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“Yeah, well, Bobby Mata found her and I was going to check on her, see how she was doing.”
“She was here?”
“If that’s her track, then yeah.”
“Let’s go look.” They went out and it took one look for Hunter to nod her head. She also recognized the vibram imprint because of a small nick out of the left back lug.
“That’s her sign, and I know that one, too. It was where I found the dead children.”
Raymond rubbed his jaw, “You realize she probably saw all this.”
“Yeah.”
“I think she’s still alive. Otherwise they’d have left her body with Mata and Holguin.”
“I think so too.” A thought flashed in Hunter’s mind and she snapped her fingers, “That’s where I remember that name! Anacleto Holguin. Cleto. That’s the name of the man who tried to rape her.”
“The one she stabbed with a fork.”
“Yeah.”
Raymond said, “Wait here.” He walked over to the Sergeant and said something. Both men went inside to Holguin’s corpse and undid the pants. The Sergeant had on latex gloves and looked at the man’s privates, then nodded his head at Raymond. It was him.
Raymond walked back and said, “Now we know for sure. So, what next?”
Hunter thought of the flutter on the roof. She looked around the room and saw the angled beam. “Anybody been on the roof?”
“No.”
“Come on.” She led the way, and Raymond gave her a boost up to the beam. “Be back in a minute,” Hunter said. She walked up the beam and climbed on the roof.
Nothing was there but the fluttering cloth. The frayed end showed where the cloth had torn, right at the outside lip of the wall where it rubbed on the coarse edge of cinderblock. Hunter realized the rope was made from strips of Anda’s skirt. She used the height of the building to scan the desert around them, but didn’t see anything unusual. She didn’t expect to, knowing how the little Indian could run, but she was certain that Anda went this way. If there was a track nearby, she or Raymond would find it. Hunter returned to the hole and dropped into the killroom.
Rockman was standing beside Raymond when she dropped to the floor. He asked, “Find anything?” Hunter told him of the cloth, and of the vibram footprint she recognized from the dead children. Wayne said, “And you’re sure she escaped, that she’s a witness?”
“I think she escaped, yeah. I would guess she saw everything here, too, but I don’t know for sure.”
“Maybe they’re old tracks.”
“No, Raymond and I both looked at them. You’ve got everybody, all six people, arriving at the same time, then you’ve got three going back and getting in the cars and driving away, and you’ve got two others here. The only one missing is Anda.”
“The Tarahumara.”
“Right.”
Rockman smiled at her and said, “Good work, Hunter.”
“Thanks.”
Rockman said, “If we find her, I’ll make sure we give you a call, fair enough?”
“Yeah, thanks, Wayne.”
Rockman turned away and rejoined the Lieutenant.
Raymond said, “Well, I wouldn’t have believed that.”
“Me, neither.” Hunter motioned for Raymond to follow her and said, “Let’s go see if we can find her trail.”
