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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Gregg Olsen
Read between
February 7 - February 7, 2024
The property was just shy of five acres, and mostly fenced. That was good.
While Shelly professed a love for animals, in truth she only seemed to like collecting them and seldom actually cared for any.
one bathroom—
“That’s it. The whole time he lived at Monohon Landing, Shane never had a room.”
long. Sami, for her part, was instructed
Shelly would bite her on the head. Slap her in the face. Punch her. Nikki got smacked one time because she fell asleep in the passenger seat of the car and her mother wanted her to be awake.
Shelly poured bleach on Kathy.
home, would duct-tape
“Why is she in the pump house, Shell?”
“You girls can use the hot tub.”
I was in the hot tub, naked, and all of a sudden it sparked, and I jumped out and ran across the yard. I was scared! I thought I was going to die!”
Dave dragged Kathy from the garden where she’d been weeding to punish her.
Shelly gave Kathy a hard push. Kathy went flying and landed facedown on the concrete. She didn’t even try to break her fall. She just fell flat. She started screaming
but Nikki suspected that her mother didn’t trust what Kathy might say.
“She needs some peace and quiet.”
Shane. We can’t trust her right now. She’s not right in the head.”
Nikki knew Kathy was afraid of Shane, although she had no reason to fear him when her mother wasn’t around.
She should never have married him. She could have had her pick of any man. He had been a terrible mistake.
Taking care of the kids. Reminding his wife that he was more than a paycheck.
“I was fighting to stay awake. It got so bad at work that I’d take those ammonia inhalants from the medicine kit. I’d crack those just to stay awake in the Cat.”
“the screaming meanies.”
weak to do battle with Shelly. He needed a minute to rest, to collect himself.
One time, a sharp rap against the window of his truck awakened him. It was Nikki.
She’d let her eldest shame him and remind him at the same time that, no matter where he went, wherever he hid, she’d be able to track him down.
Shelly was
Shelly tracked down Dave
Lara Watson thought her son-in-law had a serious drinking problem, but it paled next to his Shelly problem.
Dave would later fasten the blame for what happened at the little red house on Monohon Landing on the fact that he’d quit his job at Weyerhaeuser.
What happened at the little Red house
Louderback House.
I failed my Knotek family. I let them down. It’s part of me, you know, just being a failure.”
“Shell’s cancer is taking us down,” he pleaded. His sister said she would help.
Dave used every opportunity to tell his wife that she meant the world to him.
Monohon Landing,
The next thing she knew, she was out on the porch on all fours, unable to lift up her head. Shane tried to help her. It was no use.
She photocopied information extolling the benefits of the tranquilizer Haldol, a drug she was interested in procuring.
Haldol
Lara couldn’t take it anymore.
but Dave was too gullible. Too nice. Lara took it upon herself to confront Shelly.
Carol went with ver mother ara Lara
Kabuki doll—
her stepmother
mother. There wasn’t any sign of Kathy Loreno.
clump
Lara went into the bathroom to investigate what had just happened.
been left an anonymous tip one night that she was a thief
You don’t have cancer, Mom, Nikki thought.
Shane Watson was exhausted. He went to school, worked in the yard until dark, and slept in his cousin Nikki’s closet.
Trips around the house in the middle of the night until they’d collapse.
How fucked up everything had become before and after Kathy. He and Dave got into it more than once while Shelly lurked nearby telling her husband to teach Shane a lesson.
“He’d call Shell Mom and me Dad,”
Shane’s falling grades had everything to do with what was happening at home.
he kicked Kathy with a boot because Shelly commanded him to do it.
In her heart, Nikki doubted she’d ever really be able to leave.
