Page 27 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“The numbers depend on your sister sprinkling her fairy dust all over this launch.”

Imogen scooped fine sand into her palm and blew it into the air. “How’s this?” she called to PK. “Carefree enough?”

PK started coughing and backing away from the redhead while trying to shield the nanoclimatizer from the mini dust storm. “Cut! No!”

“Hey, don’t deny my essence. I’m trying to make the best of this pile of rocks and . . .”

Mandy headed down to the river, letting the hum of the water drown out their bickering.

Lucinda was sitting cross-legged on the bank, binoculars trained on the far canyon walls. She put them down and looked up at Mandy. “What do you think?”

“Excuse me?”

“All that hoopla.” Lucinda waved dismissively at the chaotic scene behind them. “Against all this glory.” She stretched her arms out wide, embracing the majesty of the river.

“It does seem a little absurd,” Mandy admitted.

She glanced back at the blue luggage tarp. She should get their gear and find Liv. Mandy knew that. Instead, she joined Lucinda and looked out across the river. The entire canyon was in shadow now, the water inky, cliffs bruised a deep purple in the twilight.

“Do you chaperone Imogen on all her sponsor trips?” Mandy asked.

“No, never. But this opportunity was special. Imogen’s mom, my daughter, is a lawyer. She couldn’t possibly take this much time off work. And her father”—now Lucinda’s warm voice turned cold—“seems to have an allergy to spending time with his only child.”

“That’s terrible.” Whatever faults Mandy’s dad had, he’d always been there for her.

“That’s family.” Lucinda shrugged and pointed up, to where an osprey was circling the narrow aperture of twilight between the canyon walls. “This trip is a gift. An opportunity to share something I love with my granddaughter.”

“Rafting?”

“The Grand Canyon.”

“You’ve been here before?” Mandy asked.

“Twice.” A canyon wren warbled from the other side of the river, its plaintive whistle falling from the sky. “The first time, on my honeymoon. Then three years ago, after my husband passed.”

“Is it like you remembered?”

“Yes and no. Everything gets muted in my memories—heights, colors, the roar of the water. The way the air smells sharp, like a knife held under your nose. The extremes here . . . they’re hard to hold on to after you leave.”

“Like living inside a dream. You can’t quite grab it when you wake up.”

“Yes. Quite.” Lucinda’s eyes were somehow both dark and bright at the same time. “What brings you on this trip?”

“My sister and I—” Mandy looked back to the tarp. Liv had given up on her and was now extracting their bags herself. She’d have to tell her sister the truth. She’d have to tell everyone. She couldn’t keep making up stories about winning a raffle or meeting Babette on a yacht and bonding over a shared case of ceviche-borne food poisoning.

“I have an interest in CareFree,” she said. “And Babette.”

“An investor? Like Stefan?” Lucinda gave her an assessing look. “For what it’s worth, I’d wager our missing guest decided she didn’t want to rough it.”

A spike of indignation shot through Mandy’s body. “Babette loves the outdoors. Hasn’t your granddaughter showed you any of her videos?”

Lucinda held her ground. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Imogen, it’s that you can’t trust anything you see on social media. It’s all a performance. Even her radical honesty is manufactured. Just like Babette’s so-called clean beauty business. They promise purity, but plant-based products can be just as dangerous as chemicals. Once it’s in a bottle, everything’s synthetic.”

“Babette would never put out anything dangerous. She cares about her customers. And keeping things real.”

“Your insistence proves my point. Babette Sauvage sells a performance of authenticity. Fierce. CareFree. Be natural, but enhanced. Be yourself, but better. Her products are the physical equivalent of Imogen’s videos, packaging empowerment as a purchasable good. Maybe she believes it. Maybe she doesn’t.”

Mandy frowned. “I thought you didn’t know or care who Babette was.”