by: Betsy J. Bennett
CHAPTER 3
Had the fist connected, Kimble would have needed reconstructive surgery on his jaw, but he had years of experience dealing with anger of this sort, and his reflexes were good. The fist missed him by less than a millimeter, he’d guess, but it was enough.
Kimble struggled to his feet, he’d moved rapidly and fallen, and now with his feet under him, ready to respond to whatever happened, he faced the agressor. The patient, who Richard had been treating, probably had as much experience with violence as the doc had, and beat a hasty retreat.
“What the hell gives you the right to go to the police over my daughter?”
Kimble held his hand up, palm out, hoping to convey he’d rather talk. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Dr. Kimble and I treat a lot of people.”
The man snarled. “And do you call the police on all of them?”
He had enough experience in situations like this since being on the run, to know it wasn’t going to end well for either of them. He shrugged, realized he wasn’t willing to diffuse this situation. Bullies had to be faced. “If I have to. I don’t like seeing child abuse.”
“What a father does to a child is a father’s right.”
“Not when a baby comes to me with a broken arm and cigarette burns. That’s not what a father does. It’s what a lunatic does to torture. If you don’t believe me, I can have the police back.”
He didn’t know this man, but was willing to bet the creep facing him had been arrested frequently for bar fights, for intimidation, for domestic violence. Kimble didn’t do anything as overt as raise his fists, but his body tensed, ready for the assault that was coming. He’d put it off as long as he could. “You’re Dessi’s father?”
“I am.” The man swaggered, held up his fists, already smelled of stale alcohol, and sweat gone rancid, although it wasn’t yet four in the afternoon.
“Korl, isn’t it?”
“Joe Korl.”
“And you think your belt is the way to teach that precious girl to mind?”
“Someone’s got to teach her manners. She got no brain.”
“You’ve got no brain. There were clear signs of child abuse. I will not tolerate that, not in my clinic, and not in my life. I’m planning on testifying on what I found, and I’ve written up my observations for the police. And in case you’re wondering, a social worker took pictures. This isn’t going to go away. I’m hoping we can get you a nice comfortable jail cell where you won’t be able to hurt those weaker than you ever again.”
Korl cleared his throat, hawked a particularly nasty wad of something toward Kimble’s feet. “And you’ll die for your interference.”
Kimble watched Korl’s reaction, seeing his body tense, watching the way the muscles in his arms formed. Feeling on familiar ground, Kimble smiled, knowing the action would egg the other man on. It had been a good long time since he’d been in a fight. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried that option.”
The worker jumped him, and again, Kimble was quick, and the blow didn’t land, but Korl jumped him, fists flying and he and Kimble fought, down and dirty. They crashed into the stretcher, tumbling to the tile, fists flying.
“What the hell is going on here?” Olivia bellowed less than thirty seconds later. “This is a medical clinic, not a barroom back alley. Stop it you two.”
Kimble tried to back up, got a right hook to his stomach which had him seeing stars and gasping for breath.
Olivia stood, arms akimbo, breathing steam. “The police have been called yet again. Seems there’s a warrant out for your arrest, Mr. Korl, something about domestic assault and child abuse. And trust me, if this idiot,” she said, indicating Kimble, “doesn’t testify against you, be certain I will.”
He faced Olivia with malice that was palpable. “And I told you to stay out of this.” Spittle flew as he spoke.
“That isn’t possible. This time we have documented proof.”
Korl considered his options, decided he’d try to run, but pretty much the entire waiting room was standing in the corridor, and they would each try to stop him, man, woman and child. Two heavily muscled bikers, one Richard Kimble had worked hard to save his life from a knife fight, and another he was starting to recognize, grabbed Korl by the collar. “We’ll take this outside, wait for the police.”
“You be nice to him,” Olivia said pointing a finger.
“Why?” Billy asked, his fingers wrapped around Korl’s arm, pulling him forward.
“Don’t give me no grief, boy,” she told the biker. “I don’t want him any worse than he is. It’s about time you guys started keeping your hands clean.” She waited until they nodded, accepting her authority. “Do you suppose I should get him some ice for that eye?”
Billy rubbed a chin where although he was trying, there was a possibility it might be four or five more years before a full beard developed. “Looks like Doc Kimble is going to need it more.”
