Page 96 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Then there were the boats. Fortunately, they’d left the second raft tied up, and the supply boat appeared to be intact. The same could not be said for the critical items needed to operate the watercraft: paddles and PFDs. They’d left exactly none of each. Only the huge set of oars lashed to the supply boat remained.

“They stranded us,” Liv said.

“I was supposed to radio the park police again this morning,” Big Pete said.

“And we were going to talk to Marc.”

“But now . . .”

“We can’t go anywhere,” Liv said. “We can’t call anyone.”

“Those hikers might have a sat phone,” Katy said.

“They said they were moving on early this morning.”

Big Pete rubbed his temple. “Then our best shot is another rafting group stopping at Deer Creek Falls. But that might not be until this afternoon.”

“Not good enough,” Liv said. “By then, they’ll be far downriver. And we don’t know if the park police can help. We weren’t their priority last night with one dead body, and we still might not be with two. We need a plan. And clean water. Unless we figure out a way to seriously increase the output from Fiona’s rainbow sparkle water filter, we’re going to get thirsty.”

“We have iodine tablets,” Big Pete said.

“You think this group is going to drink iodine?” Liv asked.

“I don’t know what this group is capable of anymore,” Big Pete said. “Or why those four were the ones who left.”

Why had they left? A tree diagram sprouted in Liv’s head, branches forking to different conclusions. There were the bad options, the a-murderer-has-my-sister options. If one of the missing four had killed Stefan and been seen, maybe they’d taken the others hostage. But who could the murderer be? Not Mandy, obviously. Hopefully not her father. That left Charlie and Thor. Charlie had been tied up. Was it possible he had a secret background as an Eagle Scout or a wannabe Houdini? Not likely. Thor, on the other hand, was a former soldier, a risk-taker, a feral wolf in the wilderness. And he had—

“Where’s the gun?” Liv asked.

Big Pete looked at Katy. “I locked it in a gang box yesterday after this one’s Annie Oakley routine.”

“I should have fired it,” Katy grumbled. “Maybe then no one would’ve—”

“That box?” Liv asked, pointing to the rusted metal case she’d spotted on the beach.

Big Pete nodded.

The case was scuffed and heavy. Liv tried to leverage open the lid, but it didn’t move. “Where’s the key?”

“When I came off watch at two thirty a.m. and woke Thor to take over, I gave it to him,” Big Pete said. “Just in case he needed it.”

Liv shook the box and heard muffled clanks, but nothing she could confidently identify. “We’ll have to pry it open. See if the gun is still there.” She tried to keep her voice even, shoving away unwanted images of Thor holding a pistol to her sister’s head.

She looked up the hillside, to where all the other guests were stirring on the other side of the rocks. They hadn’t figured out what was wrong yet, but they would if they ventured over. She needed more time.

“Do we have supplies for breakfast?” Liv asked.

Katy nodded. “They didn’t take the eggs. Or the fruit.”

“Why don’t you get that going with the group. In the meantime”—Liv turned to Big Pete—“we should take a full inventory of everything that might be missing.”

Big Pete looked uncomfortable. “We can’t go into people’s bags without permission. Pretty sure that’s in the Constitution.”

“We’re not cops,” Liv said. Though she did have a fleeting worry about what her boss at the State Department would say when this was all over. She shook it away. The only priority now was to get to that conversation alive. “We have no idea when the police will get here. We don’t know where the gun is. And somewhere there’s a knife that was used to murder Stefan.”

“Thor has a knife,” Big Pete said.

“I assume you have one as well.”