Chapter Fifteen
“What does this mean?” Liv demanded. Mandy seemed frozen by the message under her hat, which only added to Liv’s confusion.
“What money? You have no money. Protect you from what?”
“I don’t know. It must be a mistake.” Mandy looked up at her. “What makes Charlie think Babette sewed the message? Couldn’t
it have been someone else?”
“Babette was the one to buy and personalize the hats. She shipped them directly to the lodge herself.”
“What if it’s a manufacturing defect?”
“You think there’s a possessed sewing machine somewhere in Guangzhou churning these out?”
“Maybe a fortune cookie company decided to diversify.”
But the joke sounded weak even to Liv’s ears. Mandy’s tone was apologetic. Defeated. Which was not what Liv had expected.
She’d assumed there’d be an explanation, an excuse, a defiant wild story. But her sister didn’t say anything else.
A flash of heat ran across Liv’s forehead.
Yet another situation where her sister was ducking responsibility.
But this wasn’t a classic Mandy mess-up.
This wasn’t a bail-me-out-because-I-broke-into-the-zoo-at-two-a.m. phone call.
This was something else. And that spark Liv felt between her eyes?
She realized it wasn’t anger. It was fear.
Her sister had been threatened, in a way she didn’t understand, far from access to information or help.
“Hey.” Liv reached out and brushed Mandy’s curls back from where they hung over her eyes. “What’s going on?”
Mandy seemed to gather herself. “It must be a joke. I can’t believe Babette would threaten me. Or anyone.”
“Why? Because her skin’s too dewy?”
“Because she’s all about authenticity. I know it’s the internet, and it could be an act. But this is a woman who built her
whole life—her whole empire—to fight the status quo. In an industry that’s all about facade, she stands for authenticity.”
Mandy started to glow the way she always did when she got passionate about something. “Babette tells it like it is. She built
her company into something honest and fresh in an industry dedicated to making women feel less than. She talks about skin
care like preparing for the adventure that is life. Tools to be exactly who you want to be. The same way a knight would put
on his sword or a rock climber straps on all those clippy bits. Or the way you put on your charcoal suit and that flat expression—yeah,
that one—the one that says I am a stone-cold government agent and I will take your lies and error-ridden visa applications
and grind them into dust. Babette Sauvage makes products that unleash women’s full selves, their real selves, onto the world.
She wouldn’t hide behind threats like this. She wouldn’t want to.”
Her sister was practically out of breath defending Babette, and Liv wasn’t ready for her to whip out the autobiography and
start reciting from it again. Everything Mandy was saying confirmed that Babette was a powerful force. But Liv had seen Charlie’s
terror. She’d heard slivers of darker stories beneath Babette’s “all-natural” facade. In Liv’s experience, the more power
someone had, the more resources they had to shape how others saw them. And when they couldn’t mold the narrative to their
liking, they sometimes chose more violent ways to control it.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s say Charlie’s wrong and the messages didn’t come from Babette. But someone sent a threat to him, and to you. Is there any way you and Charlie are materially connected?”
Mandy hesitated. She shook her head.
Liv learned more from the pause than the gesture that followed it.
“How exactly are you linked to Babette?” Liv asked.
“I told you. I’m a fan.”
“You’re more than just a fan. Everyone is here for a specific reason. What’s yours?”
“My sparkling personality.”
“Please don’t lie to me. Not now.”
They stared each other down for a long minute.
“Don’t be mad,” Mandy said.
Those three little words rattled the air.
“I swear there’s no reason to threaten me,” Mandy said. “Or Charlie! At least, none that I can imagine.”
“What is your connection?”
“I’ve always been a fan, but over the past few years, I’ve been learning more about CareFree. It’s a total game changer for
Babette. The prospectus on it is impressive. Zero to ninety. Stratospheric growth potential.”
These were not Mandy’s words. Had they come from Babette? Charlie? Stefan? Did Mandy somehow have access to Babette’s board?
“By Q3 of next year, because of CareFree, Babette will be the dominant player in a multibillion-dollar new wellness category,”
Mandy continued. “CareFree is going to bridge the skin care–wellness nexus. No one is producing anything like this product.
The competition won’t exist for another three years minimum.”
Liv didn’t know if Mandy believed or even understood the bullshit she was spouting. But she’d heard it before. She recognized
the pattern. And she knew exactly who was at the root of it.
“What did he do?”
“Who?”
“Mandy. Tell me you didn’t pull your pension to invest in one of Dad’s schemes.”
“I wouldn’t. But—”
Mandy’s eyes—so bright, so alive—dropped to the dull-red sandstone.
“I’m going to kill him,” Liv said.
“It’s not a scheme,” Mandy insisted. “Babette’s legit.”
“Fine. She’s an angel from skin care heaven. So what’s there for me to be mad about?”
Mandy’s headlamp dipped to the cold ground. “You know how Dad had that hiccup with the SEC?”
It took all of Liv’s training to resist the urge to offer her own interpretation of what had happened when their father got
arrested for tax evasion and insider trading ten years ago. She gave a curt nod and waited.
“A couple years ago, after he got out of prison, I told him about Babette. He started looking into it, and he met her and
learned about this new development. He got excited about the chance to get in on the ground floor with CareFree. But because
of that court ruling, he still has a few years on the clock before he can invest directly. So he came to me with a creative
idea, and I . . .”
“You . . . ?”
“I decided to make a significant investment.”
“With what money?”
“Not mine. His. Dad set up an LLC. There’s a bank account in Nassau. I’m the named investor, but we’re partners. It’s not
a big deal.”
“Mandy, this is literally against the law.”
“It’s a rounding error. No one gets hurt. It’s Dad.”
“If he’s so into Babette, why didn’t you invite him on this trip?”
Mandy looked uncomfortable.
“Did you invite him?”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“Babette offered spots to both of us,” Mandy said. “Dad and me. We’re not the biggest investors in CareFree, not by a long shot, but we were the first. It was sweet of her to invite us. But you know Dad doesn’t do wilderness.”
“So I’m here in his place?” Liv said. “I’m the pity date you settled for when your first choice canceled?”
“That’s not fair. The money is his thing. This trip is ours. Just ours.” Mandy looked at her, her eyes pleading for something.
Support, maybe. Understanding.
“What you’re doing isn’t safe,” Liv finally said.
Mandy’s eyes flashed hot.
“It’s safe enough,” she retorted. “I’m just . . . helping him.”
The implication hit Liv squarely in the chest. The suggestion that all she did was put barriers between herself and their
father, while Mandy and Guy had a meaningful relationship. It was true. Liv hadn’t even seen her father in three years, since
the time he came to Beijing and tried to get her to pose as a US trade specialist with a businessman he was wooing. These
days, they traded lackluster birthday voicemails and little more. Distance was the only way Liv could hold herself back from
throttling him.
Liv closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in the thin night air. She could smell the chalk in it, the silt-rich mud, the
river carrying its own surprises.
“Okay, Mand. Start at the beginning.”
“No judgment?”
None she’d share out loud.