“Fans of domestic suspense will adore Kimberly Belle.” —Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of T he Good Girl From the internationally bestselling author of The Marriage Lie, a riveting story of deceit and dark truths. Humanitarian aid worker Gia Andrews chases disasters around the globe for a living. It’s the perfect lifestyle to keep her far away from her own dark past. Sixteen years ago, Gia’s father was imprisoned for brutally killing her stepmother. Now that he’s back home and dying of cancer, Gia must care for him and reluctantly resumes the role of daughter to the town’s most infamous murderer. Gia’s old wounds are ripped open as protesters show up on the lawn and death threats are hurled at her, turning her own personal tragedy, once again, into front-page news. As the past unravels before her, Gia finds herself torn between the stories that family, friends, and even her long-departed stepmother have believed to be real all these years. But in the end, the truth—and all the lies that came before—may have deadlier consequences than she could have ever anticipated.... Originally published in 2014. Don't miss bestselling author Kimberly Belle's next deeply addictive thriller, The Personal Assistant —where she explores the dark side of the digital world when a mommy-blogger’s assistant goes missing! Look for these other pulse-pounding thrillers by Kimberly Belle: The Marriage Lie - Stranger in the Lake - My Darling Husband - Three Days Missing - Dear Wife - The Ones We Trust "The Last Breath will leave you breathless. This edgy and emotional thriller will keep you guessing until the very end." -New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf "Powerful and complex with an intensity drawn out through each page, The Last Breath is a story of forgiveness and betrayal and one I couldn't put down!" -New York Times bestselling author Steena Holmes Kimberly Belle is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author with over one million copies sold worldwide, with titles including The Paris Widow , The Marriage Lie , a Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist for Best Mystery & Thriller, and the co-authored #1 Audible Original, Young Rich Widows . She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam. For aid workers, home can mean a lot of things. A two-bedroom ranch with a picket fence. A fourth-story walk-up in the city. A mud hut under a banana tree. A country listed on a passport. It can be big or small or anything in between. One thing all these homes share, though, is that aid workers miss them. They long to go there. They are homesick. Not me. I've spent the past sixteen years running from my home, and what happened there. Could have lived the rest of my life never returning to the place where I will always be known as the murderer's daughter. And yet here I sit in my old driveway, in a rental parked behind a shiny new Buick. More than thirty-six hours into this new disaster—my disaster—and I've accomplished exactly nothing more than a crusty coffee stain down the front of my jeans and a mean case ofjet lag. Embrace the chaos, Gia. Over the course of the past seven thousand miles, it has become my mantra. Uncle Cal climbs out of his car, and he's wearing his usual outfit: gleaming reptile skin stretched across pointy cowboy boots, Brooks Brothers suit of smoky pin-striped wool, black leather jacket worn soft and supple. Here in the hills of Ap-palachia, it's a look perfectly suitable for church, a fancy restaurant or a courtroom. As one of the highest paid criminal lawyers in Tennessee, Cal's worn it in all three. I follow his lead and step out of the rental. It's mid-February and Rogersville—a tiny blip on the Eastern Tennessee map—is in the death throes of winter. My ancient fleece is not equipped to handle the Appalachian Mountain cold, and I long for my winter coat, still in mothballs in a London suburb. Cal opens his arms and I step into their warmth, inhaling his familiar scent, a combination of leather, designer aftershave and Juicy Fruit gum. "Welcome home, baby girl," he says into my hair. Home. I twist my neck to face the house I've not seen for sixteen years, and a shudder of something unpleasant hits me between the shoulder blades. Once a place that instilled in me a sense of refuge and comfort, this house now provokes the exact opposite. Grief. Fear. Dread. This house isn't home. Home shouldn't give you the creeps. Cal's hands freeze on my protruding scapula and he steps back, his gaze traveling down my frame. Thanks to a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning last month, it's a good ten pounds lighter than the last time he hugged me, back when I was already high-school skinny. "I thought you were putting an end to the famine, not succumbing to it." "If you're ever on the Horn of Africa, you should probably stay away from the street stalls in Dadaab. Just because they claim their meat is fresh doesn't mean it's true. Or for that matter, tha