“You’re right. The police will be here soon. If Korl needs ice, he can get it down at the station. Take him away.”
The patients cleared a path through the hall, leaving Richard facing Olivia. She returned her hands to her hips, met him eye to eye. “I expected that kind of reaction from him, but from you? I expected better. I suppose you learned how to fight in jail?”
“Had to do something to pass the time.”
“Well my clinic is not a prison cell block, understood?”
Kimble waited a long moment, looked down at his feet before raising his gaze and meeting her eyes. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said, then hooted with laughter.
“You at least looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
“Been a while since I was in a fight.”
“Well, let’s try to avoid them in the future. This is a clinic, or have you forgotten that?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“You need anything? X-rays or stitches?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Then get back to work. The waiting room is full. In case you’re wondering, this isn’t the first time we’ve called the police here twice in one day, but I do like to avoid that whenever possible.”
“I was handling it.”
“I’m sure we’re all grateful. Now get to work.” But before she left, she kissed him on his right eye, where already it was starting to swell, and knowing he’d have a magnificent shiner by tomorrow.
“Boo boo?” he asked.
“Idiot,” she responded. And this time, she laughed.
***
Kimble checked the glowing digits of his clock, then silently slid out from the bed. He thought he was being subtle, considerate, but Livi shifted, reached out.
“Go back to sleep,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I know you’re exhausted. You’ve got a few more hours before Donna will be here, to prep you as a bride.”
She yawned, stretched. It had been a long night. They had been called back to the clinic after midnight to deal with repercussions from a bar fight, a dozen victims or participants, depending on who they listened to, complete with a wide range of complaints from cuts and broken bones, through a serious concussion. They had gone through a lot of ‘cat gut.’ Kimble and Livi hadn’t left the clinic until nearly two in the morning.
She almost moaned. “I can’t go through with this.”
“What?” he almost asked, feeling pangs of terror, until he realized she was speaking of the wedding prep, not postponing or refusing the wedding altogether.
“You’ll love it.”
“I could use the sleep. I bet I could get an extra hour of two if we tell Donna that I can dress myself.”
He studied her, this soft, willing woman he wanted to wake up beside every day for the rest of his life. “Not today. It’s traditional.”
“I’ll grant you that, but is that necessary?”
“You’re a bride. I want you to have a day you’ll remember. It might not be significant to you today, but as we grow old together, the memories will be important. Besides, we’ll need a story to tell the kids.”
“Kids?” she asked, somewhat breathless, her eyelids, which had been sagging, popping open.
He had bent down, lacing his Converse sneakers, but he looked up at her with that grin of his which had her heart thumping. “At the clinic. They’ll certainly ask.” He would not mention, and she would not bring it up, his almost desperate need to father a child himself. He had made that mistake with his first wife. It was not a subject he felt comfortable broaching with the woman about to become his second.
“Livi, I don’t know if you realize this, but there’s bound to be reporters, and at the very least I know Decker will be here. Who knows what he’ll write in that column of his. The man has become a menace. If I’d known how excited he’d become telling Richard Kimble stories, there’s a chance I never would have gone to him.”
She could be smug when she was right, and Dr. Olivetti always considered herself right. “And that’s a lie.”
“That he’s smug?”
“No, that you wouldn’t have gone to him.”
“Well, yet again you’re right. Because of Decker, I saw Johnson for the first time. I’ll always be grateful to him for that. I want you to understand this day, this ceremony, isn’t about me. It’s about you. This is your wedding, Livi. I want to show the world how fabulous you are.”
“And a dress and mascara will do that?”
“No, honestly, your work at the clinic does that, but what if Decker wants pictures?”
She was a great fan of “Top of the Deck,” Decker’s syndicated newspaper column. She feasted on the Friday updates into Kimble’s life as a fugitive, learning far more from newsprint than anything he’d told her, although, Friday nights generally involved her getting his perspective on the event, which frequently varied significantly from what was written. The truth, generally, was found in print, not in his self-deprecating memories. However with her shiver, she realized for the first time that there might be implications involving her. “He wouldn’t.”
He went to his dresser, pulled out the ratty Cornell tee shirt Donna had sent that he wore when running. “He certainly might. He said his Friday Richard Kimble stories are the most popular feature in the newspaper and that they are syndicated across the entire country.”
