Shelter Harlan Coben Quotes

Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay

Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers." She slapped my back. "Welcome to high school.

A Spoon swoon, if you will.

maybe it was because the lonely can sometimes sense the lonely.

A sign read: YOUR STAY HERE IS TOUCH AND GO—TOUCH AND YOU GO.

There is no place more hollow, more soulless, than a school at night. The building had been created for life, for constant motion, for students rushing back and forth, some confident, most scared, all trying to figure out their place in the world. Take that away and you might as well have a body drained of all its blood.

We started for the door when Agent called out, “Mickey?” I turned. “You, like Ema, have a pure spirit. You have blessed energy centers and true balance. You are a protector. You look out for others. You are their shelter.” “Uh,

We started down the tunnel. I wondered how something like this had been built. No way it passed Kasselton code. Did Lizzy Sobek hire construction workers? I doubted it. Did volunteers work on it? Did those “chosen” by the Abeona Shelter build this tunnel? Maybe. Maybe my father helped build it. But

Ironic, I guess. He was a humanitarian, my father. He survived going against the wishes of despots and dictators in some of the most dangerous and war-torn jungles in the world. He finally settled back in the relative safety of the United States and dies in a car crash driving me to a basketball game. It

A door behind the desk opened, and a short, wiry man entered. His short-sleeved dress shirt was shiny and unbuttoned down to the navel, revealing a host of gold chains and, uh, bling. His arms were knotted, ropy muscle. Have you ever seen someone who gave you the chills just by entering a room? This guy had that. Even the big bouncer, who had to be a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the short guy, took half a step back. A hush fell over us. The short, wiry man had the narrow face of a ferret and what I can only describe as psycho eyes. I know that you are not supposed to judge people by their looks, but a blind man would be able to see that this guy was serious bad news. “Hello

Hello there,” he said to me. “My name is Buddy Ray. What’s yours?” He had a faint lisp. I swallowed. “Robert Johnson.” Buddy Ray’s smile would make small children flee to their mamas. “Nice to meet you, Robert.” Buddy Ray—I didn’t know if that was a double first name or a first and last name—looked me over as though I were a bite-size snack. Something was off with this guy—you could just see it. He kept licking his lips. I risked a glance back at the big bouncer. Even he looked jittery in Buddy Ray’s presence. As Buddy Ray approached, a pungent stench of cheap cologne failing to mask foul body odor wafted off him, the foul smell taking the lead like a Doberman he was walking. Buddy Ray stopped directly in front of me, maybe six inches away. I held my breath and stood my ground. I, too, had a foot on him. The bouncer took another step backward. Buddy

A door behind the desk opened, and a short, wiry man entered. His short-sleeved dress shirt was shiny and unbuttoned down to the navel, revealing a host of gold chains and, uh, bling. His arms were knotted, ropy muscle. Have you ever seen someone who gave you the chills just by entering a room? This guy had that. Even the big bouncer, who had to be a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the short guy, took half a step back. A hush fell over us. The

The court is my escape and my paradise. I love basketball. I love the way you can be exhausted and sweaty and running with nine other guys, and yet, at the risk of sounding overly Zen, you are still so wonderfully alone. On the court, nothing bothers me. I see things a few seconds before they actually happen. I love anticipating a teammate’s cut and then throwing a bounce pass between two defenders. I love the rebound, boxing out, figuring angles and positioning myself, willing the ball into my hands. I love dribbling without looking down, the feel, the sense of trust, of control, almost as though the ball were on a leash. I love catching the pass, locking my eyes on the front rim, sliding my fingers into the grooves, raising the ball above my head, cocking my wrist as I begin to leap. I love the feel as I release the shot at the apex of the jump, the way my fingertips stay on the leather until the last possible moment, the way I slowly come back to the ground, the way the ball moves in an arc toward the rim, the way the bottom of the net dances when the ball goes swish. I

