“She was in love. In love with the same man she'd always been in love with-God save her.”

“He should probably make love to her.”

“Don't you want to be neighbors?""No." he said. "I want to be lovers. Sleep-together lovers. Wake-up together lovers. One bed."Oh, God, she was going to fall in love. She could feel it happening.”

“He'd kissed her, and she'd been poleaxed, frozen in place, because his mouth had felt like coming home. The taste of him, the smell of him, the sound of his breath-the slow slide of his tongue over and around and down the lenght of hers, it had all said, "Here's your place,girl,here with me.”

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice tight. “But if I’d known there was going to be a firearms examination at the end of the kidnapping, by God, I would have studied for it!”

“That meant Ms. Starkova was his. He'd found her; he'd tailed her; and he'd saved her from Reinhard Klein. By jungle law, even the urban jungle, that made her his.”

“Good God. Johnny freakin' Ramos. Out in the hall. Of course, out in the hall. Hell, he'd spent half his life out in the hall,especially at Campbell Junior High,especially during seventh-grade social studies call. She'd gotten sent out in the hall with him once, her one and only time in the hall ever, the two of them put there to "work things out", and her poor little thirteen-year-old heart had barely survived the experience.”