“So you don’t want to be embarrassed being married to a hag?” she said to tease. He needed that, she thought, to keep his mind off the exhaustion she could still see swirling behind his eyes.
“You will be the most beautiful woman there. Don’t tell me now you’re getting insecure?”
“No. No. And I suppose you’re right. As a child I imagined the dream wedding, and I suppose I haven’t lost those hopes, even if it’s probably been two dozen years since I’ve thought of them.”
He straightened, hesitating while fighting the need to run, long and hard into the night, and laughed. “Probably back when you wanted to be a ballerina or a princess?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“We can still do the big extravaganza,” he said, “a big church wedding with an organist, bridesmaids and flower girls.” Been there, done that, he thought, having no interest whatsoever in doing it again, and he had plans for the afternoon that would be ruined if she wanted to postpone the vows.
Naked she stood, wrapping a bathrobe around herself. Her modesty always amused him, that as a doctor Livi had seen the human body in every type of trauma imaginable, and still she felt shy with her own skin.
“No, absolutely not. Just you and me and Maggi and Dora Ann and your family. We won’t need anyone else.”
He kissed her gently, this woman who had healed him body and soul. “I won’t be long. Don’t worry about me. I’ll run a bit, and clear my head. It will be best for both of us.” He almost got to the door before he turned back. “I almost forgot.” He raced for the bedroom, returned a second later with a wrapped present.
“What’s this?”
“Gift for the bride. My main gift for you won’t come until Monday, but I wanted you to have something from me today.”
“Richard!”
“I wanted to make you laugh. You need to start off the day with something silly.”
She tore paper, found a case of banana Turkish taffy, her favorite. And yes, she did laugh.
The high school track circled the football field, and when he ran, generally both were abandoned. He found reassurance here of his safety, for once, when he tried jogging through downtown Detroit, it felt too much like he were being chased, like he needed to find a bus going out of town, or stick out his thumb, hoping for a ride. There were dead end alleys where he could be trapped, and too many eyes watching that weren’t necessarily friendly. The track then was comforting, and starting to be familiar.
There had been a hard frost that morning, his car had needed scraping, but the weather forecaster on the radio promised a warm afternoon approaching 50 degrees with calm winds and no chance of showers. What else could he hope for for an early November wedding? The people he’d invited were hardy, they probably wouldn’t mind a monsoon.
He approached the track and slipped into his comfortable stride. Already he was running longer, faster, more confidently than he had a few weeks before. He should have developed this hobby as a fugitive, but running then was the last thing he wanted to do. His body complained, protested, making him think he was too old for this, but running was not a habit Richard Kimble could abandon. His lungs ached, his thighs protested and a deep stitch rooted itself in his side, all were familiar, as if old friends, and his feet kept moving, lap after lap. Running seemed to help him, this mindless circling of the high school track that kept his body honed.
He used the time to mentally review all the instances running had saved his life, a mental exercise as important as the physical, and one that he couldn’t prevent even if he wanted. The eerily empty high school vanished, and instead he found himself reliving memories, as much of a nightmare as anything his sleep brought. Running down mountains with a forest fire raging at his back, through gurgling river beds and thick forests with dogs baying in the background, getting closer, always closer. Running for moving trains and from police road blocks with the sounds of gunfire, that at any second could have a bullet lodged deep in his back. Running at night when his body craved sleep; running from someone who recognized him from a post office wanted poster or a special they ran on television of notorious fugitives. Running into the sunset when just hours before he had been comfortable, part of a family, welcomed at their dinner table for what skills he could offer them during the day, and then welcomed in because they were good, decent people who had no idea his background.
He tried to think of good times, but as he ran, his thoughts shifted only to the bad.
As the sun rose, so did the temperature, boding well for a pleasant reception. Dried brown leaves pirouetted on the track, perhaps trying to remember softer, gentler times when there was the comfort of blazing sun and warm starry nights. It had been cold when he started running, not bad enough that he could see his breath, but far colder than the halcyon weather Detroit had experienced yesterday. Now his body dripped sweat. He stopped, checked his watch, realized in a few hours he’d be married again. He started stretching, regulating his breathing, anticipating a night to come. Livi. What if he hurt her? What if his ugly past intruded again in his present?
