Page 103 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Big Pete looked like he was reaching the end of his rope. “Well, unless any of you have secret rafting paddles packed in those coolers full of eye cream—”

An opportunity. Liv saw it, shiny as a gold-plated ring on the carousel, dangling there for her to grab. “Great idea,” she said. “Let’s get the bags and open them up. Between all of us, there’s got to be something we can work with.”

She felt Devon stiffen next to her. Was there something in her luggage she didn’t want others to see?

“I do have an extendable tripod,” PK said doubtfully.

“Sounds like a paddle shaft to me!” Liv wasn’t sure where this chipper maniacal energy was coming from, but she was riding it. “My family and her brother are relying on us. Come on.”

She clapped twice, like a kindergarten teacher. It worked. Even before the echo shot back off the canyon walls, people started to move.

Katy laid out a tarp on the sand, and it started to fill with luggage. There was too much motion for Liv to pick out the subtleties of who brought their bag willingly to the tarp and who seemed uncomfortable with the proposition. The important thing was that the beach was soon empty, the tarp full. Big Pete even unloaded the supply boat, or everything he could that wasn’t directly under Stefan’s body.

All the material possessions the group had were now laid out in front of her. Now what?

“You two start looking for things we can use to make paddles,” Liv said, pointing to PK and Fiona. She turned to Imogen and Lucinda next. “You work on anything we can use for emergency flotation. Devon and I will look for any other useful equipment.”

Bag after bag exploded under the others’ hands. The frenzied activity reminded Liv of a team bonding exercise she’d been subjected to by the head of station in Beijing, a man with a passion for suspenders who believed his employees’ fullest potential would be unlocked by constructing towers out of dry egg noodles. That had been one of the longest mornings of Liv’s life. But maybe he’d been on to something. A group effort—a real project, not a noodle-gluing exercise—could bring people together. The crew on the tarp was working through their stress and fatigue. PK even cracked a hopeful smile when Fiona lashed one of her light therapy masks to a pole with strips of a battered Babette kimono, creating a totemic glowing scarecrow that could possibly—whoops, no, definitely not—propel them down the Colorado.

They had a purpose. They had a goal. They were no longer on a trip that had gone horribly, disastrously wrong. They were on a mission to make it right.

Liv ignored the expanding chaos on the tarp and focused on the bags no one touched: Charlie’s, Mandy’s, Stefan’s, and Thor’s. She started with Thor’s knapsack. If by any chance he’d left his knife in there, she needed to sequester it to keep her story alive. But there was no knife, just flannel shirts and a couple thick paperback novels. She moved on to Stefan’s backpack, which was mostly German hiking gear, along with a worn wool sweater wrapped around a file folder. She snapped it open. Papers. Her eyes skated over the many pages of legalese. She slid the folder into her sweatshirt to review later, when reading once again felt like an attainable skill.

Charlie’s bag held gray and khaki clothing, Mandy’s every bedazzled color of the rainbow. Liv felt a sharp pang while fingering the rhinestoned top of a flamingo-print bikini. Then, just like that, the feeling floated away.

Devon crouched beside her.

“Is that Stefan’s?” she said, pointing to the backpack.

Liv nodded.

“May I see it?”

Liv watched as Devon conducted her own search of Stefan’s bag, pulling out all the clothing and turning it over, as if she were searching for a hidden zipper or secret compartment.

“What are you looking for?” Liv asked.

“Nothing,” Devon said. “I just thought . . . he’d mentioned . . .”

Did Devon know about the file folder Liv had taken? Liv’s inclination was to stay silent and keep the evidence to herself, but time was of the essence, and if she was going to understand the legal papers she’d smuggled out of Stefan’s bag, Devon might be well positioned to help. It was possible Devon was a killer and something in the papers would trigger her. But Liv couldn’t imagine she would physically hurt her in broad daylight with everyone else around. After breakfast, Liv had insisted Big Pete and Katy squirrel all the knives away.

“I wasn’t sure if I should tell anyone,” Liv said, “but now—”

“What?” Devon asked.

“Stefan gave me something. The first morning at camp,” she improvised. “He asked me to keep it safe.”

The lies were getting easier now. Liv stacked them like bricks, each new story bolstering the deceit she’d already laid. She pulled the file folder out and opened it, setting the pages on the sand one by one.

She and Devon stared down. The papers made no more sense to Liv now that they were all spread out before her. They didn’t seem to have to do with putting money into Babette’s business. There were no tables of expected returns nor language about investment tranches. These looked like something else.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Devon said. She started arranging the papers into two separate piles.

“How so?”

When Devon didn’t answer, Liv kept talking. “Look, I know you run a complex business, and there might be private information in here. But if it can help us save your brother and my sister . . .”

Devon sighed. “Charlie and I were in talks with Stefan about taking over management of Babette.”