Page 34 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“It’s not a scheme,” Mandy insisted. “Babette’s legit.”

“Fine. She’s an angel from skin care heaven. So what’s there for me to be mad about?”

Mandy’s headlamp dipped to the cold ground. “You know how Dad had that hiccup with the SEC?”

It took all of Liv’s training to resist the urge to offer her own interpretation of what had happened when their father got arrested for tax evasion and insider trading ten years ago. She gave a curt nod and waited.

“A couple years ago, after he got out of prison, I told him about Babette. He started looking into it, and he met her and learned about this new development. He got excited about the chance to get in on the ground floor with CareFree. But because of that court ruling, he still has a few years on the clock before he can invest directly. So he came to me with a creative idea, and I . . .”

“You . . . ?”

“I decided to make a significant investment.”

“With what money?”

“Not mine. His. Dad set up an LLC. There’s a bank account in Nassau. I’m the named investor, but we’re partners. It’s not a big deal.”

“Mandy, this is literally against the law.”

“It’s a rounding error. No one gets hurt. It’s Dad.”

“If he’s so into Babette, why didn’t you invite him on this trip?”

Mandy looked uncomfortable.

“Did you invite him?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

“Babette offered spots to both of us,” Mandy said. “Dad and me. We’re not the biggest investors in CareFree, not by a long shot, but we were the first. It was sweet of her to invite us. But you know Dad doesn’t do wilderness.”

“So I’m here in his place?” Liv said. “I’m the pity date you settled for when your first choice canceled?”

“That’s not fair. The money is his thing. This trip is ours. Just ours.” Mandy looked at her, her eyes pleading for something. Support, maybe. Understanding.

“What you’re doing isn’t safe,” Liv finally said.

Mandy’s eyes flashed hot.

“It’s safe enough,” she retorted. “I’m just . . . helping him.”

The implication hit Liv squarely in the chest. The suggestion that all she did was put barriers between herself and their father, while Mandy and Guy had a meaningful relationship. It was true. Liv hadn’t even seen her father in three years, since the time he came to Beijing and tried to get her to pose as a US trade specialist with a businessman he was wooing. These days, they traded lackluster birthday voicemails and little more. Distance was the only way Liv could hold herself back from throttling him.

Liv closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in the thin night air. She could smell the chalk in it, the silt-rich mud, the river carrying its own surprises.

“Okay, Mand. Start at the beginning.”

“No judgment?”

None she’d share out loud.

Chapter Sixteen

The constellations marched across the desert sky, tracing age-old myths through the night. Mandy and her sister ignored them. Liv grilled her, and Mandy laid out the details of her and their dad’s investment in CareFree, fielding every question thrown her way. Mandy thought it sounded solid. Impressive, even. She’d absorbed more about the project than even she’d realized. The splashy marketing rollout Babette and PK had planned, the financial projections Charlie put together, the extraordinary promise of CareFree’s secret ingredient that Devon and her team had developed in the lab. Even this rafting trip, which she described to Liv as part prelaunch deep dive, part celebration of what everyone hoped would be a huge success.

But Liv was too focused to celebrate.