Sadie

West McCray begins his podcast. The story takes place in Cold Creek, Colorado, a very poor community with few resources. West notes that its residents are focused on simply trying to survive.

West had been in the area before while working on a podcast about small towns in America. At that time, he overheard people discussing the murder of 13-year-old Mattie Southern. West was not interested in covering the incident, as it was too familiar a story.

West receives a call from May Beth Foster, Mattie’s surrogate grandmother, asking him to help investigate the disappearance of Mattie’s older sister, Sadie Hunter. May Beth shows him the abandoned schoolhouse where Mattie was found dead due to blunt force trauma to the head.

May Beth asks West to help bring back Sadie because she can’t bear another dead girl.

Sadie Hunter begins her story by describing the car she found on Craigslist. She knows she might die on her dangerous journey, but that does not deter her.

Sadie characterizes the trailer park where she lived all her life as “a place that’s only good for leaving” (11). She rides her bike to a meeting spot and pays a pregnant woman for the car. Sadie stutters as she tries to answer the woman’s questions. She calls herself Lera, her middle name.

Sadie replaces the license plates on the car and drives away. She thinks of how May Beth will be disappointed but not surprised that she is gone.

West tells his listeners, “Girls go missing all the time” (15). His boss Danny insists that West look into Sadie’s story as a possible subject for his new podcast.

May Beth tells West that Mattie’s murder “broke” Sadie, especially when the killer could not be found. West plays an interview with a witness who saw Mattie get into an unfamiliar truck the night before she was found murdered.

When West asks about their mother, Claire Southern, May Beth reluctantly explains that Claire was a troublemaker and drug addict from a very young age. Irene, Claire’s mother, was May Beth’s best friend and died when Claire was 19 and pregnant with Sadie. May Beth promised Irene she would help care for Claire’s child.

Sadie dyes her hair in a truck stop bathroom. This reminds her of Mattie, who had fair hair like their mother. Inside a diner called Ray’s, Sadie shows Ruby, the waitress, a picture of her family plus Keith, the man she is looking for, adding that she is his daughter. Keith told Sadie that he frequented Ray’s in the past. Although Sadie can tell that Ruby recognizes Keith, Ruby says she doesn’t know him.

A woman at the counter tells Sadie to look for a man named Caddy Sinclair, who might be able to help.

Sadie finds Caddy and shows him the photo, asking if he knows the man pictured. Caddy laughs and shoves Sadie. He asks what Sadie wants with “Darren Marshall,” so Sadie knows that is Keith’s alias.

Sadie tells Caddy that she is “Darren’s” daughter. Caddy says that she will have to pay for information. He grabs Sadie, who understands that payment means sex.

May Beth shows West pictures of Sadie in a photo album. She says that Sadie looked like Irene, which made Claire hate her. Moreover, May Beth never knew who Sadie’s father was.

Sadie was a lonely child who developed at stutter at age two. She turned out to be a good person despite her mother’s neglect and the bullying she experienced in school. In an interview, one of Sadie’s former teachers describes her as remote to the point of “vacant.”

Once Mattie was born, May Beth says, “Sadie loved Mattie with her whole heart and that love for Mattie gave her a purpose” (40). Claire cared more for Mattie because they looked alike. Meanwhile, Sadie lied for Claire so that Mattie would not realize she had a negligent mother.

May Beth notices that a picture was removed from the album, one she is sure had the girls in it.

Sadie announces that she is going to kill a man. She will do so though she knows it will not bring Mattie back, nor will it give her peace. Nevertheless, she cannot bear to let the man who killed Mattie live. Sadie holds a switchblade that she stole from Keith when she was a child.

Although Keith is not Sadie’s father, sometimes he pretended to others that he was. Sadie implies that Keith molested her when she was younger. She says that when she was 19 and Mattie was 13, Keith returned. Sadie thinks, “I’m going to carve my name into his soul” (45).