Page 36 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“It is crazy.” Mandy reached out and rubbed the brim of her hat. “Do you believe it?”

“Charlie seems legitimately afraid. He made allusions to some incidents—deadly ones—where Babette was involved. But he wouldn’t tell me exactly why he thought she was after him.”

“Maybe he’s overreacting,” Mandy said.

“If only Charlie had gotten a message, I’d say he was jumping to conclusions. Hurdling over several sleeping elephants to conclusions. It isn’t easy to orchestrate a hit on someone.”

“And if Babette went to all that trouble, why give him a heads-up about it ahead of time?”

“Exactly.”

“So, no hit man.”

“Well . . .” Liv re-angled her headlamp. “Things changed when you got a threat too. Even if it doesn’t make sense, we have to take it seriously. Though what it is, I still don’t know.”

Mandy could see the wheels turning in that big steel-trap brain of hers.

“Something isn’t adding up,” Liv finally said. “Charlie gets a threat. You get a threat.”

“You’re right. It would be a heck of a lot better if Oprah was down here handing out free cars.”

“This is no joke. This is a small group. A threat to one of us could be a threat to everyone. We can’t just do nothing.”

“So what’s the plan?” Mandy asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

Liv looked exhausted. They were sitting side by side, close enough to touch, their bodies separated only by a slender column of night air. Mandy wanted to reach out and comfort Liv, to insist everything would be all right. But it was her choices that had etched the worry lines onto her sister’s forehead. Mandy watched as Liv pulled Mandy’s cap toward her, flipped it up again, and shone her headlamp on the ugly words.

“Money can’t protect you,” Liv read. “Is there anything about this that makes sense?”

Mandy shook her head. She really, really wished they’d gone to Tierra del Fuego instead.

But they hadn’t. And she couldn’t run away or stick her head in the river until Liv figured this out. She wasn’t willing to be Liv’s crusade again. She had grown beyond the little chaos monkey who needed her big sister to swoop in and save her. At least, she hoped she had.

“No. But let’s figure it out together.” She gently removed Liv’s headlamp, brushing a wayward lock of hair from her sister’s forehead. “After we get some sleep.”

Chapter Seventeen

Liv missed the first call of the conch shell. And the second. By the time she dragged herself to the outdoor kitchen, Mandy appeared to have already drunk a raftful of coffee. Her sister’s eyes shone like a caffeinated chipmunk’s, her body draped in a sparkly peacock-print bikini under a sarong with sea turtles floating across it. It was a lot to take in on three hours of sleep.

“Today, we make a plan.” Mandy thrust a travel mug at her, but Liv waved her off and trudged to the handwashing station first.

“Step one,” Mandy continued. “Find the hit man.”

The astringent disinfectant stung Liv’s hands. Day two in the canyon, and her skin was already cracking from the dry desert air. Maybe dermal hydration was more important than she’d given it credit for.

“No, scratch that. Step zero point five. Steal all hats. See who got messages. Determine if there is a hit man.”

Liv accepted the mug now and took a grateful sip. She grabbed two plates, silently handing one back to Mandy, who was juggling a notebook and a fistful of colored pencils. The outdoor kitchen buzzed with purposeful activity, Katy flipping bacon in a pan while Thor sliced bananas. Liv loaded up on eggs, black beans, garlic-roasted potatoes, fresh pico de gallo, and tortillas still warm from the griddle. They might be sleeping on the ground without tents, but these guides didn’t skimp on the meal plan.

Not that all the other guests were taking advantage of it. Down by the river, Lucinda, Stefan, Charlie, and Devon had heaping plates of food, but Imogen, PK, and Fiona had gone rogue, whisking moss-green powder from a matte-white bag into glasses of water.

Liv steered Mandy to a pair of camping chairs set apart from the others, on a rocky knoll overlooking a particularly fast stretch of whitewater.

“Maybe first we need to make a list of everyone on the trip.” Mandy had filled her plate with tortillas smothered in yogurt and honey. “Everyone who’s here and everyone who planned to be here.”

“We still don’t know if Babette ever intended to actually attend,” Liv said.