What if they lived happily ever after?
I’m free, he thought, but then realized only for a few more hours. Then he would be bound to the woman he loved.
He jogged all the way home and saw Donna’s boys, David and Billy Taft playing football on the front lawn, so he stopped for a minute, let them run, trying to catch his passes while they laughed like lunatics. They lacked that eye hand coordination to catch a spinning pigskin, and occasionally they grabbed the football, tried to run imaginary bases, mixing sports with an innocence that had him charmed. They might not know all the rules to football, but they were champions at tackle. A few minutes later when he walked in the front door, in addition to sweat, there was more than a fair share of grass stains on his clothing.
“Mercy, Dick, you reek,” Donna said, as he entered the front door. Veronica, the baby lay on a blanket on the floor, waving arms and legs as if she were trying out for the swim team and only needed a little more dry land practice. Since Olivia’s house didn’t run to children’s toys, a wealth of teaspoons surrounded her, which she ignored.
His sister was dressed in her wedding finery, a powder-blue dress with a print jacket. There were undoubtedly matching gloves and a hat somewhere. Kimble approached her, tried to kiss her, but she stood her ground, showing teeth, and he kept his distance. Donna stood at an ironing board she must have brought with her, for he knew for a fact there hadn’t been one in the house an hour before. Donna had insisted Olivia have an official wedding dress and had taken her shopping. Yards of white silk puddled around her. And there, wearing nothing over her slip, looking more than a little overwhelmed, sat Livi.
His breath caught, held, and he wondered what he had done to deserve a woman so perfect.
“Don’t touch her either,” Donna said. “You’re a mess. And if you touch the baby,” she said, stopping him while he was about to pick up Veronica and swing her into his arms, “I’ll have to bathe her and then we’ll never get out of here. Is that what you want?”
Considering Veronica was off-limits, Kimble returned his attention to the bride. Keeping his hands off her was not a command he could obey. He tried desperately not to touch her, for Donna was right, he did stink, but this was Livi, and his lips found hers.
Len stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, a cup of coffee in his hands. “And I don’t suppose anyone told you it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”
Donna probably had said the same thing to him years ago, before his marriage to Helen. He had been obedient then, had not seen his bride before the ceremony, and yet years later bad luck had found them. And he figured the tradition was rooted in necessity: how many cold-feeted grooms had seen their brides before the ceremony and run for the hills? How many brides had faced the man she was supposed to marry and decided to keep living with her parents? He would not change his mind. This marriage was something he wanted more than he wanted to breathe.
“We don’t believe in bad luck,” Livi said.
“Not any longer. I’ll shower. Be ready in about ten minutes.”
“We’re almost done here.” There were dishes stacked, teetering, on the dining room table, the table itself bought only days before. On it was the detritus of a feast: pancakes, eggs, sausage, orange juice, coffee. The boys must have eaten, for there was maple syrup still dripping from the table, pooling on the hardwood floor. He thought in fits of whimsy, perhaps they needed a dog. Food had no opportunity to hit the floor when there was a Labrador Retriever in the house.
Although hungry, he wouldn’t eat. He had other appetites this morning.
Donna turned off the iron, held up the dress admiringly. “Are you sure you don’t want a big ceremony?”
Richard kissed his sister, a quick peck on the top of her head. “Too late for that now. We’re getting married today.” Gerard with an arrest warrant couldn’t stop us, he finished mentally, and shivered, fear creeping in from no discernible source.
I’m free, he muttered. And he felt a chill as he raced up the stairs toward the master bath, that perhaps he spoke too casually, for bad luck had a habit of finding him, no matter how carefully he hid.
He showered, shaved, came out wearing a towel. Olivia sat on the bed, which surprised him. He would have thought his traditional sister would keep her far from him, but then he knew Livi, knew nothing stopped her.
For a moment he felt fear, that she had changed her mind, that she was waiting to break the news before they did something only one of them would regret.
“I want to marry you,” he said, and it came out little more than a whisper. How many times had he felt fear? Looking at her, trying to imagine a lifetime without her, he knew losing his life would have been nothing beside losing this woman who had stolen his heart.
She looked, studied him, was insightful, for a breath later, she was in his arms. “And I will marry you. Today and for forever.”
