Quotes from Gregg Olsen

Their parents had killed multiple people. They'd done the most cruel and vile things anyone could do to another person. And so much of it had happened right before their eyes.

said when he came back inside. "I was telling Elan before you came home

mother says her son turned blue and she was unable to revive him. Father was at home and made the call for emergency aid. Both parents reported that such an incident had never

Mimi Garcia's little brother.

lobby of the Santa Louisa courthouse drinking a cup of black tea from a paper cup. She pushed her long, dark hair behind her ears and tapped her pointed shoes in time with the Muzak undulating over the marble floors. A Helen Reddy song, she thought. Maybe Cher? She smelled of White Shoulders perfume and spearmint gum. When Hannah walked by, the woman smiled and raised a hand as if to wave. But the friendliness of the gesture was not returned.

Some small towns are built on bloody earth and betrayal.

The young man from Seabeck who'd been in and out of the county jail so often he thought he'd be able to leave some belongings behind for his next stretch of incarceration.

the West Valley City police were still silent about the fact that it was Susan's blood that they'd recovered from her house, and that she had left a note saying she was afraid her husband might kill her.

There's a singular kind of desperation that links all of us who cannot conceive but think of nothing else. I wonder about us. What has made that message play over and over inside our heads? Is it biology? I want it to be that. I want the reason I sit on the toilet, hoping against hope, to be biological and not some kind of mental disorder.

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Mimi killed her brother

Doing the right thing feels like shit.

grateful because each detail kept her from the purpose of the call. She talked about her life in California and how she had never returned to Rock Point or Spruce County.

My relationship with my own father has put me into the category of women who acquiesce to win approval.

Hannah set down her paperwork. "That's complete bullshit.

I think as a kid I depended on her, her being my mom, I don't think I ever thought I had any other options but to live with her. As an adult I kick myself for not doing something to help myself back then. My mother could show affection and say kind words when she wanted to . . . she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship

Victims of abuse can still love the monster. This ambivalent loyalty might just be the predator's ultimate form of damage.

my sister and I want to laugh out loud. She stands in her kitchen pouring a really good chardonnay. Her wrists, like her ankles, are perfect. Her fingers slender and adorned with the Tiff—the rock on a platinum

the faces of Mimi Garcia and her dead brother, Enrique. His was lifeless, chalky white. His sister's was full of fear. I'll take care

These aren't

Enduring their mother was what bound them together. And while they might have had three different dads, they were always 100 percent sisters. Never half sisters.

Sisters forever. Victims no more.

Nothing makes a person feel worse than knowing you've inspired pity. It's a knife in the chest. A scalpel across the neck.

Our coating, our shell, our packaging—however you want to think of it—is the first thing we see when we wake up. It's the first thing we bring into every interaction. People look. Judge. A split-second determination is made that can and does impact who we are and what people make of us. Being who you are starts with the physical.