The Hive
PRAISE FOR GREGG OLSEN
THE HIVE
“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 (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
“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
“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
“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
“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
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
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
ALSO BY GREGG OLSEN
FICTION
Silent Ridge
Water’s Edge
Snow Creek
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
Fear Collector
Beneath Her Skin
The Bone Box (novella)
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 Multiple Murder and Two Devastated Families
If Loving You Is Wrong: The Teacher and Student Sex Case That Shocked the World
Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets
Bitter Almonds: The True Story of Mothers, Daughters, and the Seattle Cyanide Murders
Bitch on Wheels: 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
The Confessions of an American Black Widow
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. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 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: 9781542016469
ISBN-10: 1542016460
Cover design by Rex Bonomelli
For Chris Renfro,
simply the best. Really. Truly.
CONTENTS
START READING
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
A week after . . .
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beauty is more than a skin-deep issue. Our outer covering is our calling card. In order to feel great, to do great things, we need to understand that undeniable truth. Everything I’ve ever done has been to help others in a world that judges them every second of the day.
—Marnie Spellman, Dateline NBC
PROLOGUE
Late summer 2019
Whatcom County, Washington
Only days apart and a few miles from each other, two women read the same pages from their copies of a dog-eared memoir. One found it among her mother’s things. The other borrowed a reading copy from an archive. They’d highlighted passages with yellow or pink markers. Scribbled notations and a blizzard of question marks splattered foxed pages as they ruminated over the veracity of Marnie Spellman’s story. At each turn of a page, they questioned the reliability of every word in The Insatiable Heart. One of the readers sought answers for things that happened when she was only a girl. The other studied the book for insight into the mind of the writer.
Over and over, even when the unthinkable transpired, the book served as a guide, then an arrow sharply pointed at their hearts, vexing and urging at the same time.
My parents were running errands for the afternoon on the mainland, and my brother and I were left to work on the farm. Dad had insisted that we muck out all the stalls and, for added measure, change out the straw in the chicken coop. I detested those tasks and was sure that my parents left it for me to do while they were away just so they’d be out of earshot when I complained. Casey was six at that time and, quite frankly, of very little help. That’s not to say that he didn’t try, but as usual, the lion’s share of what needed to be done fell on me. It always did. Added to that, of course, was my mother’s edict that I needed to weed the garden and clean the kitchen floor.
“Until it sparkles and shines, Marnie.”
I respected her. I guess it had more to do with her role than how she treated me. The singsong quality of her commands always put me on edge.
Casey told me he was tired of helping—which, of course, he wasn’t really at all—and we decided to take a break by the overlook, the highest point on our property, crowned by a trio of old-growth cedars I named the Supremes after my mom’s favorite musical group. I brought sandwiches and apples.
Later, I’d be blamed for the choices I made that afternoon—that maybe things would have been different if I’d brought bologna instead of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. That maybe the soap that Mom had made started it all. It was lavender from our own herb garden, triple milled by the both of us. And later there would be those who said it was all a lie.
Casey saw the swarm first.
We were lying on our backs, looking at the sky and feeling the breeze as it filtered through the green fringe of the canopy.
“Look up there!” Casey called out. There was both excitement and fear in his voice.
I followed my brother’s frozen gaze. It appeared above us, first as a dark cloud, then as a heaving and undulant mass of something that I couldn’t identify at first. It was the noise that told me. Bees. It was morphing into shapes that at once stirred and then mocked me.
A running horse like the weather vane on our barn.
A sea star from the beach.
An archway like the one at the church we attended on Christmas Eve and Easter, the sum of my religious upbringing.
As I peered at it, I felt as if I were falling. Maybe rising. Something. It was as if gravity had ceased to exist. As if Newton’s apple had floated instead of fallen. I could hear my brother calling my name, but even that receded to silence. I was flying. I was drifting. It was the strangest sensation. One that could never be duplicated. It was like I was inside a kazoo. Tissue paper over my face, a slight dampness blowing over my skin. A soft humming lifting me skyward, then swirling me toward the sun.
Up.
Then down.
I remember thinking that I had died. Not sure how. Whatever was happening, I knew the experience was transformative, unearthly. I was only a vessel of thought and memory being carried away.
Can you understand?
Do you even dare?
The Insatiable Heart
Marnie Spellman
CHAPTER 1
Monday, September 9, 2019
Whatcom County, Washington
Renae Jones pushed the denim-blue stroller along the damp trail. One of the front wheels, clogged with mud from a late-summer rain, was stuck in a position that made the effort more difficult than it needed to be. Add it to the list. Everything about being a mother was harder than she thought it needed to be. Sleepless nights. Baby bawling, caterwauling. A yearning for time to speed toward the moment when reason or bribery would elicit the kind of response she longed for in the child. Quiet. That was all. Peace. Stillness.
Renae sucked in forest air, strained with more effort, and kept moving the stroller onward. She wore earbuds, but there was no music filling her ears. No podcast. Nothing. Indeed, the earbuds weren’t even connected to her phone; their cord ran to the zippered pocket of her jacket. She wore them purely as a defense mechanism. The last thing she needed was company, an audience for her agony.
She prayed that the pills her doctor had given her would break her out of the endless sulk that had consumed her since Carson was born. The last six months had shown her the worst of the demands on a young mother.
She shook her head at the thought of how her mother and her friends had told her that being a mom was the greatest joy she would ever know. That was a lie, a trick. The kind of thing that someone says because you’re suddenly in a club in which there is no real understanding of what is involved after the parties, after the well-wishes, after the pretty blue and white ribbons are undone and the gift wrapping removed and the boxes opened. The initiation into the club had been a blur of fragrant peonies and golden sponge cake with Mount Baker–sized peaks of white icing.