He breathed in her scent, the woodsy smell of her shampoo, the flowery scent of her soap, the deep, passionate aroma that was Livi herself. “But something is bothering you.”
There was no need for her to deny it.
“Olivia, Dick! We have to leave,” Donna shouted from downstairs.
“In a minute,” Kimble shouted back. “They won’t start without us,” he said, his lips in her hair, the kisses life-affirming. He wasn’t willing to let her go, not now. He tightened his embrace, kissed her hair.
“Tell me what’s bothering you. Donna can wait. The priest will wait. I don’t want you entering into this marriage with questions.”
She kept her head turned, avoiding his glance. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it like? And Livi, know I will be honest with you. I will always be honest with you, regardless of what the press wrote about me, or that Decker prints in that idiotic column of his, know I’ll never lie to you.”
“Even if I have to call you Nick Walker?” The alias he had used with Sister Veronica.
“You, more than almost anyone else, knew it was hard for me to admit my name, after years of having to deny it. But Livi, those days are over. There will be no deceit, not with you.”
She wore the blinding white wedding dress, soft, smooth, and so traditional. He rubbed his hands down the silky material, long sleeves of the dress, until he got to her hand. He lifted her wrist, kissed it. Kimble wanted her to have the princess wedding she had dreamed about as a little girl, for every minute of her adult life she had been selflessly giving to others. This time he wanted her to have her wish, even if she would consider it silly, it was important to him.
She turned her head, looked at him directly. “What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done in your life?”
The question caught him off-guard. Of all the things she could have asked this was one of the least expected. There were too many skeletons hanging in his closet. She had to be curious.
Downstairs he heard Donna bellowing at her sons to keep clean. Donna had been a yeller as a child. He thought she would have outgrown the tendency, but apparently not. Taking time to control his thoughts, Kimble rummaged through his closet, coming out with his hands full, a clean shirt, still wrapped in dry cleaner’s plastic, the slacks and jacket he would wear. He set the clothing on the bed, then hunted through his dresser for a tie, socks, underwear. He dropped the towel he wore around his waist, wiggled his eyebrows, and at her growl, for a doctor, that woman had no trouble showing teeth, decided to answer her question.
“I don’t think people ever think of their own actions like that. In order to consider something brave, takes another person’s perspective. Mostly if I was doing something brave, there was always some other underlying reason. I didn’t want another person to suffer from something I did, or from someone who was after me.” He hesitated, let long seconds pass, while he contemplated his confession. “I didn’t want to become an animal.”
She started to move toward him, realized if they touched, it might be a while before they were ready to join the Tafts for the trip to the church. “An animal?”
He continued dressing, absently, keeping his gaze locked on her. “I thought about it long and hard. Most nights, hell, all nights, I was alone and I had time to think about what I would do to keep myself safe. I’ve told you this.”
“I’d like to hear it again.”
“While I was on the road, in almost every respect I wasn’t the Richard Kimble I had been. I had to fight to stay alive. I had to run from problems to stay alive. I had to learn to change my identity, answer to another name, be someone else. I had to accept work I wouldn’t have considered before. Livi, I had to learn to lie. It wasn’t that easy. I had no idea how to lie, why would I? Everything I had told Gerard in interrogation rooms, and in front of a judge had been the truth, and look where that got me. I had to learn how to hide in abandoned barns, in alleyways, in forests where I prayed no one would find me.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m getting there. Are you sure you want the answer?”
She swallowed, nodded, a woman dressed in white who could be a bride or an angel. “So what did you do that was brave?”
He’d argue strenuously that he hadn’t been brave. Not once. He had lived in fear, hiding in alleys and in wooded areas, pretending to be someone, something he wasn’t. He had been running away, and by any definition, that had to be considered cowardice, and he didn’t want to confess to being a coward, not to Livi.
He sat on the bed, slipped on a sock while he looked up at her. “I’ll tell you what I did recently that frightened me perhaps more than anything I’d done while on the run. I was terrified and did it anyway. I suppose you could consider that brave.”
The wedding dress she wore was high-necked, almost with a Mandarin collar, trust his bride to find the most modest dress available. He wondered if he had it off her, if she would forget her question, and then decided that thought was cowardice as well.
“Richard, I’d like to hear anything you have to say.”
