Page 102 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Liv imagined a lonely scapegoat, cast into the wilderness under the burden of human sins. She’d never liked goats, but they had their uses. She took a breath and dove in.

“It was Thor. He killed Stefan Eriksen before dawn. Then he took Charlie, my dad, and my sister hostage in one of the rafts. Thor stranded us here with Stefan’s body, no radio, and not enough supplies to get help. At least, that’s what I think happened.”

She’d added that final caveat on a whim. It was a risk. It undercut the story she was trying to sell. But it was also an opening, an invitation for others to join her in discovery instead of cursing her for the terrible certainties she’d presented.

“A guide?” Devon said. “My brother was right?”

“How do you know it was Thor?” Fiona asked. She sounded worried, not confrontational.

“Stefan’s throat was slashed. From the wound, I could see that the blade that cut him had an unusual pattern, an irregular notching that matched the bowie knife Thor carried.”

This was a bald-faced lie. Liv had only gotten the barest glimpse of Thor’s knife sheathed in the holster on his belt, and she had spent even less time looking at Stefan’s throat. She waited for someone to call her out on it, but not too long. Silence was the tool of the investigator. Nonstop talking was the tool of the liar.

“I spent four months training on exotic street knives with the State Department in Thailand,” she said. Liv had never been to Thailand. “If you know what to look for, every blade has a fingerprint all its own. That first day on the river, Thor couldn’t resist showing me every feature of his knife, how he’d carved a tiny notch near the blade-tip to help him break lines quickly when he was fly-fishing. When I saw Stefan’s throat, it was all right there.”

“Mandy told me Thor left her in that slot above Surprise Valley for a while,” Fiona said. “Maybe he snuck down and killed Babette too.”

Liv was momentarily frozen. Mandy had shared information with Fiona that she hadn’t told her own sister. It stung to realize that, but more importantly, was it true? Could Thor have actually—no. She was inventing a killer, not investigating one.

“That fits,” she said, nodding at Fiona.

Big Pete frowned. “Why the heck would Thor have any reason to—”

Liv cut him off. “I don’t know. But my family’s heading down the river with a killer while we speculate about his motives. We have to do something. We have to save them.”

“She’s right,” Devon said. “My brother’s with them too. We have to protect them.”

The older woman drew her into a tight hug from the side.

“We’re going to get them back,” Devon whispered. She turned toward the rest of the group and stiffened her spine. “With my siblings gone, I am responsible for the company and this Essence Quest. We will move as quickly as possible to rescue my brother, and her family, from Thor. We’ll call the police, then we’ll get in the boats and go find them. We will find them alive. We will do what needs to be done.”

There was nothing to add to this, so Liv settled for nodding enthusiastically. Her heart was beating faster now. She felt warm—too warm—and she wondered if it was possible she’d overdone the CareFree and put herself in danger. But the pleasure pulsing through her felt too good for that to be the case. It was one thing to get others to listen when she was telling the truth. It was a thousand times more satisfying to get them to believe a story she’d made up. She felt powerful. And hot. She took off her sweatshirt and didn’t even feel embarrassed when she realized she only had a river-stained sports bra on underneath.

“Nice speech,” Big Pete said to Devon. “One problem. Two, actually. Your brother and the rest of the desperadoes took our radio and sat phone. So we won’t be calling anyone. Also, they took all the PFDs and paddles.”

“Can we go downriver without them?” Liv asked.

“Rafting without PFDs is against Park Service regulations. It’s also a recipe for drowning.”

The old Liv would have stopped right there. But the new Liv batted away the threat of a watery death and stormed ahead.

“And paddles? Can we raft without paddles?”

“Raft? No. But the supply boat has fixed oars. We could all pile on there, but . . .”

“But what?” Fiona asked.

“Stefan’s body is on that boat,” Liv said.

“So we take him off and leave him on the beach,” PK said.

When no one answered, PK doubled down. “What? It was okay to abandon Babette on the rocks, but Mr. Eriksen gets to go with us?”

“It’s illegal to move a body in the Grand Canyon,” Big Pete said. “And Stefan died on that boat. We have to keep him with us.”

“No way I’m riding on the supply boat, then,” Imogen said.

“Me either,” Fiona said.