PRAISE FOR GREGG OLSEN

  THE HIVE

  “Readers who relish the aftershocks of cult exploitation will turn every page with keen anticipation.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “The Hive is Gregg Olsen at his finest. Exciting, anxiety provoking, and twisty . . . You will stay up all night reading . . . not wanting to put it down until the final and shocking conclusion. This book will take you right down a rabbit hole you never suspected.”

  —Mystery & Suspense Magazine

  “Mesmerizing! Gregg Olsen tautly reveals layer after layer of lies, secrets, and betrayals in an increasingly horrifying exposé of one cult leader and her terrible sway over others. Forget the evil men do. These women will have you fearing for your life.”

  —Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “The Hive is a riveting thriller, a tsunami of a story that starts out strong and absolutely knocks you over at the end. The characters are fascinating, their world so real and absorbing—I was transfixed from the very start. Gregg Olsen is such a compelling writer.”

  —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

  “In this gripping thriller, everything is not as it seems, and beauty is only skin deep. The Hive is a brilliantly engrossing read—exactly what we have come to expect from Gregg Olsen.”

  —Karin Slaughter, New York Times and internationally bestselling author

  “A charismatic wellness guru, a dead young journalist, and a slew of secrets are the ingredients that make up this fiendishly fun thriller. The Hive will have readers buzzing.”

  —Greer Hendricks, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Wife Between Us

  “Gregg Olsen’s The Hive is a fast-paced, intriguing, intense, and suspenseful read that is as creepy as it is fantastic. Brilliant, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and original, The Hive will keep you up at night and leave you reeling long after you’ve finished it. Every page carries weight in this novel. There are plenty of twists and turns to satisfy even the most seasoned crime fiction reader, and the characters feel authentic and alive in ways that only Olsen can achieve.”

  —Lisa Regan, #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Detective Josie Quinn series

  “Die-hard Gregg Olsen fans will love The Hive; new readers will become fans. Olsen deftly guides the reader through the pages, cranking up the suspense as long-held secrets rise to the surface. The result is compulsively page turning as Olsen keeps the reader’s mind buzzing in suspense. He hooks the reader as a dark crime from the past collides with a crime from the present.”

  —Kendra Elliot, Wall Street Journal bestselling author

  “Gregg Olsen’s The Hive begins with a fascinating premise and a spellbinding opening scene that held me in its grip as I flew through the pages. Olsen expertly weaves together a multilayered tale told by a complex array of unforgettable characters in his latest jaw-dropping thriller. In this dark and dangerously addictive read buzzing with secrets, betrayal, and murder, queen bees and wannabes take on a whole new meaning. Not to be missed.”

  —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How I Lied

  IF YOU TELL

  “This riveting account will leave readers questioning every odd relative they’ve known.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Olsen presents the story chronologically and in a simple, straightforward style, which works well: it is chilling enough as is.”

  —Booklist

  “An unsettling stunner about sibling love, courage, and resilience.”

  —People magazine (book of the week)

  “If You Tell accomplishes what it sets out to do. The result is a compelling portrait of terror and a powerfully honest, yet still sensitive, look at survival.”

  —Bookreporter

  “This disturbing book recounts the unimaginable abuse and torture three sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek endured from their own mother, Shelly . . . the strong bond they form to survive and defy their mother’s sadistic tendencies is inspiring.”

  —BuzzFeed

  “A true-crime tour de force.”

  —Steve Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of No Stone Unturned

  “Even the most devoted true-crime reader will be shocked by the maddening and mind-boggling acts of horror that Gregg Olsen chronicles in this book. Olsen has done it again, giving readers a glimpse into a murderous duo that’s so chilling, it will have your head spinning. I could not put this book down!”

  —Aphrodite Jones, New York Times bestselling author

  “A suspenseful, horrific, and yet fascinating character study of an incredibly dysfunctional and dangerous family by Gregg Olsen, one of today’s true-crime masters.”

  —Caitlin Rother, New York Times bestselling author

  “There’s only one writer who can tell such an intensely horrifying, psychotic tale of unspeakable abuse, grotesque torture, and horrendous serial murder with grace, sensitivity, and class . . . A riveting, taut, real-life psychological suspense thrill ride . . . All at once compelling and original, Gregg Olsen’s If You Tell is an instant true-crime classic.”

