Excerpt from Sunburn by Laura Lippman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

An older man in a Cadillac offered her a ride to D.C., and she figured why not. Then he got pervy, his sad old fingers sneaking toward her knees like some arthritic spider, and she said, "Put me out here." It was Belleville. One of the ten best small towns in America, according to a shiny, newish sign.

Now, seeing Belleville in the bright morning light, she wonders what the other nine are.

She doesn't have much of a head start. Gregg would have seen the note at noon or so, when they came back for lunch. He was probably more upset that she hadn't made them any sandwiches or set the table. He didn't love her and she didn't love him. He had one foot out the door. He'd leave her, get an apartment. He'd never pay child support, not without endless nagging. She'd have to get a job. So why not go ahead and get a job, but let him have Jani, see what it's like to be a full-time parent? He wasn't going to trap her.

When you've been in jail even a short time, you don't like feeling confined.

What next? She's thought a lot of things out, but she hasn't thought everything out. She has to earn some money, enough to head west by fall. She had assumed she'd do that in D.C., but maybe it's easier to do it here.

Certainly, she'll be harder to find.

She walks into the town proper, down the main street. Which is called Main Street. There is a deli, a grocery store called Langley's, a Purple Heart thrift store, a florist. But a lot of the shops are empty, long vacant by the looks of them.

She doubles back to the motel, the bar she had chosen last night when she made her ride pull over. The High-Ho. Certainly it should be Heigh-Ho?

The guy in the bar last night was awfully good-looking, kind of her type, not that she was interested. Still, she was surprised, even a little insulted, that he gave up so easy.

A car seems to come out of nowhere and she jumps, skittish. But it's too early for anyone to be looking for her and, anyway, it isn't against the law, leaving your family at the beach. She's surprised more women don't do it. She got the idea from a book she read two months ago. Well, she didn't actually read it and she had been planning her own escape for a while. But everybody was talking about it, like it was a fantasy. If only you knew, she wanted to tell her neighbors along Kentucky Avenue. If only you knew what it means to walk away from something, what it takes.

Money. She has some. She needs more.

The guy last night—he liked her, she was sure. But she doesn't want to make that mistake anymore. She has enough money to go two, three weeks. Summer is coming, there are probably some seasonal jobs still open. She wonders when Gregg will check the accounts, see how much money she moved out of their joint savings in that final week before their "vacation." Half, which is what she was entitled to.

The money will make him even madder than the fact that she left. At least Jani is a pretty easy kid, she wants to tell him. Imagine it otherwise. He can't. Gregg can't imagine anything. Life unspools as Gregg expects. Even the surprises—Jani, their marriage—don't surprise him. She used to be that kind of person. But she's not going to be, not anymore.

Back at the motel, she sees the guy from the bar leaning against the doorjamb of room 3. Could be a coincidence. Everyone has a life, everyone has something going on. Don't make the mistake of thinking everything is all about you, all the time.

"Hi," he says. He's the kind of guy who can get away with just that one word. Hi. He's good-looking in a bland way, and he probably thinks that's enough. Probably has been enough with most women. She wiggles her fingers in a kind of greeting, but keeps her hand by her side, like he's not worth the effort of bending an elbow.

Excerpted from Sunburn by Laura Lippman. Copyright © 2018 by Laura Lippman. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.