I know what kind of man it takes to get involved with something as barbarous as human trafficking.” “I get it, Swopes. He’s not the kind of man you take home to meet your stepmom.” I rethought that. “Wait a minute. Maybe my stepmom would like to meet him. Do you think he ships to Istanbul?

But we'd never really seen eye to eye. Mostly 'cause he was much taller than I was.

I may not have any skeletons in my closet, but I do have a little box of souls in my sock drawer. —T-SHIRT

Garrett must have sensed I was awake. "Hey Detective," he said to Uncle Bob, who was now trudging across the grating toward us. "I think we're losing her. I have no choice but to perform mouth-to-mouth." "Don't you dare," I said, my lids still in lockdown.

Hey, boss. Where are you?” she asked. “I just picked up something to eat. What about professional belly dancers?” “Um, I don’t know, maybe with horseradish.

Oh, I forgot to tell you," Cookie said. "Amber wants your dad to get a teriyaki machine so she can sing for all the lonely barflies." "I'm a good singer, mom." Only a twelve-year-old could make the word mom sound blasphemous. I leaned into Cookie, "Does she know its not called--?" "No," she whispered. "Are you gonna tell her?" "No. It's much funnier this way.

She didn't smile back. Not even a little. I totally needed to read that book on how to win friends and influence people. But that would involve an innate desire to win friends and influence people.