  —M. William Phelps, New York Times bestselling author

  “We all start life with immense promise, but in our first minute, we cannot know who’ll ultimately have the greatest impact on our lives, for better or worse. Here, Gregg Olsen—the heir apparent to legendary crime writers Jack Olsen and Ann Rule—explores the dark side of that question in his usual chilling, heartbreaking prose. Superb and creepy storytelling from a true-crime master.”

  —Ron Franscell, author of Alice & Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story

  “A master of true crime returns with a vengeance. After a decade detour into novels, Gregg Olsen is back with a dark tale of nonfiction from the Pacific Northwest that will keep you awake long after the lights have gone out. The monster at the heart of If You Tell is not your typical boogeyman, not some wandering drifter or man in a van. No. In fact, they called her . . . mother. And yet this story is about hope and renewal in the face of evil and how three sisters can find the goodness in the world after surviving the worst it has to offer. Classic true crime in the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Stranger Beside Me.”

  —James Renner, author of True Crime Addict

  “This nightmare walked on two legs and some of her victims called her mom. In If You Tell, Gregg Olsen documents the horrific mental and physical torture Shelly Knotek inflicted on everyone in her household. A powerful story of cruelty that will haunt you for a long time.”

  —Diane Fanning, author of Treason in the Secret City

  “Bristling with tension, gripping from the first pages, Gregg Olsen’s masterful portrait of children caught in the web of a coldly calculating killer fascinates. A read so compelling it kept me up late into the night, If You Tell exposes incredible evil that lived quietly in small-town America. That the book is fact, not fiction, terrifies.”

  —Kathryn Casey, bestselling author of In Plain Sight

  THE LAST THING SHE EVER DID

  “Gregg Olsen pens brilliant, creepy, page-turning, heart-pounding novels of suspense that always keep me up at night. In The Last Thing She Ever Did, he topped himself.”

  —Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

  “Beguiling, wicked, and taut with suspense and paranoia, The Last Thing She Ever Did delivers scenes as devastating as any I’ve ever read with a startling, pitch-perfect finale. A reminder that evil may reside in one’s actions, but tragedy often spawns from one’s inaction.”

  —Eric Rickstad, New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Girls

  “Olsen’s latest examines how a terrible, split-second decision has lingering effects, and the past echoes the present. Full of unexpected twists, The Last Thing She Ever Did will keep you guessing to the last line.”

  —J. T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Lie to Me

  “Master storyteller Gregg Olsen continues to take readers hostage with another spellbinding tale of relentless, pulse-pounding suspense.”

  —Rick Mofina, international bestselling author of Last Seen

  “Tense. Well-crafted. Gripping.”

  —Mary Burton, New York Times bestselling author

  “With The Last Thing She Ever Did, Gregg Olsen delivers an edgy, tension-filled, roller-coaster ride of a novel that will thrill and devastate in equal measure.”

  —Linda Castillo, New York Times bestselling author

  LYING NEXT TO ME

  “Lying Next to Me is a clever, chilling puzzle of a tale. A riveting, sharp-edged page-turner, it’s Gregg Olsen’s best book yet.”

  —A. J. Banner, USA Today bestselling author

  “A dark, claustrophobic thriller filled with twists and turns. A brilliant book.”

  —Caroline Mitchell, #1 international bestselling author

  “In Lying Next to Me, [Olsen] has given us a first-rate work of psychological complexity as well as a mystery that is full of twists and is quite a grabber.”

  —Popular Culture Association

  ALSO BY GREGG OLSEN

  FICTION

  The Hive

  Lying Next to Me

  The Weight of Silence

  The Last Thing She Ever Did

  The Sound of Rain

  Just Try to Stop Me

  Now That She’s Gone

  The Girl in the Woods

  The Girl on the Run

  Shocking True Story

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  Fear Collector

  Beneath Her Skin

  The Bone Box

  Dying to Be Her

  Closer Than Blood

  Victim Six

  Heart of Ice

  A Wicked Snow

  A Cold Dark Place

  NONFICTION

  If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

  A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Murder

  A Twisted Faith: A Minister’s Obsession and the Murder That Destroyed a Church

  The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America’s Richest Silver Mine

  Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest

  Cruel Deception: The True Story of a Mother, a Child, a Murder

  If Loving You Is Wrong: The Teacher and Student Sex Case that Shocked the World

  Abandoned Prayers: The Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets

  American Mother: The True Story of the Seattle Cyanide Murders

  Confessions of an American Black Widow: The True Story of Black Widow Killer Sharon Nelson

  If I Can’t Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2022 by Gregg Olsen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542016476 (paperback)

