Page 5 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“Fix this,” she hissed at PK. “It’s not just me and my followers. You know she’s going to hate it, too. Oh, and next time?” She picked up a white cardboard box and dumped it in PK’s hands. “Tell your boss I’m not her errand girl. Somehow this got sent to my room instead of hers.”

His boss. Mandy suddenly realized who PK and Imogen were. The man was PK Raghuram, personal assistant to the one and only Babette Sauvage, CEO of the Babette Botanique wellness empire. PK was the one who’d sent her all the emails leading up to the trip, but despite their communication about Mandy’s plus-one and his recommended backcountry skin care regimen, they’d never met. The man was busy. CareFree would be Babette’s biggest launch in three years, and in addition to supporting Babette herself, PK ran her company’s social media ambassador program. Mandy had seen his posts about a global search for a fresh-faced influencer to represent an exciting new product line in the Babette portfolio. Imogen must have been the lucky winner. And apparently she already had demands.

Imogen whipped out her phone and stalked off, pointing her camera far from the offending yellow rubber and chattering away to whichever of her followers couldn’t wait to unravel the mystery of where she was headed at four in the morning. Mandy had no clue how much one influencer’s color palette could sway the decisions of a multinational company like Babette Botanique. But Imogen was right about one thing: Babette was fixated on brand. She’d built the company, and she’d built the obsessive fandom around it. Of which Mandy was a card-carrying member.

She leaned forward as PK lifted one flap of the cardboard box Imogen had dumped into his hands. More white fabric, like the bags. Mandy hoped she hadn’t missed something in the packing list about a monochromatic dress code.

PK snapped the box shut and turned back to Thor with a decisive nod. “Make the bags work.”

“I can’t. And you’re not going to be happy when your sculpting gel goes down the river.”

The faux-hawked man regarded Thor, whose blond mane was more tangled knot than hair. “It’s clear we have different priorities.”

“We both want y’all to have a great trip.”

“I will have a great trip if my boss has a great trip,” PK said. “And she’s going to want to see these bags on those boats.”

“Excuse me.” Mandy tried not to let too much excitement sneak into her voice. “Your boss. Is she here?”

“Babette?” A smile teased PK’s lips. He was handsome, but in a petulant, pretty-boy way, the kind of man who was used to everyone falling a little bit in love with him. “Darling, of course. It’s her big launch.”

The prospect of meeting Babette jolted Mandy like a triple shot of espresso. She reached up to fix her messy ponytail. “Where is she?”

“There’s a grand entrance planned later,” PK said. “A surprise. I promise it will be worth the wait.”

But Mandy never waited for someone else to start the fun. She leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Maybe you could give me a sneak peek.”

“Of what?”

“Whatever’s in there.” She pointed at the box in PK’s hands. “Is it the new line?”

“Top secret.” He took one more glance inside the box, then sealed it, locking the flap in place.

“Please?”

“When Babette arrives. If I show you before then, I might have to kill you.”

“Hmpf.” She patted his arm. “You can trust me. And my sister. She’ll be here soon. She’s an intelligence officer for the State Department. We can help you keep Babette’s secrets safe.”

PK’s smile faltered, and she wondered if she’d pushed too far. But then he winked. “We appreciate your support. But Babette manages her secrets just fine on her own. Keep an eye on the sky.”

The sky. It was still dark, but softer now, more charcoal than ink. Mandy dropped their bags on the tarp and took a slow lap around the trailhead, pondering how best to tell Liv about the benefactor of their river trip. Should she wait until after Babette’s grand appearance, or break the news sooner? She wasn’t going to be able to downplay it—not with Imogen shooting predawn B-roll at the water station and PK handing out Babette-branded chakra-stimulating wristbands to the other guests. What she needed was a stopgap. A half lie. It wasn’t so much an issue that a prestigious wellness brand had paid their way to the Grand Canyon. It was why that was the problem.

She was still considering her options when Imogen waved her over. Given what Mandy knew about CareFree, Babette’s new product line, the girl wasn’t an obvious choice as a spokesmodel. She’d imagined someone as wild and untamed as the canyon itself—a big-wave surfer or a rock climber—a symbol of carefree living in an uptight world. But Imogen was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Her skin was milky pale, with only a smattering of freckles to suggest she was a natural redhead. She reminded Mandy of some of her best students in the art studio: twitchy, obsessive, completely focused on their work.

The teenager was standing by a pack of mules roped together in a shuffling line, her gaze grazing across their bristly ears, the dusty leather saddlebags on their backs. A few feet behind the animals, Thor was giving instructions to another man in an identical Wild Adventures tank top.

“Which one is sexiest?” Imogen asked, her voice deadly serious.

“What?”

“Which one?”

Thor was lean and rangy—that desert wildcat vibe—with warm brown eyes and a wave of blond hair spilling over his shoulders. The other man was barrel-shaped, bald, with a chest that seemed ready to tear his tank in two.

“Um, I don’t . . .”

“The mules,” Imogen clarified. “Which mule do you think is most attractive? I want to shoot one of them carrying our supplies down to the river. I have to bank footage for when we get back to civilization, and charismatic mammals kill it in the Hitch algorithm.”