Page 91 of Rope Burn

"Charged. He came in with a lawyer." Torres keeps her eyes on the arena. "You can quit calling my office about him."

"I'll quit when he's convicted."

"And the rest?" I ask.

She gives me what anybody could read in a courthouse file. "Burl's indictment picked up the trafficking counts, and the judge revoked his bond for good. Vogt goes to trial this summer. Wilson keeps talking, and he's still looking at time. Cooperation shortens a sentence. It doesn't erase one." She pauses. "The medical examiner amended Vic Sutton's manner of death. It says homicide now."

Slade turns the hat once in his hands. "Sandy."

"Her mother asked us to use her name. The U.S. Attorney read it at the podium, first line of the statement." Torres pulls her sunglasses down over her eyes. "No initials, no Jane Doe."

"Say it again."

Torres turns her head and looks at him until the silence stretches. "Sandy Canutson."

Slade puts his hat back on.

Months ago, I sat at the far end of a sofa while Penny told us Sandy made every woman in that room say her own name out loud at night. Now a federal prosecutor has said Sandy's name into a bank of microphones. I hope it would have been enough for her. It's what we have.

Nobody says Delilah's name. When Torres and I last spoke about her, I found out that Delilah had climbed out of the Clovis trailer on her own feet.

She has a last name now, on paper that belongs to her and nobody else, and I've never asked Torres for it. It isn't mine to ask for.

"The ones we didn't find," I say.

"Are still somebody's case."

"Finding women like them is my job now."

Torres nods. "I know," she says. "I wrote the letter."

She pushes off the rail and walks toward the contestant lot without saying goodbye. Torres has never said goodbye to me once, and I'm starting to understand it's a courtesy.

Behind the bucking chutes, the families gather in the shade of a stock trailer. Slade and I pass them on the way to the timed-event end, and my steps slow.

Dax has his rigging bag over one shoulder and his number pinned on for the bareback riding, which opens the performance.

His hand goes inside his vest and comes out with a thick fold of pages gone soft at the corners. A couple of glossy prints show at the edges of the stack, and a handwritten timeline runs down the top sheet in tight block capitals. He holds it out to Kenna.

Her hands stay at her sides. "What is this?"

"Everything I've got on everybody who stood near Grant's bull." His voice is level, and he keeps it that way. "It has dates, plates, the day-hire sheets, and the alias out of Fort Worth."

"Dax."

"I was going to scratch today and drive to Fort Worth." He turns toward the arena. "I had his address."

Colt shifts his weight. "And?"

"Torres called this morning. Her people matched the alias to a real name, and a judge signed the warrant yesterday." Dax presses the file into his sister's hands and closes her fingers over it with his own. "He's theirs now. I drew a good horse. You're the one who writes things down. Write it down, and let me ride."

On his way to the bareback chutes, he stops in front of Slade. "Carrick."

"Make the whistle," Slade says. "First round's on me."

"Every round's on you." Dax walks on without looking back. Kenna hugs the file to her. Colt's hand settles at the small of her back, and Rainey steps in close on her other side.

Before long, Dax rides a paint bronc named Loose Change to the whistle and slides off onto the pickup man's horse with his free arm high. The announcer calls his score. It puts him on top of the round.