The music still came from the house. It was past midnight. What kind of old lady plays rock music after midnight? One who still plays old vinyl records. One who keeps a weird tombstone in her wooded backyard. One who has strange visitors in a black car with a license plate number engraved on that same weird tombstone. One who told a teenage boy that his dead father was still alive. “What’s this?” Ema asked. I snapped back to the present. “What?” “Behind here.” She was pointing to the back of the tombstone. “There’s something carved into the back.” I walked over slowly, but I knew. I just knew. And when I reached the back of the tombstone and shined the light on it, I was barely surprised. A butterfly with animal eyes on its wings. Ema gasped. The music in the house stopped. Just like that. Like someone had flicked the off switch the moment my eyes found that dang symbol. Ema looked up at my face and saw something troubling. “Mickey?” Nope, there was no surprise. Not anymore. There was rage now. I wanted answers. I was going to get them, no matter what. I wasn’t going to wait for Mr. Shaved Head with the British accent to contact me. I wasn’t going to wait for Bat Lady to fly down and leave me another cryptic clue. Heck, I wasn’t even going to wait until tomorrow. I was going to find out now. “Mickey?

So now what do I do? Do I just approach and start slamming my palms on the window, demanding answers? That seemed somewhat logical. It also seemed kind of stupid. Do I sit here and wait? For how long? And what if the car drives off? Then what? I was still hunched behind the bush, trying to decide what to do, when the decision was made for me. The front passenger door opened and the bald guy stepped out. He still wore the dark suit, and despite the hour, he even had the sunglasses on. For a moment the man stood perfectly still, his back to the bush. Then he slowly turned his head and said, “Mickey.” Gulp. I had no idea how he had seen me, but it didn’t matter now. I stood up. He stared at me from behind those sunglasses, and in spite of the heat, I swear I felt a chill. “You have questions,” the bald man said to me. He spoke with one of those exaggerated British accents that almost sound phony. Like he’d gone to some fancy prep school and wanted to make sure you knew it. “But you’re not yet ready for the answers.” “What does that mean?” “It means,” he said, still with that accent, “just what it sounds like.” I frowned. “It sounds like something you’d read on a bad fortune cookie.” There was the hint of a smile on the bald man’s face. “Don’t tell anyone about us.” “Like who?” “Like anyone. Like your uncle.” “Myron? What would I tell him anyway? I don’t know anything. Who exactly are you? Or, as you put it, us?” “You’ll know,” he said, “when the time is right.” “And when will that be?” The man slid back into the car. He never seemed to hurry, but every moment was almost supernaturally fast and fluid. “Wait!” I shouted. I moved quickly, trying to reach the car door before it closed. “What were you doing in that house? Who are you?” But it was too late. He slammed the door shut. The car started up. Now, as I semi-planned earlier, I slapped the tinted windows with my palm. “Stop!” The

Of course you can’t know. But you play the odds. You save who you can and you mourn those you can’t. When you follow this calling, your heart gets ripped apart every day. You make the world better in increments, not grand designs. You make choices. Do you understand?

We were broken down into groups of six—mine featured three incoming freshmen and three upperclassmen who had just moved to town. “One

Somewhere in this world—in China or India or a remote section of Africa—there was probably a bigger dork than me. But I couldn’t swear to that. I

If life were a movie, this was the part where you’d start the music montage. Some sappy song would be playing while they flashed to Ashley and me sharing lunch, talking, laughing, looking coy, holding hands—and ending with that first chaste kiss. That

Yiddish proverb: Man plans, God laughs.

I frowned. “Don’t you guys have a steroid needle that needs an ass cheek?” Their

Right, okay.” Ema raised her hands in mock surrender and quickly moved out of sight. I fell back for a second, relieved. I was also impressed as all get-out. Talk about quick thinking. Ema was safe. Now it was my turn. I took another glance out the window. The man with the shaved head stood by the garage door. He opened it, and whoever was driving pulled the car in. The man with the shaved head kept doing the head pivot, like a surveillance camera, and then suddenly he jerked to the left and zeroed right in on me. I dropped back down to the floor, out of sight. Had he spotted me? It seemed likely, the way he homed in on me like that, but with the sunglasses on, it was impossible to know. I crawled back to the other room, positioning myself on the floor so I could see the back door. I

