Page 42 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Big Pete let out one of his long taxi whistles from the bank.

“Time to load up and ship out,” he called. “Today’s calmer than yesterday. More float, fewer waves. With an option to go on a real pretty hike in the middle.”

“Are we not even going to talk about the fact that Babette still isn’t here?” Fiona asked.

“The doctor is right,” Stefan said. “Has there been no information from the radio?”

“About Babette?” Big Pete shook his head. “Not a peep.”

“Then let’s get moving,” Devon said.

Fiona glared at her. “You still think she’s coming?”

“I do,” Devon snapped. Her hat was tight over her short hair, and Liv found herself wishing she could take a closer look at it. But Charlie handed his sister a PFD, and the two Sauvage siblings walked away, down to Katy’s raft.

Reluctantly, Liv strode over to Thor’s raft, staked to a spindly palo verde tree, where Imogen, Lucinda, and Mandy were cinching down their life jackets.

“I can’t believe we’re going through with this,” Fiona said as she approached them. “Sleeping outside with reptiles and vermin.”

“Let alone the dry air,” Imogen said. “That night serum PK gave me made it worse.”

Lucinda turned to Mandy. “Are you okay? That rattlesnake was quite the specimen.”

“Thor swooped in and saved us just in time.” Mandy looked over at the guide, who was clipping a large knife to his belt. He winked and tipped an imaginary hat.

Fiona shook her head. “If Babette isn’t going to show up, the least they could do now is break out the CareFree. That snake situation is exactly what this product line will be good for. CareFree transmutes worry to calm. Takes the edge off nightmares like this.”

“Have you tried it yourself?” Liv asked.

“Of course,” Fiona said. “We took the formula through many tweaks. Four rounds of focus groups. Once we figured out what to extract and what to discard, we had a winner.”

“Did you lead the focus groups?” Lucinda asked.

“The first three rounds, yes. After the third one, fourteen months ago, there was a major”—Fiona glanced over at Devon and Charlie, climbing into the other raft—“breakthrough. They brought on investors, started to work on production and scale. My input was no longer needed.”

There was something the dermatologist wasn’t saying. Liv could see it in how her eyes tightened as she spoke, trying to convince them of her words or warn them not to challenge her.

Then Liv made the connection.

“Fourteen months ago,” she said. “There was an accident.”

“How did you hear about that?”

“Charlie told me.”

“No, he didn’t,” Fiona snapped.

“He did,” Liv said slowly.

“These people.” Fiona sounded exasperated. “Devon drops me, Charlie shoves a fifty-page NDA in my face, and now he goes around blabbing—”

“He didn’t say what happened exactly. Just that somebody died.”

Fiona stared at her. Liv could see the furious freight train parked behind her pursed lips, the story she was holding back there. But when Fiona finally opened her mouth, it was to change the subject.

“That’s all in the past now.” Fiona’s voice was back to its clipped, measured cadence. “CareFree is safe and ready for market. Babette sent me a sample of the production-ready formula last week. It’s perfect.”

“PK said we’d get to experience it on this trip when Babette gets here,” Imogen said. “Maybe that’s her plan. To wait to show up until we’re jumbled up in nerves from a big rapid. She could have even planted that awful snake.”