Excerpt from The Kidnapping of Sarah Easton

Thoughts returned to Brandon, and the way things might be right now had she chosen to call him back instead of blowing him off the other day. She had increasingly begun to think it unlikely that he would even notice she was missing, at least for now. She even felt guilt, and wondered what he’d say if she asked him how he’d truly felt, the way she hadn’t called him back then, or later. Probably that he’d forgotten about it as well, no big deal, but the expression on his face would show a more complicated picture. The disappointment would be hidden by the tough exterior, but she’d see it in his eyes. It would show in the same way the discomfort showed when he was out of his element, surrounded by things that felt natural for her. Like the way he obviously didn’t know how to act around the staff at her dad’s house in Seattle, or even some of her friends when they did things together. It had always been part of what attracted her to him, that boyish uncertainty.