“AS IT TURNED out, Rylann wasn’t quite as good as she’d thought she was.Over the last five years she’d prosecuted cases, she’d become quite skilled at reading defendants and their lawyers at the initial courtappearance. Given Quinn’s obvious nervousness, she’d originally predicted that his lawyer would be calling her within two weeks to negotiate aplea agreement.Instead, it took him two weeks and three days to make that call.”

“She’d make for a jazzy week-end, but she’d be wearing for a steady diet.”

“The little office, scarcely large enough to contain Dr. Irene’s desk at one end and the couch at the other, held a world of memories for Lily. Here, fifty minutes at a time, two or three times a week, she’d spilled out her hopes and fears, her childhood nightmares and adolescent insecurities – in a sense, she’d grown up in this room.”

“Old lady Patterson is a real tightwad.” Raising his voice so it would carry, the man continued, “If she stuck a lump of coal up her ass, within a week she’d shit out a diamond.”

“You want to play the winner?” I called out to Ivy, lounging on a chair with her back to the wall as she pretended to read a magazine and watch us without being obvious about it. She’d put herself right in the sun, which told me she’d had a rough morning. She sat in the sun only when she was frustrated.”

“She was sated and relaxed, which was quickly becoming his favourite look on her. Her sleep y smile wasn’t meant to charm or soothe him. It wasn’t a mask. This was Lex, stripped of all that bullshit she’d learned in Two. Not trying to be anyone’s fantasy.It made her his.”