Chapter Twenty-One
Charlie glared at Liv. “You told me you were the pinnacle of discretion.”
Liv took a long breath, buying herself time to respond. There was no use deliberating over whether Mandy’s brash statement
had been a brilliant move or a foolish one. Her sister had poked the beehive. Liv’s only option now was to see if any honey
might come out.
“I told you my job requires me to be discreet,” she said. “And I’m off the clock this week.”
“What are you talking about?” Devon asked.
“You really don’t know?” Mandy broke in.
Devon’s face was an iron mask of confrontation; Charlie’s, red with anger. Liv had to find a way to keep the pressure on while
redirecting the heat.
“Your brother received a threatening message yesterday.” Liv shot a look back at Katy before saying more. The guide didn’t
seem to be paying attention to the conversation in the raft, her eyes tracing the hieroglyphics of the swirling river. So
Liv continued. “My sister received a threat too. As did PK. I’m assuming both of you”—she looked from Devon to Stefan—“were
threatened as well.”
“What was the message?” Devon asked her brother.
When Charlie didn’t respond, she nudged him with her paddle.
“You kept this a secret? You got a threat, and you told her”—Liv reared back as Devon’s paddle swung in her direction—“before you told me?”
His voice was hoarse. “I wasn’t sure you’d believe it.”
“Why?”
Charlie’s voice dropped so low Liv had to slide across the bench to catch his words. “Because it was a death threat. And it
came from Babette.”
“Oh, please,” Devon said. “She’s not even here. You’re catastrophizing.”
“Look,” Charlie said. He took off his cap and showed his sister the ugly words inside.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Devon snapped.
Denial. Interesting. Liv looked from Devon and Charlie to Stefan, curious how the bearded man might react. Stefan was looking
down, as if he were embarrassed by the direction of the conversation. Or was he debating whether to share something?
“Would you please show me your hat?” Liv asked Devon calmly.
Mandy turned to Stefan. “And yours.”
Devon hesitated, and Charlie spoke up. “See for yourself. If I’m exaggerating, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Fine.” Devon passed her ball cap to Liv, and her sister snatched Stefan’s off his head with an impish grin.
“Abracadabra,” Mandy said, waving his hat in the muddy water.
Once the hats were sufficiently silt-ridden, they flipped them over and lined them up on the middle bench of the boat between
them.
“Watch,” Liv said. Everyone peered in, as if they were all waiting for a Polaroid to develop.
The murky water had stained Stefan’s hat, but otherwise, it remained blank. Liv was surprised. Why would CareFree’s first
investor receive a threat, but not its biggest investor? Before she could probe deeper, a faint white message surfaced across
the inner crown of Devon’s. The wording was less threatening than Charlie’s, but still aggressive:
THIS IS MY COMPANY, NOT YOURS
“See what I mean?” Charlie said to his sister. “She knows.”
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Devon said.
“You know that isn’t how she’d see it.” Charlie looked stricken. “If she found out what we’re planning, she could be meeting
with board members while we’re stuck down here.”
Devon swung around to face Stefan. “Has she asked for your support?”
“She has not.” The investor paused. “And you know where my sympathies lie. But it is your sister’s company, as she apparently
sees fit to remind you. She may have other sources of information.”
“What were you planning?” Liv asked.
Charlie and Devon didn’t seem to hear her. They were locked in on each other, speaking a shorthand only they understood.
“We were so careful,” Devon said. “But you think she knows.”
“I do,” Charlie said. “And now she’s retaliating.”
“Nothing’s happened so far, besides these messages.”
“We get thrown from a boat and a rattlesnake attacks, and that’s nothing?”
Devon shook her head. “I don’t see how she could have engineered any of that.”
Charlie shot a dark look back at Katy, whose eyes were studiously trained on the ripples in the river. “Maybe the guides work
for her,” he whispered.
“The guides?” Devon sounded incredulous. “Katy tossed you in the water? Thor planted the snake? What’s next, Pete poisoning our sandwiches?”
“It’s possible. Think about the symbology. A snake. She’s calling us snakes.”
“I get it,” Devon said. “But the snake didn’t show up in your sleeping bag. Or mine.”
“If she knows what we’re doing,” Charlie said, “I don’t think we can underestimate how she might respond. What she might take
from us.”
“Our jobs, you mean? The company?”
Charlie shook his head. “Or more.”
“What would be more?”
Charlie gave his sister a long, anxious look. “You saw my hat. You know.”
“Justine,” Devon murmured.
Liv was confused. She shot a glance at Mandy, hoping the name triggered something for her. Maybe Justine was one of the accidents
Charlie had referred to earlier. Maybe she was mentioned in Babette’s autobiography. But Mandy shook her head.
Devon turned to Liv. “You think these threats are serious?”
“I think . . .” She looked from Devon to Charlie, turning the paddle in her hands. “I think your sister has a history of being
ruthless about getting what she wants. I think there’s something you three”—she waved her hand to indicate Devon, Charlie,
and Stefan—“know that the rest of us don’t. I think we’re at the bottom of a dangerous canyon, cut off from the outside world.
We can help each other, or not. We can lie to each other, or not. My responsibility is to my sister’s safety and my own. If
you want more from me than that, you’re going to have to tell us what’s really going on.”
At that, the raft went silent. For the next ten minutes, the only sound was the gurgle of the slow-moving river, Katy’s paddle
dipping to keep them on a straight path.
Then two hard thumps on the back of the raft jolted them all to attention.
“Didn’t mean to scare ya.” Big Pete waved with his paddle, then maneuvered his raft alongside theirs. He was holding a clunky
black object in his other hand. “Got word on the sat phone that our last two guests are hiking down from the North Rim to
join us at Deer Creek. In a few miles, your party will be complete.”
“She’s coming,” Devon said. She reached out for her soggy hat, then hesitated, her hand pausing over the brim as if it might
bite her.
“Two guests?” Stefan asked. “Who is coming with her?”