“All my patients should heal so fast. No point in leaving those stitches in, I guess. Turn around so I can do the back.”

The girl complied, swiveling on the cot; Sara took up a pair of tweezers and began pulling the sutures from the exit wound, dropping them one by one into a metal basin.

“Does anybody else know about this?” Peter asked.

“About the way she heals? I don’t think so.”

“So nobody else has been in to see her since this afternoon.”

She clipped off the final stitch. “Just Jimmy.” She pulled the girl’s gown back over her shoulder. “There you go, all set.”

“Jimmy? What did he want?”

“I don’t know, I assume Sanjay sent him.” Sara shifted on the cot to look at Peter. “It was kind of strange, actually. I never heard him come in, I just looked up and there he was, standing in the doorway with this … look on his face.”

“A look?”

“I don’t know how else to describe it. I told him she hadn’t said anything, and then he left. But that was hours ago.”

Peter felt suddenly rattled. What did she mean by a look? What had Jimmy seen?

Sara took up her tweezers again. “Okay, your turn.”

Peter was about to say, My turn for what? But then he remembered: his elbow. The bandage had long since worn down to a filthy rag. He guessed the cut was healed by now; he hadn’t looked at it for days.

He sat on one of the empty cots. Sara took a place beside him and unwrapped the bandage, releasing a sour odor of stale skin.

“Did you bother keeping this thing clean at all?”

“I guess I forgot.”

She took hold of the arm, bending closely with the tweezers. Peter was aware of the girl’s eyes, intently watching them.

“Any news from Michael?” He felt a jab of pain as she tugged the first suture. “Ow, be careful.”

“It would help if you held still.” Sara repositioned his arm, not looking at him, and resumed her work. “I stopped by the Lighthouse on the way back from the house. He’s still working. Elton’s helping him.”

“Elton? Is that so smart?”

“Don’t worry, we can trust him.” Her eyes flicked upward with a troubled glance. “Funny how we’re all talking like that, all of a sudden. Who can trust who.” She gave his arm a pat. “There, move it around a little.”

Balling his hand into a fist, he pumped his arm back and forth. “Good as new.”

Sara had stepped to the pump to clean her tools. She turned and faced him, drying her hands on a rag.

“Honestly, Peter. Sometimes I worry about you.”

He realized that he was still holding his arm away from his body. He awkwardly dropped it to his side. “I’m fine.”