“I believe she is being held against her will.”

“You met her in a market?”

“She was being watched.”

“I see. Why didn’t you go to the police in New Mexico? I am a policeman in Mexico. I have no power in the United States.”

“Of course.” I felt stupid. I had no idea why I was sitting in that room with him. I blew out a breath and pressed on. “Perhaps you can tell me if there is a Rosalita Gonzalez who has been reported missing.”

Deocampo stared at me for a long few seconds. He walked across the room to a small table on which sat a very old computer. He worked there for a few minutes, then stopped and studied the screen silently.

“Rosalita Gonzalez was reported missing three years ago. She was twenty-three at the time.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Do you know how many Rosalita Gonzalezes there are in Mexico and the United States?”

“A lot,” I said.

“How old was this woman?” Deocampo asked.

“It was hard to tell,” I said. “She could have been twenty-one or forty.”

“I am a policeman in Mexico, Mr. Wells.”

“I know.”

“Three hundred and six,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Three hundred and six. That’s how many women have been killed or gone missing, most of them killed.”

I nodded.

“I cannot help you. Go home.”

a pocketknife, a tarp, a map, a compass, a shovel, a canteen, a poncho, a trail

I wanted to go home, in fact. But I told him, “I need to know. This person asked me to help her.”

“She did?”

“Yes.” I looked at the man’s eyes and realized how weary mine must have appeared. “Is there a photograph of the woman?”

His shoulders sagged as he leaned into the back of his chair. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Wells?”

“I’m a university professor. I’m a paleontologist.”

Deocampo raised his brows.

“I study fossils.” Language was getting in the way. “Dinosaurios.”

“Really? My son loves them.”

I nodded.

“Do you have any children, Mr. Wells?”

“I have a daughter.”

“You should go home to her.”

“Someone needs help,” I said.

“You really believe this woman is a prisoner,” he said more to himself than to me. “Come with me.”

Lieutenant Deocampo led me out of the conference room, down the wide stairs where I came in, along a wide hallway lined with portraits of uniformed men, to a narrower corridor, and then down a straight flight of stairs. He opened a heavy but unsecured door and waved his arm for me to enter before him. Inside the large room were crates upon crates, stacked boxes, and an entire wall of file cabinets, floor to chin high, all set against walls painted the sort of pale green found in old hospitals.

“This is what three hundred and six dead and missing women look like,” he said.

I said nothing. There was nothing to say.