Safe

Barnett / SAFE

ONE

Forest Avenue, the neighborhood hub, three lanes on each side, with the Forest Avenue Diner ­early-­bird specials starting at five p.m., dessert and coffee included ­standing watch on the northwest corner, or was it the northeast corner? Note to self: Check which way s which. No matter, I remembered it.

I d eaten in that diner, a Sunday tradition for the Kristal family, starting when I was small enough to fit into one of those red plastic baby chairs.

I wondered if they ate there now ­Mom and Dad and Ben ­maintaining the tradition against all odds, or if they d long ago given it up, picked some other diner to eat their Sunday breakfasts in, or just stopped going out at all.

Just as I passed it, the door flew open. I could smell a mixture of pancakes, syrup, and fried eggs wafting through the door. Okay, I was hungry. But then I was always hungry ­had been hungry as long as I could remember.

I had what felt like two dollars scrunched in my jeans pocket. Not enough for a muffin or even one egg. Coffee maybe . . . but what good would that do?

I floated on ­floating is what it felt like, as if I were hovering over this little neighborhood, like you do in a dream, when you re both in it and above it, everything half-­remembered and half-­not, things looking just the same and startlingly different. Just like me.

It was late fall, warm enough to think about ditching my zippered jacket. The brown leaves littering the sidewalk were so brittle they crunched into dust when I stepped on them.

I was making a game of it, in fact, not so much walking down the block as announcing my presence with each leaf-­obliterating step. Hello, I m back. Advancing in a kind of zigzag pattern ­some of the shopkeepers had swept the leaves into piles, forcing me to lunge here and there to keep it going, wondering if I looked high on something, like someone staggering home after an all-­nighter.

That s when I saw it ­when I locked

S. K. Barnett is a pseudonym for a New York Times bestselling author whose previous book was turned into a major motion picture.

Praise for Safe
Fantastically good dark yet compellingly upbeat, and insanely suspenseful . . . Even the twists have twists. Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Dark, compulsive, full of OMG moments. If you think you know where it s going . . . YOU DON T. This is one you won t forget in a hurry. Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone

Safe is an absolutely first-rate psychological thriller, with a serpentine plot and complex, fully realized characters. I picked it up before bedtime an amateur mistake, in retrospect and kept whispering  just one more chapter to myself until I'd finished the whole damn thing. Cristina Alger, New York Times bestselling author of Girls Like Us

Safe is everything you want out of a thriller and then some. Emotionally fraught storytelling with crisp prose and perfect pacing in service of one hell of a twisting journey home. Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Wish Me Dead and If She Wakes

All I can say is WOW. This is the very definition of a page-turner. Compulsively readable from the beginning and then as you get past that first twist, absolutely riveting. The kind of pull the carpet out from under you blockbuster that made The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window such huge hits. What a diabolical read! Should be a #1 bestseller! Christopher Reich, New York Times bestselling author of The Take and Numbered Account

Safe is a fast-moving, perfectly paced book about what happens when a missing child returns home twelve years later. Intense, dark, and full of unpredictable twists. Don t miss this one. Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife

The pseudonymous Barnett takes an all-too-common premise and winds it into a twisty and tense exploration of family secrets, survival, and the often blurred lines between