Page 48 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“If she knows what we’re doing,” Charlie said, “I don’t think we can underestimate how she might respond. What she might take from us.”

“Our jobs, you mean? The company?”

Charlie shook his head. “Or more.”

“What would be more?”

Charlie gave his sister a long, anxious look. “You saw my hat. You know.”

“Justine,” Devon murmured.

Liv was confused. She shot a glance at Mandy, hoping the name triggered something for her. Maybe Justine was one of the accidents Charlie had referred to earlier. Maybe she was mentioned in Babette’s autobiography. But Mandy shook her head.

Devon turned to Liv. “You think these threats are serious?”

“I think . . .” She looked from Devon to Charlie, turning the paddle in her hands. “I think your sister has a history of being ruthless about getting what she wants. I think there’s something you three”—she waved her hand to indicate Devon, Charlie, and Stefan—“know that the rest of us don’t. I think we’re at the bottom of a dangerous canyon, cut off from the outside world. We can help each other, or not. We can lie to each other, or not. My responsibility is to my sister’s safety and my own. If you want more from me than that, you’re going to have to tell us what’s really going on.”

At that, the raft went silent. For the next ten minutes, the only sound was the gurgle of the slow-moving river, Katy’s paddle dipping to keep them on a straight path.

Then two hard thumps on the back of the raft jolted them all to attention.

“Didn’t mean to scare ya.” Big Pete waved with his paddle, then maneuvered his raft alongside theirs. He was holding a clunky black object in his other hand. “Got word on the sat phone that our last two guests are hiking down from the North Rim to join us at Deer Creek. In a few miles, your party will be complete.”

“She’s coming,” Devon said. She reached out for her soggy hat, then hesitated, her hand pausing over the brim as if it might bite her.

“Two guests?” Stefan asked. “Who is coming with her?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Big Pete gave the signal, all three boats turned into a wide, flat beach on the north side of the canyon to break for lunch. Mandy dropped her paddle across her lap and stretched her arms in the air, wiggling her fingers in the crackling heat. Ten stories above them, on the south side of the canyon, two huge concave divots in the cliffside bored down on them, like the eyes of a ravenous owl.

“Is this Deer Creek?” Charlie said.

“Not quite,” Katy said, leaping from the raft. She started staking the boats to the bank while Thor and Big Pete lifted folding tables and coolers off the chub for lunch. “This is Tapeats. Deer Creek is three river miles ahead. There’s a massive waterfall at its base that pours into the Colorado. We’ll make sandwiches here, and then you have a choice. You can float to Deer Creek on the boats with me and Pete, or you can hike from here with Thor.”

“Shouldn’t we all stay together?” Devon asked.

“If you want,” Katy said. “But the hike is pretty amazing. It goes to a waterfall called Thunder Spring, then over these big sprawling bowls of rock in Surprise Valley. The last mile links up with the trail from the North Rim to Deer Creek—the one your sister is probably walking down right now.”

“Let me get this straight,” PK said. “We could float along for three miles to one waterfall, or we can hike for hours in the heat to see a different waterfall and a bunch more rocks?” He snorted. “Easy choice.”

“Thunder Spring is unusual,” Katy said. “An explosion of water. I promise you’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Pass,” PK said. “I’ll stay with the boats.”

“I will hike,” Stefan said.

“Me too,” Fiona said.

Lucinda nodded at her granddaughter. “As will we.”

“Nana, no,” Imogen said. “I need to edit the videos I shot this morning on the raft. And heights make me break out.”

Lucinda stared at her. “You hiked all the way down to the river without a problem.”

“That was down. Not up and over.”

Mandy wondered whether the radically honest Imogen was lying to her grandmother, and if so, why. It wasn’t shocking to imagine the teen didn’t want to take an optional hike, but Mandy was curious whether there was more to the girl’s story. Had Imogen made some recordings she needed to hide once Babette arrived? Or was there a way she planned to meet her celebrity employer—her own surprise grand entrance—that she was preparing to execute?