Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

concerned.
    “Never unplugged the switchboard or dispatch station.”
    Lois plucks a dust bunny from Mona’s hair and the two women break into laughter. I laugh, too. It starts as a small chuckle and then turns into a belly laugh powerful enough to bring tears to my eyes.
    “What’s so funny?”
    I turn, to see Pickles and Skid standing just inside the front door. On the other side of the room, Glock leans against the cubicle divider, his arms crossed, shaking his head.
    “We’re not rightly sure,” Lois mutters, and we break into a new round of laughter.
    Skid studies the tangle of wires beneath the desk. “That shit looks like a fire hazard.”
    I cross to the coffee station and fill my mug. The Mast story made the morning news shows. Anchors from Bangor, Maine, to San Diego have been carrying it ad nauseum all morning. I know my team is wondering how much is true and how much is sensationalism.
    “Everything quiet on the home front?” I ask as I turn to face them.
    Skid makes a sound of annoyance. “Garth Hoskins ran a stoplight out on Hogpath Road and T-boned old man Jeff ers’s pickup truck last night.”
    “Anyone hurt?”
    He shakes his head. “I cited Hoskins.”
    Garth Hoskins is eighteen years old and drives a 1971 Mustang fastback that has more horses than the kid has brain cells.
    “I’ll talk to him,” I say.
    The room falls silent, all eyes landing on me. I tell them everything I know about the case. “Apparently, Perry and Irene Mast suffered some kind of breakdown after their daughter committed suicide. For reasons unknown, they held their son responsible and imprisoned him. They began preying on troubled Amish teens.”
    “How many dead?” Glock asks.
    “Four,” I tell him. “Coroner’s office is still there.”
    “How’s Sadie Miller doing?” Lois asks.
    “I’m going to drive over there and take her final statement in a few minutes,” I tell her.
    My cell phone vibrates against my hip. I see Tomasetti’s name on the display and hit TALK as I start toward my office. “You make it home okay?”
    “Been here a couple of hours,” he tells me. “What about you?”
    “Letting myself into my office now.” I toss my keys on my desk. “Any news?”
    “Noah Mast is missing. He left the hospital this morning and no one has seen him since.”
    “That’s odd. They checked the farmhouse? The tunnel? Sometimes people go back to the places they’re used to, even if those places are unpleasant.”
    Tomasetti makes a sound that tells me he’s not convinced. “If he doesn’t turn up in the next hour or so, the sheriff’s office is going to put out an APB.”
    “You don’t think he hurt himself, do you?”
    “Nothing would surprise me at this point.” He pauses. “Have you talked with Sadie Miller yet?”
    “I’m heading out to the farm now. I’ll send my report your way as soon as I get everything typed up.”
    I find Esther Miller in the backyard of her farm house, hanging trousers on the clothesline. A wicker basket full of damp clothes sits at her feet. She smiles around the clothespin in her mouth when I approach.
    “Guder mariye, ” I say, wishing her a good morning.
    “Wie bischt du heit?” How are you today?
    She looks like a different woman. Her eyes are bright and alive, and I can tell she’s truly happy to see me. Dropping the trousers back into the basket, she crosses to me, throws her arms around me, and clings.
    “Gott segen eich.” God bless you. She’s not crying, but I feel her trembling against me. “Thank you for bringing her back to us.”
    After a moment, feeling awkward, I ease her to arm’s length and offer a smile. “How is she?”
    “Good. Happy, I think.” She blinks back tears. “She’s to be baptized in two weeks.”
    “I’m happy for you.” But I feel a pang in my gut. I think of Sadie’s passion for her needlework and the part of her that will be lost when she takes her oath to the church, and I realize something inside me mourns its loss.
    “I need to get a final statement from her, Esther. Is she busy?”
    “She is in the barn, feeding the new calf.” Bending, she reaches for the trousers, pins them to the clothesline. “Go on, Katie. She’ll be happy to see you. I’ll be out as soon as I get these clothes hung.”
    I take the crumbling sidewalk to the hulking red barn. The big sliding door stands open. The smells of fresh-cut hay and horse manure greet me when I enter. An old buggy in need of paint sits in