“The busy snoops like us can leave no stone unturned," Alma said.”

“Quote taken from Chapter 1: That's the idea. Listen, Frank, this one is different. She's a keeper." He let that part gel in me. "Get your head screwed on straight and move to Richmond. You hate it living in Pelham.”

“A diamond wedding ring, you say?”I studied his face. Was he putting me on? He looked earnest. “As any guy would expect, a diamond is what she’s after,” I said. “Did you hold out hope you’d get by for anything less?”

“Get a load of this, Frank.” Gerald Peyton’s pause set off his pronouncement. “She is expecting to get a wedding ring.”“That’s understandable,” I said, unsure how he could afford a ring on what our firm cleared. Diamond rings—more sold in December than in any other month of the year—went for a cool grand per karat. Weeks ago, I’d priced them—again—for my domestic situation. “What seems to be the problem?”“That’s a big leap for me to make.”“I expect you’ll make it with room to spare.”

“Quote taken from Chapter 1:I know what." Isabel reached under the end table, took out the game board, and rattled the Band-Aid box containing the letter tiles. "It's been a week-and-a-half since our last Scrabble game.”

“Alma didn’t want Isabel to start singing the praises of their pet, a rescue beagle, or she wouldn’t shush until sundown. “I’ve found the missing lady,” Alma said. “Say welcome home, Betsy Sweet.”

“I let my gaze travel out the picture window. Unlike at my old doublewide trailer perched on the fringe of a played out quarry, here I owned a real yard with real grass that screamed for mowing each Monday a.m. I sat at the kitchen table, cooling off from just having finished this week's job. Yes, here in 2005, I was a full-fledged suburbanite, but I'd been called worse.”

“In near panic, I craned my neck to gaze over the cabin’s roofline a bursting fireball.”

“Just the night before, a puma’s howl had set a chill at my spine and, man, life didn’t get any richer than that.”

“Dreema and you disagree. She cottons to Richmond, but you can't be weaned off Pelham. So I offer you a fair middle ground: relocate to northern Virginia. She transfers to the state morgue on Braddock Road, and you get to stay near your old beat.”

“From Chapter 1:The main rub was the lack of RnR and I burned out. Three years and three stripes later, I ejected from the MP Corps, vowing I'd never do police or criminal investigative work again. Instead, I returned home when I should've learned better.”