Page 47 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Charlie’s voice dropped so low Liv had to slide across the bench to catch his words. “Because it was a death threat. And it came from Babette.”

“Oh, please,” Devon said. “She’s not even here. You’re catastrophizing.”

“Look,” Charlie said. He took off his cap and showed his sister the ugly words inside.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” Devon snapped.

Denial. Interesting. Liv looked from Devon and Charlie to Stefan, curious how the bearded man might react. Stefan was looking down, as if he were embarrassed by the direction of the conversation. Or was he debating whether to share something?

“Would you please show me your hat?” Liv asked Devon calmly.

Mandy turned to Stefan. “And yours.”

Devon hesitated, and Charlie spoke up. “See for yourself. If I’m exaggerating, you have nothing to worry about.”

“Fine.” Devon passed her ball cap to Liv, and her sister snatched Stefan’s off his head with an impish grin.

“Abracadabra,” Mandy said, waving his hat in the muddy water.

Once the hats were sufficiently silt-ridden, they flipped them over and lined them up on the middle bench of the boat between them.

“Watch,” Liv said. Everyone peered in, as if they were all waiting for a Polaroid to develop.

The murky water had stained Stefan’s hat, but otherwise, it remained blank. Liv was surprised. Why would CareFree’s first investor receive a threat, but not its biggest investor? Before she could probe deeper, a faint white message surfaced across the inner crown of Devon’s. The wording was less threatening than Charlie’s, but still aggressive:

THIS IS MY COMPANY, NOT YOURS

“See what I mean?” Charlie said to his sister. “She knows.”

“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Devon said.

“You know that isn’t how she’d see it.” Charlie looked stricken. “If she found out what we’re planning, she could be meeting with board members while we’re stuck down here.”

Devon swung around to face Stefan. “Has she asked for your support?”

“She has not.” The investor paused. “And you know where my sympathies lie. But it is your sister’s company, as she apparently sees fit to remind you. She may have other sources of information.”

“What were you planning?” Liv asked.

Charlie and Devon didn’t seem to hear her. They were locked in on each other, speaking a shorthand only they understood.

“We were so careful,” Devon said. “But you think she knows.”

“I do,” Charlie said. “And now she’s retaliating.”

“Nothing’s happened so far, besides these messages.”

“We get thrown from a boat and a rattlesnake attacks, and that’s nothing?”

Devon shook her head. “I don’t see how she could have engineered any of that.”

Charlie shot a dark look back at Katy, whose eyes were studiously trained on the ripples in the river. “Maybe the guides work for her,” he whispered.

“The guides?” Devon sounded incredulous. “Katy tossed you in the water? Thor planted the snake? What’s next, Pete poisoning our sandwiches?”

“It’s possible. Think about the symbology. A snake. She’s calling us snakes.”

“I get it,” Devon said. “But the snake didn’t show up in your sleeping bag. Or mine.”