Page 87 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

He shot her a sour look. “Fine.”

“I’ll join you,” Lucinda said. “I don’t mind poetry.”

The two of them took a few careful steps down the hillside. They stopped well short of Stefan and spread out to flank him, watching at a cautious distance as Stefan continued his raving soliloquy to the riverbank and the night sky. Apparently Lord Tennyson wasn’t one for brief poems.

Guy stepped forward. “Can we go back to the whole ‘tie your dear old traumatized dad to a boat’ proposal?”

“It’s not personal,” Liv said. “I just think everyone will sleep better if the people who were in one-on-one contact with Babette are contained.”

There was a loud splash from the river.

“He’s throwing rocks,” Imogen said.

“I see the Lady mad for blood! No good will come of this sorry business. We should come like ghosts to trouble joy!” Stefan shouted at the water. PK took a big step back toward the group.

“Was there a Lady Tennyson too?” Fiona said.

“Definitely,” Thor said. “She was his proofreader.”

“Yeah right,” Katy grumbled. “She probably wrote the poems that made him famous.”

“I can understand tying up Vincent van Weirdo over there,” Guy said. “But me and Charlie? Her brother and the trusted advisor she brought down here? You really think one of us would hurt her?”

Charlie stiffened. “Don’t put yourself in the same category as me. You hardly knew her.”

“I knew you were trying to steal the company out from under her,” Guy snapped back.

“What?” Devon said.

“And you,” Guy said.

“I knew it!” PK said.

Guy nodded. “So did Babette. You two were going to—”

There was another splash, and a shout.

“Enough,” Liv said. “There’s a lot to hash out about what might have led to Babette’s death. But it’s late. The priority now has to be to get us safely through the night.”

“Not all of us,” Guy muttered.

“The guides will trade off watching you throughout the night. You couldn’t be safer.”

“Couldn’t Dad just sleep next to us?” Mandy said.

“It’s not personal,” Liv repeated.

“You keep saying that,” Devon said. “But it is personal. Someone killed my sister.”

Stefan came bounding up the hillside, soaking wet and grinning. Lucinda and PK trailed, giving him a wide berth.

“I feel better,” Stefan announced. “CareFree is good, but that river! It has true healing powers. Perhaps we can commercialize that.”

Liv looked at Stefan carefully. His eyes were shining, pupils dilated. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

“That was quite the recitation,” Lucinda said.

“The poem?” Stefan’s voice had swung from droning monologue to a rapid, almost chatty tone. “My boss made me memorize it when I was brought on. A condition of employment.”