James Patterson

"Yeah. It's just too fricking easy to steal a child. Perv says, 'Want to see my puppy?' Kid toddles over. Perv drags the kid inside and takes off. No witness. No evidence. And now," I said, "the long wait for a phone call… that never comes."

I knew why I was having trouble telling her about my illness- I didn't want to hurt her. Or to burden her with my problems. I loved her so much.

“Don’t ever go to a hospital if you can help it. More people die of accidents in the hospital than die from breast cancer, AIDS, or in car accidents.”

I willed the anxiety out of my voice, but I felt it deep in my gut. I told them that a child had died at Municipal Hospital under suspicious circumstances. That we had to preserve the evidence while there was still time, and find the cruelest kind of killer without much to go on.

I could see the concern in their faces, and still they had faith in me.

I asked, “Any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

“We’re on it, Lieutenant.”

The squad gave me the courage of my desperate convictions.

I remembered a wise, beautiful African proverb: “It takes a whole village to raise a good child.”

She says she doesn’t have that much of life left, and she won’t waste it on tears.

He believed that men loved the hunt—lived for it, in fact—though most wouldn’t admit it. A man’s eyes never stopped searching for beautiful, sensual women, or for sexy men and boys, for that matter.

“Maybe it’s better to love and lose than be afraid.”

“He has a rebellious look about him and he’s very handsome. That combination is irresistible to some women.

“I do love the idea of you, God,” she finally whispered. “Please love the idea of me back.”