The Bodies Left Behind Quotes
"The woods around Lake Mondac were as quiet as could be, a world of difference from the churning, chaotic city where the couple spent their weekdays."
"Silence, broken only by an occasional a-hoo-ah of a distant bird, the hollow siren of a frog."
"Their friend, visiting from Chicago this weekend, had been flirting with liquid diets lately, drinking the most disgusting things."
"Emma gazed out at rippling Lake Mondac, far enough from the hill to catch some descending sun."
"Emma frowned. 'You hear that? Again, that sound. Outside.'"
"The less she saw, she was thinking, the better their chances to survive."
"Somewhere, in its ancient heart, the house creaked once more."
"The sheriff’s jaw tightened. 'Well, damn. Just goddamn.'"
"Revenge is fun. That asshole I told you about with the box cutter? Fucking him up was more fun than seeing the Brewers. Depending on who’s pitching."
"Bring your keys out here. We just want your car is all."
"She screamed as the water embraced her body."
"You’ve seen those folks inside. You don’t want that to happen to you."
"Move fast while you can still take advantage of it."
"Waiting, waiting. For him to present a target."
"As long as I was moving, I was still a free man."
"This is my world, the creature who’d left the prints was saying. You don’t belong here."
"She probably saw us go past and stood up. Thinking we were gone."
"Payback. You son of a bitch, Hart. I knew you’d be up for it."
"And the number one rule of craftsmanship is knowing your tools: the animate ones, like Lewis, in addition to those made from steel."
"Like a hunter, waiting for just the right moment to take the shot. Like Hart himself."
"It was well hidden in the tall grass and shrubs."
"It wasn’t me, this isn’t my world. I can’t do it!"
"People get lost. I saw this thing on TV. This couple got lost and they froze to death and the animals ate their bodies."
"You get the whole package—even came with an ornery old lady you hadn’t bargained for."
"Sometimes just delivering a message is the important thing. Whatever that message is."
"It's okay," Michelle said. "You're right. It doesn't hurt anymore."
"With every passing yard, Brynn grew more confident."
"Their short row into the lake had revealed that the women had propped up life vests to resemble bodies hunched down in the canoe and then shoved the boat into the water."
"The contests he preferred were those in which he had a pretty good idea that the outcome would be in his favor."
"When you make a choice—signing on for this job, for instance—there's a whole slew of consequences that can follow."
"The Trickster was always hanging around looking for ways to make things go wrong."
"I covered the other guys. Right out in the open. Kept him down. I didn’t even crouch."
"You stand your ground when you need to. You get the hell out when you need to. And then take care of 'em later."
"The women were just being true to their nature."
"The idea was simple. You pounded a needle or pin with a hammer, which magnetized it. Then you rested it on a piece of cork floating in a dish of water. The needle aligned itself north and south."
"I'm never surprised. Doing the job itself's usually boring, I’ve been through it so often in my mind."
"People were predictable. He’d made a study of human nature in the extremes and he was comfortable taking them on, however dangerous they were."
"Like 'making' a bed. Only you really did make one, not with sheets and blankets."
"How can a fucking police department be closed?"
"This isn’t the North Woods. That’d be different. We’re in Wisconsin. A state park. Just using logic."
"He moved slowly, cautiously. Not afraid of getting lost, afraid of whom he might run into out here."
"But then he tensed. There, yes…No doubt about it."
"His heart was slamming. His instinct was to get back to the camper and get the hell out of here."
"Just get the hell out of here, part of his mind shouted."
"Very quietly he worked the bolt on the Savage, chambering a round."
"Playing at being a soldier himself. A role he wasn’t very comfortable with at all."
"Her body filled with a calm, almost euphoric sensation."
"She wasn’t a deputy now. Not a wife or mother. She was the wolf, a primitive creature, survival its only thought."
"Imagine what’d happen if I hadn’t found you."
"You’re not bringing us trouble if that’s what you’re thinking."
"We should get moving," Brynn said. "Lead the way."
"Brynn turned toward her. Wide-eyed, the young woman said, 'Go ahead and shoot them.'"
"It was as if the young woman, the spoiled princess, the dilettante, had been more in control than she."
