Page 44 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“That’s it?” Maybe Mandy should have waited to hear the assignment before mentally designing their superhero costumes.

“We have to get closer to the power players who know Babette best. If she’s behind the messages in the hats, those three are the most likely to be involved. The most likely to be targeted, too.”

“Got it.” Mandy cupped her hands around her mouth, turned to face the river, and launched into a stage whisper: “ATTENTION! IF YOU, OR ANYONE YOU KNOW, HAS BEEN THREATENED BY A MISSING LADYBOSS . . .”

Liv punched her in the arm, but Mandy was expecting it. She lifted Liv’s hand off her shoulder and spun her around like a ballroom dancer.

“Don’t worry, sis. Easy peasy. We’re moving on up.”

“You’ll do it subtly.”

“Of course.”

“Without lying.”

Time to move on. “Once we’re in their raft, what do we do? Drop hints about Babette’s murderous embroidery hobby? Tip the boat so Devon and Stefan fall in and we grab their hats and see what they say? High-side it against the island so they’re stuck there answering our questions until dark?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“We listen.”

It was just boring enough to be what Liv probably did at work all day.

Mandy sighed. “Fine.”

Mandy turned and hopped from rock to rock, passing Devon and Fiona, who were still arguing about Babette; Charlie and Stefan, who were talking quietly; and Imogen, surreptitiously downing a chocolate bar. Lucinda was standing with the guides, soaking up their technical talk about paddle lines and eddies, while PK scowled at the river, as if its essence had proved poorly matched for this quest. Mandy sidled up to him and slid her arm through his. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

PK stiffened. “Tell me it doesn’t involve another reptile.”

“I’m hoping for some quality time with the wonder siblings to chat about CareFree.”

He looked puzzled. “Is there something that hasn’t been covered in the quarterly reports you want to know?”

“The truth is,” Mandy said, tugging him closer, “I want to get my sister to invest. She and I have the same amount in trust, but she’s always been more conservative with her portfolio than I have.” She prayed her words made sense, or that PK knew as little as she did about high finance. “I think she’d be more receptive to a pitch from your team than hearing about CareFree from me.”

PK frowned. “Babette’s our best saleswoman. No one can tell the story like her.”

“I know that. You know that. But for someone like my sister, someone more”—she hunted for a better term than stick-in-the-mud—“prudent, I think Charlie and Devon might be a fit. Maybe Stefan too. Get us into your boat. They can shower her with cold, hard data.”

“Someone will have to switch into the other raft.”

“I was hoping that might be you,” Mandy said sweetly. “Imogen has been shooting footage of herself singing songs she wrote. Skin shanties, she calls them. She might need a little more direction.”

He didn’t look thrilled. Or convinced. But while Mandy’s dad had never taken her fishing, he’d taught her how to bait a line.

“If you’re the one to bring in a new investor at this level . . .”

PK’s eyes widened just a fraction. He nodded. “I’ll tell them we need to rebalance the rafts.”

When the guides returned from their meeting, PK made a beeline for Big Pete, approaching him with a cockiness that suggested he both feared and relished the opportunity to lord something over the trip leader. Mandy felt a twinge of guilt, stringing him along with the promise of money she knew Liv didn’t have and, if she did, would never invest in a skin care company. But PK had received a threat too. This floating confab was for his own good. Even if he didn’t yet see it that way.

If Katy was at all surprised to find that her faux-hawked passenger had been swapped out for Mandy and her sister, she didn’t show it. She checked everyone’s PFDs, and they resettled in her raft: Devon and Charlie in front, Mandy and Liv in the relative safety of the middle, and Stefan in the third row. Katy perched on the back, the hood of her long-sleeved rash guard pulled all the way up. She guided them down the right channel of Bedrock Rapid with precise, confident commands that shot them past the island with ease. The whitewater subsided, and the canyon sharpened around them, slick black rock rising to replace the crumbly sandstone with a tighter, meaner package.

“We’re heading into the narrowest part of the canyon next,” Katy said. “The granite gorge. That volcanic rock, the Vishnu Schist, is 1.75 billion years old.”

Devon nodded. “Dad loved to talk about the ancient mountains that formed this canyon. How the world turned itself inside out here.”