix, but that's only because Livermore had said he was a junkie. Tre Michaels didn't look like a junkie, but then I've never met a junkie in real life who looked like ..
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Robert Crais |
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8e7da03
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Jesus Christ, Brownell. What in hell's got you so scared?" The bar door opened and the blond guy from the Lexus came in. He was maybe six-two, with hard shoulders and sharp features and ice blue eyes that looked at you without blinking. He stepped out of the door to make room for his friend, and the friend needed all the room he could get: He was a huge man, maybe six-five, with great sloping shoulders, an enormous protruding gut, and the k..
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Robert Crais |
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e06b967
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There are two crime scenes at every kidnapping. The first crime scene is where they snatch you, the second is where the cops find your body.
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Robert Crais |
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7732be8
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The lifter didn't seem to be paying a lot of attention, but the buzz cut was looking at everything. He scanned the storefronts and alleys and rooflines, his ice blue eyes moving in an unhurried, practiced sweep. I wondered what he was looking for, and I wondered where he had picked up the habit. I said, "Afghanistan." The ice blue eyes never stopped their search."
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Robert Crais |
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8c8efec
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He cupped her face and forced her to see him. She had to see past her fear. Her eyes met his and he knew they were together. "Watch me. Don't look at them or anything else. Watch me until I motion for you, then run for the car as fast as you can." Once more, he did not hesitate. He jerked open the door, set up fast on the man in the drive, and fired the Colt twice. He reset on the man coming across the yard. Pike doubled on each man's cente..
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Robert Crais |
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ec2c767
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That's right. He was tied in with a boy down there about the time of the murders. Wasn't enough money up here for him in hijacking; he wanted to bring in drugs, so he worked out something with a--lemme think a minute--a boy named Gonzalo Lehder. Made a few trips down there working out the deal, and I guess they hit it off. When we put the indictments on him, that's where he went." Cole wrote down the name. Lehder."
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Robert Crais |
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92652c3
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Cole stared at the Pinocchio clock, then a small ceramic figurine of Jiminy Cricket a client had given him. Let your conscience be your guide. Everyone needed a Jiminy.
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Robert Crais |
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387cc65
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Chen hated it when Pike did that--appearing from nowhere as if the freaky psycho had stepped through a hole in the smog. Only an asshole did stuff like that, sneaking up and scaring people, and Chen had been afraid of Pike since they first met. Chen had taken one look at the guy and known Pike was one of those vicious, double-Y chromosome, beer-commercial slope-brows who loved showing up other people. True, Pike had also given him the tips ..
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Robert Crais |
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4d8540d
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Pike got into the Lexus, but Larkin stepped inside the door so he couldn't close it. Her face seemed as brittle as a ceramic mask, and Pike suddenly remembered how she had looked up in the desert when she was unloading on her father. Only now she didn't seem so much angry as betrayed. Pike gentled his voice. "I'm sorry if I should have discussed it with you. I didn't think it would be an issue."
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Robert Crais |
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a757267
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Pike got out of the car, took off the long-sleeved shirt, then went to the trunk. He looked through the things Ronnie had left. He drank half a bottle of Arrowhead water, then collected his SOG fighting knife, a pair of Zeiss binoculars, the little .25-caliber Beretta, and a box of hollowpoints for the .45. He wouldn't need anything else.
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Robert Crais |
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6f40da1
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I looked at her, and thought that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. "Can I shoot him later?" She smiled again, and this time patted my hand. "We'll see." Something to live for."
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Robert Crais |
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bf6dfbb
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The people in the terminal ebbed and flowed with the early morning flight schedule of the big cross-country flights to New York or Miami or Chicago, then grew steadily as the number of flights increased. At eight-thirty we separated and positioned ourselves with a view to all points of egress in case Clark showed. He didn't. A family of Hare Krishnas came through snapping finger chimes and offering pamphlets for money, moving from person to..
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Robert Crais |
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a967017
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I drove back to Belmont Pier, parked in front of a shop that sold whale-watching tickets, and used a pay phone there to call Lou Poitras. He said, "Bubba, you really take advantage." "Funny. Your wife said the same thing." Poitras sighed. "Just tell me what you want." Humor. You break them down with humor, and victory is yours."
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Robert Crais |
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db46449
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Nope." I hung up, bought an iced tea from a sausage grill, then stared at the bay. The water was clean and blue, and Catalina was in sharp relief twenty-six miles away. A young woman in short-shorts and a metallic blue bikini top Rollerbladed past on the bicycle path. I followed her motion but did not see her. The detective in thoughtful mode. I"
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Robert Crais |
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e1f4d8f
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She looked at our hands, twined there in her lap. "I know you want to help me through this. You already have, and I'm grateful, but you can't help me anymore." She tugged at my hand, and when I looked over I think she was trying not to cry. "I will not have my life defined by triangles. It's not fair to you, and it's not fair to me. Richard is my mistake, and I have to live with it." I didn't know what to say."
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Robert Crais |
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fb7772e
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More overblown, effusive praise for Daniel's efforts. "Thank"
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Robert Crais |
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314794a
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I went to bed at twenty minutes after one that night, and still the networks were on the air, rehashing the landing, replaying the interviews, offering taped "live" coverage of something that was no more alive than a nightmare."
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Robert Crais |
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3eb0fbd
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The press still called, though with less frequency, and I avoided them. I listened to talk radio and gained weight, as if I felt a hunger that I couldn't satisfy.
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Robert Crais |
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04c7929
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Twenty-eight days after the towers, Pike and I finished sealing the deck. It was slick and gleaming and smelled of marine-grade varnish. After the varnish had cured, we put the deck chairs and the Weber and the little table back and sat in the sun drinking cold Falstaff. We sat for awhile, and then Pike said, "Say something."
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Robert Crais |
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e643cfa
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Four hours later Pike was gone and I was cooking a very nice puttanesca sauce when I decided to call Lucy Chenier. I was most of the way through a bottle of California merlot. In the course of my life I've been shot, sapped, slugged, stabbed with a broken beer bottle, and I've faced down any number of thugs and miscreants, but talking to Lucy about moving to Louisiana seemed to require fortification. She answered on the third ring, and I sa..
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Robert Crais |
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c77355f
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Pike said, "What's wrong?" "His name isn't Haines. It's Hewitt, and he isn't just your ordinary junkie. He's on the run from the Russian mob, he used to be in the federal witness protection program, and he doesn't have a clue that he or those children are in danger." Pike nodded. "So where's the surprise?" You never know if he means it."
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Robert Crais |
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15dc737
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The first headline read: MOB BOSS INDICTED ON 39 COUNTS. The basic story was as Reed Jasper described: Vasily Markov headed an organization of Russian emigres who had long been suspected of involvement in counterfeiting, black marketeering, smuggling, extortion, and murder, but that it wasn't until "an insider in Markov's counterfeiting ring" turned state's evidence that the grand jury could get an indictment. That insider was Clark Hewitt...
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Robert Crais |
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2ab7722
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Good-bye, Richard." So much for civil discourse. So much for modern men discussing a modern problem in an enlightened manner. I was thinking that it might be fun to beat him to death."
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Robert Crais |