A dozen thoughts hit me all at once. The biggest was a one-word command: RUN! I had watched the horror movies, the ones where the mentally malnourished airhead goes into the house alone, sneaking around like, well, like me, and then ends up with an ax between the eyes. From the safety of my seat in the cineplex, I had scoffed at their idiocy and now, here I was, in Bat Lady’s lair, and someone else was here, in the basement. Why

I stayed still and listened. Now I could hear someone moving down there. I moved closer to the door. There were voices. Two people. Both male. My phone buzzed again. Ema: GET! OUT! Part of me wanted to stay. Part of me wanted to fling open that basement door and take my chances. But another part of me—maybe the part of me that was millions of years old, the animal part, the primordial part that still relied on survival instinct—pulled up. The primordial animal looked at that glowing door and sensed danger behind it. Serious danger. I

She stopped, dazed. “Who are these two?” she asked Taylor. “We, uh, found them loitering around,” Taylor said. “We thought maybe they were the perpetrators.” For a second, Mrs. Kent stared at us as though we were pieces in a puzzle she couldn’t put together. “These

THE SATURN RINGS ROUNDABOUT MOTEL was located beneath an overpass on Route 22. The neon sign advertised hourly rates, free Wi-Fi, and color television, as if some rivals might only be using black-and-white ones. The motel was, as the name suggested, round, but that wasn’t the first thing you noticed. The first thing you noticed was the filth. The Saturn Rings was the kind of seedy and dirty place that made you want to dunk your whole body in a giant bottle of hand sanitizer. Myron’s

The first involved the “trust fall.” Ms. Owens, a PE teacher with a smile that looked like it’d been painted on by a drunk clown, started off by trying to fire us up. “Good morning, everyone!” A few groans. Then—and I hate when adults do this—she shouted, “I know you’re more excited than that, so let’s try it again! Good morning, everyone!” The

I stepped into the kitchen. I didn’t close the door behind me. I wanted a quick escape in case . . . well, whatever. The

The man just stared at her. “Or we still sell the Samoas, the Peanut Butter Sandwiches, the Shortbreads and the Tagalongs. I don’t want to pressure sell, but all your neighbors have placed orders. The Asseltas next door? They bought thirty boxes, and with a little help I can land first place in my troop and win a hundred-dollar gift certificate to the American Girl doll store—” “Go.” “I’m sorry. Did you say—” “Go.” There was no give in his voice. “Now.” “Right, okay.” Ema raised her hands in mock surrender and quickly moved out of sight. I fell back for a second, relieved. I was also impressed as all get-out. Talk about quick thinking. Ema was safe. Now it was my turn. I took another glance out the window. The man with the shaved head stood by the garage door. He opened it, and whoever was driving pulled the car in. The man with the shaved head kept doing the head pivot, like a surveillance camera, and then suddenly he jerked to the left and zeroed right in on me. I

I told her about the photograph, the butterfly emblem, and the light in the basement. When I finished, Ema said, “Whoa.” “You say that a lot.” “What?” “ ‘Whoa,’” I said. “Actually, I don’t. But hanging around you, well, it seems awfully apropos.” I

Ellen and Al Bolitar—my grandmother likes to joke that they’re “El-Al, like the Israeli airline”—greeted us at LAX airport. Grandma sprinted toward Myron and me, arms wide open, hugging us as though we were innocent men just released from serving an unjust prison term, which is to say, like a grandmother should. She hugged us with everything she had and then she looked us over, inspecting us to make sure that everything was how it should be.

The front passenger door of the car opened a little more. I stayed low, keeping only my forehead and eyes above the window line. I saw one shoe hit the dirt, then another. Black shoes. Men’s. A moment later someone rose from the car. Yep, a man. His head was shaved clean. He wore a dark suit and aviator sunglasses and looked as if he were either coming from a funeral or an elite member of the Secret Service. Who the heck was this? The

So now what? Kick down the door . . . and then what? Find an old lady in a weird white dress and demand she explain her whack-a-doodle rants? Maybe she had gone upstairs. Maybe Bat Lady was now getting ready for her loony day, changing out of her white dress, heading to the shower . . . Ugh.

