Page 52 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“I’m sorry?”

Stefan smiled. “At my firm, we believe that there are four fundamental human desires that drive consumption. Distraction is one of them. We want to be entertained. We want to escape. People pay good money for this.”

“CareFree will help people forget their worries,” Mandy said slowly.

“That’s right,” Stefan said. “To be carefree, this is a child’s desire. Americans have quite the appetite for it.” He touched the brim of his cap. “Social media platforms like Hitch, where Imogen Duvray performs, these are distractions too.”

“You have an investment in Hitch?”

“Distraction is a large portfolio.”

Mandy regarded him. She was starting to get a handle on his oblique way of speaking. She wondered if Imogen had truly won the online influencer contest or whether the bearded man in front of her had recommended the girl as the fresh face of CareFree. As Lucinda had said, nothing on social media was as straightforward as it seemed. And she imagined a businessman like Stefan would look for connections across investments where possible.

“So the messages in the hats . . .”

“I see them as distractions as well.”

“You don’t think they’re real?”

“The messages appear real. But I cannot guess at Babette’s true intent.” Stefan looked at her seriously. “Distraction is a powerful drug all its own. We are all so eager to be guided by the nose—or hat—at any moment. The real question is what we are being distracted from.”

A fine cascade of dust fell between them, and Thor hopped down onto the trail from the constellation of cratered rocks above them. “You two okay?”

Mandy nodded. Stefan said nothing.

“We’re right around the corner from Thunder Spring,” Thor said. “Ready to have your minds blown?”

Mandy laced up her boot and popped to her feet. “Don’t tell me. It’s a chocolate waterfall.”

“Better.”

“A secret breeding ground for yetis? I knew global warming was serious, but to imagine them all the way down here with their fur coats—”

“You’ll see.”

They skirted a long curve—Stefan in front, Thor in back, Mandy comforted by her position in the middle of the sandwich—and over a rocky field. At first, Mandy placed each foot with precision, weighing every step. But her curiosity about Thunder Spring soon outweighed her fastidiousness and she found herself bounding over boulders, scrabbling forward just barely faster than her ability to control her body toward an unseen oasis just beyond the wide gully of rocks before them.

She took one last leap and almost plowed into Stefan. He’d stopped. They all stopped.

An ancient roar echoed through the canyon. Its source was a miracle: a giant waterfall geysering sideways out of an otherwise barren rock face. Water crashed out from two enormous holes punched in the stone, as if a family of cave-dwelling giants had turned the taps on full blast and then forgotten about the bath. Above the falls, the dull orange cliffs rose for thousands of feet, dry and cracked, stretching up to where the sun blazed the top of the canyon gold. Below Thunder Spring, the crumbling edifice gave way to an oasis of lush trees and vines spreading like an old man’s beard from the bottom of the falls.

“Thunder Spring,” Thor said. “The waterfall from nowhere.”

Mandy stood there, dumbfounded. Thunder Spring swallowed up her senses, shoving away all thoughts of hats and human concerns. Mandy gorged herself on its whip-cold spray, its raging growl. This was fury. This was distraction. This was threat.

She could almost drown in it.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Liv spent the three river miles between Tapeats and Deer Creek in the back of Katy’s raft, her T-shirt doused in river water and pulled over her face to shield her from the sun. She feigned drowsiness—not difficult in the blistering heat—and tried to fade into the rubber wall of the boat while Imogen took photos of a family of spiky-crested ducks (mergansers, Katy called them) and Devon and PK debated what lay ahead for them at Deer Creek.

“Who do you think is coming down with her?” Devon asked.

“I’m guessing a board member,” PK responded.

“But who?”

“Not Frank,” PK said. “He straight-up laughed when I invited him to this Essence Quest. Said he was still recovering from the last one.”