61
" He and Sally Perryman had grown close. Very close. But there hadn’t been anything physical—not so much as a kiss. Lines hadn’t been crossed, but they’d been approached and challenged and perhaps even stepped on, though never over. There comes a stage, Adam had learned, where you are standing near that line, teetering, one life on one side, one life on the other, and at some point, you either cross it or something has to wither and die. In this case, something died. Two months after the case ended, Sally Perryman took another job with a law firm in Livingston. "
― Harlan Coben , The Stranger
65
" Her friend visited Johanna in her sleep. It wasn’t in a gory, bloody way. Heidi didn’t turn into a ghostly figure or whisper, “Avenge me.” Nothing like that. Johanna really couldn’t say what exactly occurred in her Heidi-centric dreams. The dreams felt normal, like real life, and Heidi was there and laughing and smiling and they were having a good time, and then at some point, Johanna remembered what had happened, that Heidi had, in fact, been murdered. Then panic would take hold of Johanna. The dream would start ending, and Johanna would reach out and desperately try to grab her friend, as though she could keep Heidi there, alive—as though Johanna, if she tried hard enough, could undo the murder and Heidi would be okay. Johanna "
― Harlan Coben , The Stranger
66
" Adam saw her eyes look up to the right. He didn’t necessarily buy the idea that you could tell lies by the way the eyes move, but he did know that when someone’s eyes look up and to the right, it usually indicated that the person was visually remembering things, as opposed to the left, which meant visually constructing things. Of course, like most generalizations, you couldn’t really count on it, and visually constructing did not mean lying. If you asked someone to think of a purple cow, that would lead to visual construction, which isn’t a lie or deception. Either "
― Harlan Coben , The Stranger
69
" That was when Adam spotted Merton’s gun. It was across the room, not far from the window. The gunman’s back was turned. Adam had two options here. One, he could try to run up the stairs. But no, that would leave him too exposed for too long. He’d be a sitting duck. So two, if he could just make a sudden move toward the gun, if he could just get there in time and reach out while the man was distracted. . . . Or wait, there was a third option. Should he just stay right where he was? Should he just stay hidden under the stairwell? Yes. That was it. Stay out of sight. Maybe the man hadn’t seen him. Maybe the man didn’t know he was here. No. The man had shot Merton first. Merton had been standing right next to Adam. There was no way he could have seen Merton and not seen him. The gunman just wanted to make sure no one escaped. He wanted them all dead. Adam had to go for the weapon. These calculations didn’t take seconds. They didn’t even take nanoseconds. All of it—the three options, the computations, the rejections, the planning—happened in no time, as though the world had been frozen just so he could sort this out. The gun. Get "
― Harlan Coben , The Stranger
71
" You know, don’t you?” The unfamiliar voice startled him for a second, but Dan just figured that the guy hadn’t been talking to him. Still, when he sneaked a look, he could see some stranger was staring directly into Dan’s sunglassed eyes. Little guy, Dan thought, but then again, everyone looked little to Dan. Not short. Just small. Small hands, thin arms, almost frail. The guy who was staring at him now stuck out here because it was so clear he didn’t belong. There was nothing football about him. Too little. Too nerdy. Big baseball cap pulled down too low. And that soft, friendly smile. “You "
― Harlan Coben , The Stranger