She wasn’t my type, though I really don’t have a type. I’ve spent my entire life traveling overseas. My parents worked for a charitable foundation in places like Laos and Peru and Sierra Leone. I don’t have any siblings. It was exciting and fun when I was a kid, but it got tiresome and difficult as I grew older. I wanted to stay in one place. I wanted to make some friends and play on one basketball team and, well, meet girls and do teenage stuff. It’s hard to do that when you’re backpacking in Nepal. This

Maybe it was just because she was so pretty. Maybe I’m just as shallow as the next guy. Or maybe it was because the lonely can sometimes sense the lonely. Maybe what drew me to her was the fact that, like me, she seemed to want to keep to herself. I

I described Ashley before as my girlfriend. That might have been an exaggeration. We were taking it slow, I guess. We’d kissed twice—no more. I didn’t really like anyone else at my new school. I liked her. It wasn’t love. But it was also early. On the other hand, feelings like this usually diminish. That’s the truth. We like to pretend that they grow as we get closer to our new partner. But most times, it’s the opposite. We guys see that gorgeous girl and we get this big-time crush, one that makes it hard to breathe and makes us so anxious, want it so bad, that we always blow it. If

Spoon came up next to me. The cop frowned his disapproval with everything he had. Not just his mouth frowned. All of him joined in. He had a unibrow and Cro-Magnon forehead. They frowned too. He glared at Spoon, then turned it back at me. “And you are?” “I’m

We stopped at a door that read GUIDANCE. I always found that term wonderfully vague. The dictionary definition of the word is “advice or information aimed at resolving a problem.” In short, an attempt to help. But to us students, the word—this office—is far more frightening. It conjures up our college prospects, growing older, getting a real job—our future. Guidance seemed more like a term for cutting us loose. Spoon

Hey, Ian,” Ema said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Do you know where Agent is?” “He’s not here.” Ian looked at Ema. Then he looked at me. I gave him flat eyes and said, “Uh, yeah, we can see that.” “Do you know where he is?” Ema asked. “Or when he’ll be back?” “He took off,” Ian said. “He won’t be back for a while.” “What’s a while?” I asked. “Like tonight or . . .” “Not tonight. Not this week.” Now Ian faced me full on, studying me as though I were a horse he was considering purchasing. “You must be Mickey.” That surprised me. “Do I know you?” I said. “Nah. Agent told me you’d come by.” I glanced at Ema. She shrugged to show that she didn’t get it either. “He did?” Ian nodded. “He asked me to do the work on you, but he didn’t say where. Arm, thigh, back . . . where do you want it?” I took a step closer to him. “We didn’t make an appointment.” “Oh, I know.” “So when you say you expected us to come by—” “Agent didn’t say when. He just said you would. Stop by, that is. And he said that when you do, I should take care of you. Look, he left the artwork right there for you.” He pointed with his chin at the lower left-hand corner of the mirror—at the same image I had seen in Bat Lady’s house, by my father’s grave, and on Ema. “Do

There is no place more hollow, more soulless, than a school at night. The building had been created for life, for constant motion, for students rushing back and forth, some confident, most scared, all trying to figure out their place in the world. Take that away and you might as well have a body drained of all its blood. Our

I told her about my visit to the Plan B Go-Go Lounge. The waitress came and brought our food, but neither one of us noticed. When I finished, Ema said, “I won’t even bother with the ‘whoa.’ This is beyond whoa. It’s like whoa on steroids. It’s like whoa raised to the tenth power.” The

I opened the door. Mr. Grady sat at his desk and peered at me over his reading glasses. His suit jacket was off. He wore a short-sleeve dress shirt that probably fit a few years ago, but now it worked like a tourniquet around his neck and torso. He stood and hoisted his belt up. His pants were olive green. His hair was heavily thinning, pulled back and plastered to his scalp. “Mickey

