Home > Work > Before She Disappeared (Frankie Elkin, #1)
21 " He’s familiar, but he’s not the same. He’s an American whose family came from Haiti. My aunt, my sister, myself, we are Haitians who now live in America. He has never felt the ground shake beneath his feet. He doesn’t understand that it can happen again. "
― Lisa Gardner , Before She Disappeared (Frankie Elkin, #1)
22 " Slivers of privacy in an arrangement where my younger brother is also living, sleeping, waking right beside me. And maybe I don’t mind. I protected my baby brother from our father. I led him from our collapsing house. Even now, I have promised us both a better future. "
23 " No pimp wants the hired help to achieve financial independence. "
24 " Then another possibility came to me, scarier and sadder than all the others. She could’ve been kidnapped to serve as recruitment bait. A quiet, pretty immigrant teen. Held against her will, then sent out to bus stops and train stations to meet other unsuspecting teens and lure them over to meet her “friends”: sex traffickers, pimps, dope dealers. "
25 " It’s been a hard day. And I’m tired and alone. And white. Dear God, when did I become this impossibly glow-in-the-dark neon white, so that everyone stares at me and no one knows me? My skin color has made me the enemy, a walking advertisement for entitlement and privilege except I don’t feel like any of those things. I feel like I’ve always felt. Broken. As if the whole rest of the world knows something I don’t. Feels things I can’t. Connects in ways I’ve never learned how. "
26 " Lani might be a screw-up with horrible taste in men, but she was still a mom. Why people assumed those things couldn’t go together, I’ll never know. "
27 " It’s a popular trick among the streetwise to appear richer than they are. "
28 " Bostonians will tell you that Mattapan is that kind of neighborhood. Rough. Poor. Filled with hardworking souls, of course, and a rich cultural heritage thanks to having the country’s largest Haitian population outside of Florida. But also a hotbed of gang activity "
29 " Criminal enterprises are notoriously snobbish, and our local gangs aren’t sophisticated enough for Russian interest. "
30 " I’m not a police officer. I’m not a private investigator. I have no special skills or training. I’m only me. An average, middle-aged white woman with more regrets than belongings, more sad stories than happy ones. "
31 " So many think we must share the same beliefs to get along. In my experience, sharing the same fear is a far more effective strategy. "
32 " What’s it going to take for you to trust me?” “You’re an addict. You really have to ask that? "
33 " Clearly Livia had mad skills. Which meant she also had a way out of her impoverished, drug-dealing, crime-ridden family life. Her education combined with her natural ability—the sky should’ve been the limit. So what went wrong? Why wasn’t she still at school, perfecting more pumpkins and fidget doohickeys and manufacturing molds while preparing to launch the next great "
34 " LOTHAM IS THE DEDICATED, WORKAHOLIC detective I suspected him to be. He doesn’t take me to some evidence lab or special countersurveillance expert. "
35 " They took an oath. I don’t believe it was to serve and protect only people who make intelligent life choices. "
36 " try to think past the image, to the Angelique I now know. A smart, serious student. A caretaker for her brother, her aunt, and her mom back home. In her brother’s words, not a dreamer but a planner. "
37 " Just because you haven’t gotten caught, doesn’t mean you’re innocent.” “And just because you’re suspicious, doesn’t mean I’m guilty. "
38 " I was so sure Livia was the missing link. Knowing about her involvement now, you’d load up these videos, we’d spy her hat, her face, something and kapow! All the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place. "
39 " It’s cataloguing all my sins that has me hung up. For all my talk of honesty, there’s only so much scrutiny I can handle. Though asking for forgiveness is also an issue. How do you apologize to the dead? "
40 " Because I’ve been to war, and it still wasn’t as scary as living around here. "