“Seeing her, well, it did things I hadn’t been ready to delve into before. Hell, I really didn’t even know at what point I had become ready.Probably happened somewhere between when I thought she was dead and when she wasn’t.”

“The point is, did she kill that woman? If I thought she did I would bow out quick — I would already have bowed out because it would have been hopeless. But she didn’t One will get you ten that she didn’t. If she had—”The interruption wasn’t words; it was her lips against mine and her palms covering my ears. If she had been Wolfe’s client I would have shoved her off quick, since that sort of demonstration only ruffles him, but she was mine and there was no point in hurting her feelings. I even patted her shoulder. When she was through I resumed.”

“It wasn’t enough, just knowing that Noelle was alive and on her way back to us. So I sat there wondering if Noelle had screamed when she was taken. And if she had, why hadn’t anyone heard?”

“It has become something to her, that memory — something she can take out in dismal times and stare into like a crystal ball disclosing not presages but reminders. She holds it in her palm like a captured ladybug and thinks, Well ain’t I been some places, ain’t I partook in some glorious happenings wanderin my way between heaven and earth. And if I ain’t seen everything there is to see, it wasn’t for lack of lookin.Blind is the real dead.”

“If he had any kind of a clue, he wouldn’t be caught dead with that stuff. See what I did there? Caught dead? I crack myself up.” Eve sipped more coffee she probably, at this point, didn’t need.”

“She had sought me out. I knew it would happen. Even if I had switched to a different section, she would have sought me out all the same. She, who hid in the crowd, who didn’t want anyone to see her behind her veil of averted eyes and aloofness. When I stepped forward, she came out, too. And she pointed and said, revealing a child’s wanton smile: “That’s the one I want.” And like a potted sunflower that had just been sold to a customer, I was taken away. There was no way to refuse. This, from a beautiful girl that I was already deeply, viscerally attracted to. Things were getting good.”