If my dad finds out,” Spoon whispered, “well, no revival of Guys and Dolls for me.” He looked back at me. I guess I should have given him an out here. But I didn’t. Maybe because I was that desperate. Or maybe because I don’t like Guys and Dolls. He turned the key, and we stepped into the office. The front desk was tall enough so you could lean on it. Three school secretaries sat there. Going behind the desk was, of course, strictly off-limits, so I confess that I got a thrill when we did just that. Spoon

I started boiling water for pasta, my mind still trying to take it all in. Something played at the edges—something I couldn’t quite see yet. But it was there. I sat by myself at the kitchen table. My stomach still hurt from that punch. It would be sore tomorrow. That niggling in the back of my brain picked up steam. I got the laptop and booted it up. I wanted to take another look at my buddy Antoine LeMaire at Ashley’s locker. I watched the tape. Antoine opens the locker, looks inside, sees it’s empty, gets upset. I watched the tape again. Then I realized what was bothering me. The locker was already empty. Antoine

Buddy Ray just smiled at me. If the cracked teeth or blood was bothering him, he didn’t show it. The smile had nothing behind it. No mirth, no joy, no soul. It was the scariest smile I had ever seen. “The

Good answer,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “Nothing about what we do is simple,” she said. “You want a yes or no. But there is no yes or no. No black or white. It is all gray.” “There is life or death,” I said. She smiled. “What makes you sure of that?” I had no idea how to respond. “We save who we can,” she said. “We can’t save everyone. Evil exists. You can’t have an up without a down, a right without a left—or a good without an evil. Do you understand?” “Not really, no.” “Your father came to this house when he was about your age. It changed him. He understood his calling.” “To

You pick and choose who gets rescued and who doesn’t?” “Yes,” Bat Lady said. “Take Candy, for example.” That surprised me. “You know about Candy?” She didn’t bother replying. “If we had chosen to help her, the odds are that Candy would have ended up no better off. She has no skills, not much intelligence, and would never be able to be mainstreamed into school or society. She would probably have ended up back with Buddy Ray or someone similar.” “You can’t know that,” I said. “Of course you can’t know. But you play the odds. You save who you can and you mourn those you can’t. When you follow this calling, your heart gets ripped apart every day. You make the world better in increments, not grand designs. You make choices. Do you understand?” “Choices,” I said. “Yes.” “Like my father made a choice to leave the Abeona Shelter. Like my father didn’t want this life for me.” “Exactly, he made a choice.” Bat Lady looked up at me and tilted her head. “How did that work out for him?” I said nothing. “With

Bat Lady sat on a couch that looked as though it had been ready for the scrap heap during the Eisenhower administration. Her hair was still ridiculously long, cascading down her back and almost touching the seat cushion. She picked up a large book, an old photo album, and held it on her lap. “Well?

I felt the tears well in my eyes. “But your father was murdered. Mine died in an accident.” She lowered her eyes, and for a moment, I thought that maybe I could see the little girl under all those years. “When the war ended—when the world believed that I was dead—I searched for the Butcher of Lodz. I wanted to bring him to justice for what he did. I contacted groups that search for ex-Nazis.” I didn’t know where she was going with this, but I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Did you find him?” She looked off again, not responding to my question. “You see, sometimes I still see his face. I see him on the streets, or out my window. He haunts my sleep, even now, even all these years later. I still hear his laugh before he killed my father. Still. But mostly . . .” She stopped. “Mostly what?” I said. She turned and met my eye. “Mostly I remember the way he looked at me when my father asked him to spare me. Like he knew.” “Knew what?” “That my life, the life of a girl named Lizzy Sobek, was over now. That I would survive but never be the same. So I kept searching for him. Through the years and even decades. I finally found his real name and an old photograph of him. All the Nazi hunters told me to relax, not to worry, that the Butcher was dead, that he had been killed in action in the winter of 1945.” And then it happened. She turned the page and pointed at the photograph of the Butcher in his Waffen-SS uniform. I saw right away that he hadn’t died, that the Nazi hunters had been wrong. You see, I had seen this man before. He had sandy hair and green eyes, and last time I saw him, he was taking my father away in an ambulance.

