“Rebecca and I have been friends for a lot of years. We’ve had babies at the same time, husband troubles, and we’ve eaten more than our share of fattening cookies.” Smiling wistfully, she looks down at the cookie in her hand. “Last summer, she came to me, crying. Kate, the story she told me … I didn’t know what to make of it.” Shaking her head, she lets the words trail. “I didn’t want to believe it, but let me tell you: It sent a knife through my heart.”

“What happened?”

A gust of wind rattles the windows. Laura startles, her eyes jerking to the door. She covers her reaction with a laugh, but for the first time she looks frightened.

“Rebecca told me that two of her granddaughters, just thirteen and fourteen years old, and her sixteen-year-old grandson were taken in and ‘counseled’ by Bishop Schrock. The children spent four nights at the bishop’s farmhouse.” She looks down at the tabletop. “She said the two girls weren’t the same when they came out. They wouldn’t talk about it; wouldn’t tell anyone what went on. Rebecca claims the bishop turned them against her.”

“Turned them against her how?” I ask.

“Evidently, the girls wanted nothing to do with her. Wouldn’t speak to her or visit with her and Levi, her husband. Rebecca blames the bishop. Says he took them from her. She’s bitter, and that’s not the Amish way.” She shudders. “Some of the things she says about the bishop … Terrible things.”

“Like what?”

She shakes her head, letting me know she won’t repeat them.

“What do you think happened to the girls?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I know how it must look to an outsider. Like the bishop overstepped. But in his defense, those girls had become prideful. I could see a … wildness in them. And Little Andy, with the drinking and smoking. There’s no doubt those kids were heading down the wrong road.” She shakes her head. “There’s so much temptation in the world for the young people these days.”

“That much is true,” I say.

“Kate, I’ve seen the bishop with the youngsters. He’s good with them.” But it doesn’t elude me that she says the words as if she’s not only trying to convince me, but herself. “Some might say he’s too firm. But I think he’s seen the devil at work and he knows the power of evil. I think he saw the direction they were going and somehow talked all that temptation right out of their heads.”

I stare at her, my mind reeling with the knowledge that Schrock is a predatory son of a bitch. After what he did to me, the thought of what might have happened to two innocent Amish girls twists my gut into knots.