The son was holding one end of a crate when Eli found him.
His partner had stopped halfway through the rear yard, unable to bring her injured foot over a low step. The young man did not hurry her. He lowered his end until she could set hers down, then dragged a flattened sack across the rough stone so they would not break the jars inside when they shifted their grip.
“Lift on three,” he said.
They had reached two before he noticed strangers by the gate.
His eyes went first to Eli’s coat, then to Tessa’s medical bag. The fear appeared before either of them spoke. Eli had seen that calculation too often: uniforms, unfamiliar faces, the person who ought to have come with them missing.
“Where’s my mother?”
Tessa set her bag down. The son left the crate without looking back at it.
Eli told him.