The stone sign in front of what looked like a new development read THE PREMA ESTATES. The area reeked of new money. The streets were well lit. The lawns couldn’t have been greener without using an industrial-strength spray paint. The landscaping was almost too polished, like a show that had over-rehearsed. The sprawling mansions were brick and stone, trying to look old and stately but missing.

Spoon smiled and held up a palm. I high-fived him. I clicked the link for student files and then typed in the name: Kent, Ashley. When her photograph came up—the one we’d both taken for student IDs the first day of school—I felt a hand reach into my chest and squeeze my heart. “Man,” Spoon said, “no wonder you want to find her.” If you were creating a graphic dictionary and needed a definition of demure, you would use her expression in this picture. She looked pretty, sure, beautiful even, but what you really felt was that she was quiet and shy and somewhat uncomfortable posing. Something about it—something about her, really—called out to me.

I thought about everything. I thought about the Abeona Shelter and the work my parents clearly did for them. I thought about my dad’s letter to Juan, how he wanted to give me a chance at normalcy. I thought about moving back to the United States, that drive down to San Diego, the crash of the car. I thought about that ambulance driver, the one with the sandy hair and green eyes. I thought about the way the expression on his face told me that my life was over, how I knew right then and there that even he, this stranger with sandy hair and green eyes, knew my future better than I did. I

Ian mulled that over for a moment. We waited. Finally he said, “That’s a butterfly.” I stifled my sign of impatience. “Yeah, we can see that.” “More specifically,” he went on, “that’s the Swordgrass Brown Tisiphone Abeona.” I felt my stomach drop at that last word. I swallowed hard, repeating his words in my own head. “What did you say?” Something in my voice must have come out as a threat. Ian put his hands up as though warding me off. “Whoa, calm down, dude.” I

Rachel looked uncomfortable. “My father is rarely around,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to keep an eye on me. Last year, he put this parental spy software on all the home computers so he could monitor what I was doing.” Ema said, “Yuck.” “I know, right?” Ema shook her head and said, “Parents.” I could see a softening between the two. It wasn’t much. Softening might be too strong a word. Thawing might be more accurate. But it was there. “But the thing is,

To work for you?” “To work with us,” she said, correcting me. “And become, what, part of the Abeona Shelter?” She did not reply. “So you were the ones who rescued Ashley.” “No,” she said. “You did that.” I sighed. “Can you stop talking in circles?” “There is a balance. There are choices. We rescue a few, not all, because that is what we can do. Evil remains. Always. You can combat it, but you can never fully defeat it. You settle for small victories. If you overreach, you lose everything. But every life matters. There is an old saying: ‘He who saves one life saves the world.’ So we pick and choose.” “You

When I knocked on the door, Ema actually gasped out loud and took two steps back. There was no answer. I pressed my ear against the door and listened. No sound. I pounded harder. No answer. I pounded harder still, and now I added a shout. “Hello? Bat Lady? Open up! Open up right now!” Ema tried to stop me. “Mickey?” I ignored her. I kicked the door. I hit it again with my fists. I didn’t care. Add all the steel enforcements you liked. I was getting inside and I was getting answers. Then a giant beam of light hit me from the side. I know beams don’t “hit” you, but that’s how it felt. The light was so sudden and bright that I actually jumped back, raising my arms like I was warding off an intruder. I heard a swoosh to my right and realized that Ema was running away. A voice shouted, “Don’t move!” I

She landed at a homeless shelter for runaway teens. She found Jesus, you know the deal, trading one addiction for another, and started singing. She has a voice like a Janis Joplin angel.

It was that simple and yet that deep.

Friedman, Rick Friedman (the two Friedmans are not related—at least, I don’t think they are), Selina Walker, Ben Sevier, Christine Ball, Jamie Knapp, Carrie Swetonic, Stephanie Kelly, Lisa Erbach Vance, Diane Discepolo, Craig Coben, and Anne Armstrong-Coben, MD. The stories of Mickey Bolitar and his friends Ema and Spoon can be found in the trilogy of young adult novels Shelter, Seconds Away, and Found. I think you adults will like them too. Myron appears in that series too, because turnabout is fair play. The author also wants to acknowledge Joe Corless,

Shelter