But the resemblance to my killer ended with her dress and body. She wasn’t wearing a designer face, rather one that had enough imperfections to be the one she was born with, eyes set close and nose wide and slightly squashed.
I admired the way she moved through the crowd, fast and low but without jostling anyone. “Kim,” I called as she drew near. “Over here.”
She gave a happy shriek and made a beeline for us. Even charging full-bore, she was good enough at navigating the crowd that she didn’t brush against a single soul. When she reached us, she came up short and bounced a little. “Hi, I’m Kim!” she said, pumping my arm with the peculiar violence of the extra-jointed. “Julius,” I said, then waited while she repeated the process with Dan.
“So,” she said, “what’s the deal?”
I took her hand. “Kim, we’ve got a job for you, if you’re interested.”
She squeezed my hand hard and her eyes shone. “I’ll take it!” she said.
I laughed, and so did Dan. It was a polite, castmembery sort of laugh, but underneath it was relief. “I think I’d better explain it to you first,” I said.
“Explain away!” she said, and gave my hand another squeeze.
I let go of her hand and ran down an abbreviated version of the rehab plans, leaving out anything about Debra and her ad-hocs. Kim drank it all in greedily. She cocked her head at me as I ran it down, eyes wide. It was disconcerting, and I finally asked, “Are you recording this?”
Kim blushed. “I hope that’s okay! I’m starting a new Mansion scrapbook. I have one for every ride in the Park, but this one’s gonna be a world-beater!”