He stood, zipped his slacks, fit the belt buckle, then sat again to work on his shoes, taking the time to formulate his confession. He was half terrified that with his words, she’d change her mind. How many women wanted to marry a man with his nightmares?
“It was just a few weeks ago. I’d been away, at that school, trying to get my medical license reinstated. The only thing I wanted was to return to you, to the happiness I felt with you, and get my credentials, so I could work by your side as an equal, as a doctor. You need help. I wanted to help you, even if we could be nothing more than colleagues, even if I could never tell you how much I loved you, I wanted to be in your life, and I realized I couldn’t heal until I understood why Johnson killed Helen. Gerard thought he was hired to hurt her or kill her, either, doesn’t matter now. It wasn’t a random break-in. Donna, I’m sure, wanted it all in the past. Johnson was dead. He couldn’t hurt us anymore. But there were loose ends that bothered me. Why? There had to be a reason why. And then I found a thread, something I knew I couldn’t handle on my own. I had to take it to Gerard. He had the background, the skills I didn’t have, to bring closure.”
“And?” She wished she could get him water, or something stronger, to help the words flow easier, but to move now would break the conversation, and she doubted he’d continue.
“They said if we missed classes or shifts at the ER, that we could not get our medical licenses. They were strict. They should be strict. You remember med school. And I wanted not only to succeed, but to be the best.”
“You almost gave medicine up to find the motive behind Helen’s murder?”
“It’s been over six years. You’d think by now I could live with it, but I couldn’t. I want so many things, and for so long, none of them seemed possible. And Livi, I wasn’t sure you’d let me in your bed if I were only your janitor.”
Her eyes watered, but then, so did his.
“I drove to the police station in Stafford. Just after Helen’s murder, and before my arrest, I’d been there several times.”
“Then your arrest,” she finished for him. “Memories there couldn’t be pleasant.”
He fitted the tie around his neck, worked on the noose. “I didn’t think I’d be as scared as I was. I thought I could handle it. Exoneration was all I had wanted for years, and as I sat in the car for what seemed like hours it no longer seemed real. I figured the only way I was getting out of that car was so I could find a bush and throw up. They weren’t after me. Stafford police didn’t want me. And I was terrified.”
“And you went in.”
“I had to. I couldn’t be a coward and turn tail and run. That’s what Lloyd Chandler did. Livi, I’ll never be like him. No matter how hard life is, I will face it. Alone if I have to, but I’d rather you by my side.”
“Now and forever, Richard. And was it hard, in the police station?”
“Yes, but not as hard as I thought. They all recognized me, started whispering the second I walked in the door. And Gerard was there. Honestly, I swear if he took me to an interrogation room to find out what I wanted, I would have run.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
His grin flashed, before his features settled, while he put his wallet into his back pocket, found keys and loose change on the dresser. “But I think he understood a little of what I was going through, because he didn’t ask me to come back to the station the next day. He met me at a restaurant.”
“You’ve always said he knew you.”
“Yes. I’ve seen compassion from him before. It always shows up when it’s the most unexpected. On the train to Michigan City—“
“Yes?”
“It doesn’t matter. It was hard, Livi, but I promise if anything hard ever comes between us, I will be there, fighting for you. If I can face the Stafford Police Station, I can face anything.”
“I think you’re the bravest man I’ll ever know.”
“I’ve run, Livi. Obviously I spent four years running from my problems. That’s not courage. Don’t make me out to be any kind of hero.”
“Richard, you were not running away from anything, you were seeking answers you couldn’t get any other way. That’s why I asked my question. You still think you ran only to live, to avoid the death penalty. You ran because you were seeking answers no one was willing to give you. You ran because you knew Fred Johnson killed Helen and he could and probably would kill again. In a very real sense you ran because you wanted to make the world a better place.”
“Don’t romanticize this Livi. My life as an interstate fugitive was ugly and dirty and lonely, and every other miserable word you can think of, but that’s all in the past. I don’t have to run any more. We’ve got our lives ahead of us.”
He held her gently, cupping her face in his hands, letting his lips settle gently against hers, their noses rub, their foreheads together. “We’d better go before David and Billy get dirty again,” Olivia said. “We don’t want to disappoint Donna.”
“No,” but it was Olivia, Kimble hoped he’d never disappoint.