Excerpt from The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

How does she know all this? Any mention of Jackson can throw me off these days, and coming from this odd woman … I don't want her to know anything about me. I'll have to have a serious talk with Natalie. "Well." I try to get my footing again. "You're right. It's been difficult. But I'd really like us to focus on your project. Tell me what you—"

"How can you move into the house that took him from you?" She asks the question I've been wondering myself. "No one should've put a house there to begin with. All those new houses. They don't belong. But especially that one. Yours. So modern. And stuck back in the trees like it is."

My palms are sticky on the arms of my chair. At this very moment, we are in an office in Greenville, nearly thirty miles from the Shadow Ridge neighborhood in the outskirts of Round Hill, where my beautiful, newly completed house is waiting for Rainie and me to move into it. How can she know about the house? About my life? What does any of it have to do with her? "How do you know so much about me and what does it have to do with your project?" I ask.

"Shadow Ridge Estates," the woman continues, that deep voice of hers mocking. "Who came up with that pretentious name? All those trees suck the breath out of you. You don't really want to move in there, do you? It's no place for a child. No place for a little girl. Especially one who just lost her daddy."

Oh my God. She knows about Rainie. I don't know how to handle this. She's touching me in my softest, most wounded places and I can't think straight.

I have to get myself under control. I sit up straight, ready to turn the tables on her.

"Would you mind taking your glasses off?" I ask.

"Yes, I'd mind," she says. "Light bothers me." She raises a hand to touch the edge of her glasses, and the loose sleeve of her white blouse slips a few inches up her arm, exposing a pink line across her forearm. Had she tried to kill herself at one time? But I don't think that's it. The line is short and rounded. It looks more like a birthmark than a scar.

"I think you'd better go to another firm," I say, getting to my feet. "I only do contemporary design."

She looks toward the ceiling as if considering the suggestion, then back at me. "If you say so, yes. I guess I'd better." She picks up her purse and stands suddenly, and I step back, afraid of her. Afraid of an old woman. I want her out of my office. I move toward the door, but she swiftly steps forward to block my path. "Do you want to know what keeps me awake at night?" she asks.

"I'd like you to leave," I say. She's too close to me now, so close that I can see the fear in my eyes in the distorted reflection in her sunglasses.

"Thinking," she says. "That's what keeps me awake. Thinking about killing someone."

I push my way past her. Open the door and stand aside. "Leave." My voice sounds firm. At least I hope it does. But Ann Smith doesn't budge.

"I've been thinking about it for a long, long time," she continues. "Years and years and years. And now I have the chance."

My heart thuds against my rib cage. Is she talking about me? Am I the someone? Years and years and years. It can't be me. Still, I glance around the room for a weapon, spotting nothing. I think of my three-year-old daughter. Leaving her an orphan.

"Who are you talking about?" I ask, distressed by the quaking of my voice.

"I don't think I want to tell you." She smiles the smile of someone who has all the power. Then she pivots and walks to the doorway. I say nothing as she leaves the room and I watch her move down the hallway with the ease of a younger woman. Shutting the door, I stand frozen for a full minute before my brain kicks in and I rush to the window. I look out at the tiny parking lot we reserve for clients and contractors, watching for Ann Smith, hoping to see what car she gets into. But she never appears and I stand there numbly, the specter of her presence still looming behind me.

Excerpted from The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain. Copyright © 2021 by Diane Chamberlain. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.