Page 119 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Mandy looked over at Thor, who hadn’t weighed in. He was whittling a coyote willow branch, trying to approximate a needle they could use to patch the raft.

“I don’t like it.” Thor flicked his blade, shooting slivers of wood into the late afternoon air. The guide pointed his knife at Charlie. “I think you don’t like Fiona. I think it would be convenient for you if she was the killer. Disgruntled ex-employee, no connection to what you’re doing now. It would take her objections to your product off the table.”

“The product is safe,” Charlie said.

“I can’t fathom it being Katy, neither,” Thor continued. “Though I suppose she’s the only one I could imagine taking the gun.”

“The gun?” Mandy asked.

Thor nodded. “She handed it off to me when I went on watch last night.”

“And you don’t have it anymore?” It was a silly question. She wasn’t sure how it would change things if Thor had a gun. But just talking about it scared her enough to ask.

The guide shook his head. “I had it when I went on watch, but I had that bottle of tequila too. And, between us chickens, I’m a lightweight. By the time y’all woke me up with your goings-on down at the supply boat, the pistol was gone.”

Mandy thought back to when she’d crept by Thor that morning. It felt like a million years ago. She could see his passed-out sprawl, the empty liquor bottle in his hand. But no matter how hard she squinted, she couldn’t recall a gun.

“Whoever killed Stefan probably took it,” Charlie said.

“Then why didn’t they shoot him?” Mandy asked.

“Too loud,” Guy said. “They never would have got away with it. The knife was quieter.”

“The knife,” Thor said. He turned to Mandy. “You still got it?”

She pulled the slim blade out of her pocket.

Thor nodded. “Let’s go back to basics. If Marc never crossed the river, how did that knife end up killing the Dutchman?” He turned to Guy. “You said you didn’t see it when he was hiking down with you.”

“We’ve already gone over this.”

“He wasn’t wearing it on his belt?”

Guy held up his protein bar. “I swear on this peanut butter monstrosity. I never saw that knife before.”

Then Mandy remembered something.

“You saw it,” she said to Charlie. “You said so in the boat.”

“I must have been mistaken.” Charlie shrugged. “It’s Fiona. It’s done.”

Thor’s hand darted out, fast as a snake, grabbing hold of Charlie’s long-sleeved hiking shirt. There was a swishing movement. His whittling knife. The long, sharp blade. One of the buttons from Charlie’s shirt fell into Thor’s sun-cracked hand.

“It’s not done until I say it’s done,” Thor said. “Not until we know everything about what happened.”

Mandy gulped. She didn’t want to see Charlie in danger. But they needed the truth now.

“When the raft was upside down,” she said in a quiet voice. “Before I beached us. You said you’d seen that knife before.”

“Yes, but—”

Another swishing breath. Another button dropped.

“You did say that,” Thor said. “She’s right.”

Charlie clutched the gaping fabric of his shirt where the buttons had been. He was trembling now.

Finally, he spoke. “Can I see it?”