“You haven’t told me anything lately. You left me and disappeared, remember?”
“Not my intention—you know that. This seems to be helping. Did you happen to pack a needle and thread?”
I held both out for him.
“That’s my girl. Never misses a step.” He grinned and climbed back next to Abraham then methodically stripped him down.
There was an awful lot of blood, but Quinten didn’t seem worried as he applied the scale jelly, and started in on stitching Abraham back together.
“We’ll be at the plane in five minutes,” Right Ned said. “I have a friend who will take us out without records.”
“Thank you, Mr. Harris,” Quinten said, as if Ned was a personal chauffeur.
“Just Ned,” Right Ned said, taking us down streets at speed.
“Tell me everything that’s happened since I left,” Quinten said.
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“Other than my life has fallen apart and you and I are wanted criminals?”
“Tell me the things I don’t know.”
So I told him. Everything that had happened in the three years since he’d been gone, and especially everything that had happened since Abraham had showed up bleeding on our kitchen doorstep.
Neds stopped the car.
“This isn’t the airport,” I said, looking out the windows.
“We don’t want the airport,” Right Ned said. “Give me a second. I’ll be back with help to move him.”
Quinten tied off the last knot at Abraham’s neck and sat back a bit to consider his handiwork. “Satisfactory,” he declared.
I wanted to touch Abraham, to comfort him, but I couldn’t even do that much.
The back of the car opened and Neds stood there next to a woman and a man. Even in the dark of night, I could see the woman had an extra arm on one side, which was currently holding a medical stretcher, and the man next to her was built to mammoth proportions.
“Sadie, Corb,” Right Ned said, “This is Matilda Case and her brother, Quinten. The stitch is Abraham Seventh.”
“Pleased to be of help,” Corb said in a low but pleasing voice.
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll repay you in kind.”
“No need,” Corb offered his huge hand to help Quinten exit the car. “Any friend of a Harris is a friend of ours.”
“We’ll want to hurry, though,” Sadie said. “I’ll warm the engines.”
I gathered up my duffel and got out through the passenger’s door.
In that short time, Corb and Neds had helped Quinten settle Abraham on the stretcher, and then they carried him at a jog off toward a floating dock.
That was when I realized where we were.
“We’re going out by seaplane?”
“Not a bad idea,” Quinten said, walking quickly beside me and already out of breath. “Less regulated. All the smugglers do it.”