  ISBN-13: 9781542016483 (digital)

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  Cover image: © Nils Ericson / Gallery Stick; © Viorel Sima / Shutterstock

  For Liz Pearsons and Dilly

  CONTENTS

  AFTER EVERYTHING HAPPENED

  THE FUSE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AFTER EVERYTHING HAPPENED

  Violet

  My phone stares back at me while my husband drinks his favorite IPA, scrolling downward on his own device. Zach is handsome, with a skin tone that nods to an ethnicity recently sorted out by saliva in a tube. Five percent Native American says the bar chart printout. His hair flows jet black and thick. His caterpillar eyebrows will surely need hedge clippers when he’s older. He works in what I call the Algo Tweaker offices at Facebook in Bellevue, east of Seattle, where we live.

  My own DNA profile is exceedingly and, I admit, disappointingly bland. A northern European and Scandinavian ancestry accounts for my need to dip myself in a vat of sunscreen, not to mention a stylist’s heavy hand with color to give my nondescript light-brown hair a fighting chance to be noticed. Now, she’s moved the color toward red, which looks good with my unremarkable blue eyes. Good, not great.

  I check the time on my phone again.

  Rose is a clock. She’s programmed to always be on time, as though the bell from the school where she taught first and second graders still rings in her head.

  It was the day after my wedding to Zach that I stopped calling my mother “Mom,” the day after she let her father slither into my supposed special day. She had assured me Papa, my grandfather, wasn’t going to come, but she let him anyway. Because he said he’d behave.

  Her name suits her. Probably always did. Roses are pretty and smell good, but those thorns . . . Sometimes you don’t even see them when you bury your face in a bouquet of heaven, pulling yourself inside, deeper. Then you bleed.

  I crack open a beer. Zach gives me a look when I sit down at the kitchen island. The beer is good when my mood is not. Until recently, calls from Rose have been dispatched into the send-to-voice mail category—the wasteland for those who bother to leave a message. Lately she’s on a loop, grieving the dissolution of her marriage to my father and the emptiness that comes with figuring out what’s next when you know that he’s moved on to something better. Far better. And you are sitting there, alone, face planted against the glass of a window wondering why things had to be this way. Why you have nothing, and someone else—make that everyone else—has so much.

  My phone buzzes. I gulp some beer.

  “Hi, Rose,” I say, forcing my tone to sound upbeat, though not overly so. She’s had enough false cheer from an array of confidants. Fuck it. I am her lifeline. “You’re right on time.”

  “Please don’t call me Rose.”

  Her tone isn’t cheerful, and I don’t expect it to be, considering everything.

  “You’re a machine,” I reply. I don’t ask how she’s doing. That’s not a question that I would ever dare ask. Too loaded. Too much of a trigger.

  “How’s Lily?”

  “Fine, Rose. She’s fine.”

  “I know she’s angry. I get it. There isn’t anything I can do about it now, Violet. Can’t she see that?”

  “Apparently not,” I say, before adding, “at this very minute. Later, Rose. She’ll come around later.”

  “You think so?”

  There’s that sliver of hope in her voice that comes with every call. I don’t know whether Lily will ever come around. I honestly don’t see the need for the hard line they’ve both drawn in the middle of their relationship. Unproductive. Waste of time. Not my problem. I’ve put Mom—rather, Rose—in a box. A cage.

  We talk a bit more. She asks about Zach, and I put her on speaker. He tells her that he’s doing fine at work and that I’m being indecisive about a boat he insists we both want to buy.

  She says she’s thinking of taking art classes. We end the call as we always do. She says she loves me and Lily. Zach too. She asks if I’ve seen Dad lately, and I lie like I always do. I see him and Rose’s replacement at least two times a month.

  She leaves with a parting shot. “I hope the SOB knows what it’s like to be abandoned someday. She’s too young to stick around with a wadded-up old man to watch after.”

  “Bye, Rose,” I say.

  “I’m your mother,” she snaps. “Don’t call me that.”

  I end the call.

  My eyes stay on the black mirror of my screen. I drink the last of the IPA. I wonder if this is how alcoholism starts. I feel a numbness take over. It isn’t the single beer that’s taking me to that place. It isn’t my mother’s rage over the divorce. It isn’t that my sister won’t talk to her. It’s none of that. It’s a numbness that comes from knowing that the truth is no panacea. Scraping away the dirt from a secret doesn’t always set you free. Sometimes it’s the very opposite.