"She’d killed the crazed animal with two fast shots. She’d quit the sport after that, not out of fear—she’d secretly enjoyed the rush—but because she’d killed an animal whose only crime was defending its invaded home."
"And she reflected too that this thought troubled her very little."
"No, you’re a civilian. If you killed one of them it’d be murder. You’d get off probably but you don’t want to go there."
"This is my world. You’ll see things that aren’t there and miss things that’re coming up right behind you."
"I'm not saying that at all, Graham. She's real tough. One of the toughest."
"Don't imagine it's that deep. She could've got out."
"But now I think about it, you didn't rig it to fall, did you?"
"You'd worry about rescue workers or your cop friends getting blinded."
"You weren't paying attention. I already did."
"But don't you think it's what makes everything worthwhile? Even what's gone down tonight, all this crap. I do. I wouldn't trade the life I lead for anything."
"You killed her friends. Why would I tell you where she is, so you can kill her too?"
"Wrong time and wrong place, you might say. A lot of that going around tonight."
"For years he’d changed the geography of residences and offices by plopping a few camellias or rhododendrons into planting beds primed with limey soil and tucking them away under a blanket of mulch. Here, plants weren’t decorations; they were the infrastructure, population, society itself. Controlling all."
"He and Munce meant nothing, were less than insignificant, as were all the animals here."
"It seemed to Graham that the croaks and hisses and hoots were desperate pleas that the trees and plants blithely ignored. Indifferent."
"And treacherous too. Once, they had to tightrope walk across a log above a thick sea of poison ivy, to which he was allergic."
"Graham couldn’t help but think that the noise from stepping on a desiccated branch or kicking an unnoticed pile of crisp leaves might also alert the killers."
"To maintain silence Munce would give hand commands."
"It’s a honey locust. Most dangerous tree in the forest. They’re illegal to plant in a lot of places. One of those thorns’d go right through your hand. People’ve died from infections."
"Blackberry thorns’ll break off in your skin. And you don’t get ’em out right away they’ll get infected. In a big way."
"I was telling you, they were tweakers. Probably slamming their own stuff."
"Children make you, I don’t know, whole. You’re not a complete person without them."
"They made ten times what he did, their lives were never endangered, they never felt the pain that Hart was experiencing."
"They’re nothing but dead bodies, Brynn. Sitting around, upset, angry about something they saw on TV doesn’t mean a single thing to them personally."
"She believed she heard somebody whispering her name."
"Silently Brynn sprinkled more leaves over the threesome."
"Her rubber legs propelled her another five feet, then ten, grasping handholds harder than she needed to, fingers cramping."
"Thinking of the men with their loud, loud guns, another memory came back to her again: her first husband, eyes wide in shock and agony, stumbling back under the nearly point-blank impact of the slug, as Brynn’s service weapon clattered to their kitchen floor after the discharge."
"I boost things up sometimes, exaggerate, you know."
"The way you can look at it, you made two thousand bucks for, what, two minutes’ work?"
"That’s about sixty thousand an hour. And he peed his pants? Hell, that made it worth it right there."
"If they didn't, then they wouldn't be hard choices, would they?"
"You should've killed me. I would've, it'd been you. And you and me... we're peas in a pod."
"One of those hard choices... They do present themselves at the worst possible times, don't they?"
"To break somebody’s heart, you need to own a bit of it. And I don’t. I don’t have an ounce of yours. I don’t think I ever did."
"Everything’s going to be fine now. Help me, honey."
"We never talk, not about anything serious. And now we can’t stop."
"How could I be mad at you? But then I realized that, hell, yes, I could be mad. I should be mad."
"I was ashamed that I didn't leave him, just bundle Joey up and walk out the door."
"Help me figure out why you love the job more than me."
"But it's not too late. Don't judge by last night. This was...this was a nightmare."
"You don't want me, Brynn. You sure don't need me."
"Usually, you can't pick the bullet that hits you. Usually you can't even hear it coming."
"The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today."
"What we assumed was protection turned out to be the greatest threat."
"People heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted to see, believed what they wanted to believe."
"I wasn't lying when I said I was an actress, Brynn. I just don't act onstage or in front of the camera."