Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

any problems at home?” I ask them. “A recent argument or disagreement? Anything like that?”
    Rasmussen shakes his head. “They said everything was fine.”
    “What about a boyfriend?” I ask.
    “They say no.”
    The parents are always the last to know. Tomasetti’s words float through my mind. I hate it, but he’s right.
    “The parents probably don’t have a clue,” I say quietly, and I realize the two men are looking at me as if I’m the proverbial expert on out-of-control teenage Amish girls.
    “Sadie was considering leaving the Amish way of life,” I explain. “It might be that she’s with a boy her parents don’t know about. Or maybe she took off to teach all of us idiots a lesson.”
    “We need to talk to her friends,” Rasmussen says.
    “I’ve got some names we can start with.” I look at Glock. “Pick up Angi McClanahan. Matt Butler. And Lori Westfall. Take them to the station. Parents, too. No one’s in trouble, but I want to talk to them.”
    “I’m all over it.” Glock starts toward the door.
    Rasmussen and I fall silent, both of us caught in our own thoughts. “I’m going to talk to the mother,” I tell him. “Take a look at Sadie’s room.”
    “You want some help?
    “Might be better if I do it alone.”
    “Gotcha.”
    Roy and Esther glance up from their places at the table when I return to the kitchen. They look broken, sitting in their chairs with their hollow eyes and restless, unoccupied hands. It’s only been a few days since I last saw them, but they look as if they’ve aged ten years. Roy is a tall, thin man with a long red beard that reaches to his belly. He’s wearing black work trousers with a blue shirt and suspenders.
    “I’d like to see Sadie’s room,” I tell them.
    For a moment, they stare at me as if I’m speaking in some language they don’t understand. Then Esther looks at her husband. “We could show her,” she says.
    Impatience coils inside me. The Amish are a patriarchal society. The men make the rules and usually have the final say in matters. While most wives have a voice and their opinions are generally respected, they usually submit to their husbands’ wishes.
    I direct my attention to Roy. “It’s important,” I tell him. “There might be something there that will help us find her.”
    After a moment, he nods. “Show her the room.”
    Esther rises and motions toward the hall. “Come this way.”
    The steep, narrow stairs creak beneath our feet as I follow her to the second level of the house. Sadie’s room is at the end of the hall. It’s a small space with a twin bed, a night table, and a pine chest with four drawers. A white kapp and a black sweater hang from a single dowel on the wall above the bed. A window covered with gauzy curtains peers out over the front yard.
    The room is cozy and neat. It might have been the bedroom of any typical Amish girl, but all semblances of plain end with the vast display of needlework. A green-and-white quilt utilizing several types of fabric that alter the texture in interesting ways covers the bed. Contrasting pillows, fabric layered with lace, and even a crocheted coverlet are piled against the headboard. The walls are white, but there’s nothing plain about them, because they’re plastered from floor to ceiling with fabric wall hangings. I see dark purple velvet layered with pink lace; red and purple fabrics sewn together with the avant-garde eye of an artisan—colors that are frowned upon by the Amish. Yet her parents allow her this small expression of individualism.
    “Sadie loves to sew.” Esther says the words as if her daughter’s needlework requires justification. “She’s been doing the needlework since she was six years old.”
    I can’t stop looking at the yards and yards of fabric, so painstakingly designed and sewn by the hands of a young girl with a passion her parents haven’t been able to eradicate or contain. In the back of my mind, I’m remembering my conversation with Sadie that day on the bridge. I’m drawn to all the things I shouldn’t be. Music and . . . art. I want to . . . read books and watch movies and see places I’ve never seen. I want to go to college and . . . I’m going to design clothes. I’m so good with the needle and thread. . . .
    “She’s right,” I whisper.
    Esther tilts her head. “What?”
    “She’s very talented.”
    Esther looks embarrassed as she crosses to the bed and picks up a pink-and-red pillow. “Perhaps we should