Chapter Twenty-Seven
Liv placed herself in the middle of the nervous line of hikers up the trail to Deer Creek Patio. Big Pete led them along sinuous
curves of sandstone above the creek, the water lapping and falling prettily from one set of rocks to the next. Everyone was
quiet, walking silently with their presumed hopes for—or fears about—the reunion with Babette. Finally, they reached what
felt like the culmination of the winding path: a cul-de-sac of broad shaded ledges flanking a deep pool. Above the last little
waterfall that fed the pool, the view stretched up into Surprise Valley and toward the rim, the orange canyon walls kissing
the sky.
While there was no poolside waitstaff to attend to them at Deer Creek Patio, there were people there, five of them, a grizzled
group of old-timers scrubbing themselves in the clear water.
It was the first time since they’d hit the river Liv had seen new people up close. The hikers splashed in the sunshine, their
backpacks and dusty boots lined up on a far ledge. Liv stared, surprised at how quickly she’d come to feel like the Babette
rafting group were the only people out here. There were other cultures in the canyon, other conflicts and mysteries to unravel.
Big Pete gave the hikers a neighborly wave. “Afternoon!”
Two of the women ignored him, busy with their ablutions, but a third, stocky and smiling, waved back, her bare shoulders rising
like two pink boulders from the water. Liv was pretty sure she was naked.
“You hiked down from the North Rim today?” Big Pete asked.
“Sure did.” A skinny, hawk-nosed man stood and smiled at them. Oh. They were all naked. “Just taking a splash before supper.
We’re hiking out early tomorrow morning.”
Big Pete was unfazed by their natural state. “Run into any other groups on your way down?”
“Just them folks with the mule.” This man was huge and bald, a mountain come alive. He wiped his face with a paisley handkerchief,
the kind Liv thought had died out with the Gold Rush. “On the esplanade above Surprise Valley.”
“Were they coming down?” the stocky woman asked. “I got the impression . . .”
“That’s what they said. The lady, she had a hat like yours.” The skinny man nodded at Imogen, whose Babette cap was, incredibly,
still white. “She gave me this.”
He glided away and pressed himself up onto the far ledge in one smooth motion, shining his weathered behind in their direction.
Liv kept her eyes on the creek while he rummaged through a backpack before wading back over to them.
“Said it’s for forgetting troubles and recirculating hydroadapto-whozies.” He held out the white tube, a telltale silver B tattooed along its side.
PK grabbed the tube, cradling it as if it were the holy grail. “This is a CareFree tester. No one but Babette would have this.”
“You think she’s trying to tell us something?” Devon said.
“Probably just being her generous self.”
“I don’t need it,” the skinny hiker said. “My troubles can’t find me out here.”
“Surprised you haven’t seen your friends yet, though,” the woman chimed in. “They were ahead of us, just stopped for some
water. If they were coming here . . .”
“Shoulda crossed paths by now,” the bald man agreed.
“Who was in their group?” Devon’s voice was polite but firm.
“That shiny lady with the white hat,” the bald man said, “and two men.”
“Two?” PK said.
“Big boys,” the skinny man said.
“Plus the mule,” the woman added. “Long cartoon eyelashes, all loaded down with stuff. Even if they were enjoying the scenery,
I’d have bet they’d get here two or three hours ago. No heavy packs to carry.”
Devon turned to Big Pete. “We couldn’t have missed them on our way up here from the river, right?”
“Not a chance.”
To Liv’s surprise, Devon turned to her next. “What do you think?”
“What do I think happened, or what do I think we should do?”
“Both.”
Liv took a quick scan around the group. Devon looked focused. Big Pete looked concerned. Imogen was combing her hair in the
creek, humming at her ever-present phone. The person whose countenance surprised her most was PK. He stood alone, exposed,
fidgeting with the CareFree tester. He was practically kneading the tube into submission. Was he worried about his boss out
in the wilderness with a mule and two strange men? Or did he know something about Babette’s plan? Was it possible she was
bringing a hit man—or hit men—down into the canyon with her? If PK had indeed been delivering threats on her behalf, perhaps
the knowledge that she was now so close, with the arsenal to make good on her promises, made the improbable all too real.
Before Liv could answer, there was a rustle from above. Three more hikers, but these ones she recognized: Fiona in the lead,
with Stefan and Lucinda close behind. The older woman was leaning on Stefan, his forearm jutting out from his body in an awkward
approximation of a walking stick.
“Are you okay, Nana?” Imogen asked.
“Did you see Babette?” Devon demanded.
“Where’s Mandy and the others?” Liv asked.
Lucinda grunted. “Fine. I’m fine. Just spun my ankle a smidge on the way down. Fortunately Stefan doubled back and helped us out.”
She and Stefan shuffled to one of the ledges, and he helped her lower herself beside her granddaughter. Lucinda removed her
left hiking boot and sock and plunged her foot into the icy pool.
“That’s better,” she murmured. She turned her foot in slow arabesques under the crystal-clear water of Deer Creek. Then she
looked up. “Is your CEO here?”
“We hoped she was with you,” Devon said.
“Haven’t seen her,” Fiona said.
Liv looked up the trail. “And my sister?”
Fiona smirked. “Thor said he wanted to show Mandy something special.”
Big Pete grunted. “So that’s what they’re calling it these days.”
“What about Charlie?” Devon asked. “Wasn’t he with you too?”
“Charlie—” Fiona looked to Stefan. “He left Thunder Spring with you, didn’t he?”
The Dutchman nodded. “We walked together until the trail junction. I stopped to drink some water at the sign, but he wanted
to keep going.”
“You split up,” Big Pete said. “Thor didn’t tell you to stay together?”
“He did. I needed the break,” Stefan said. “And I could not imagine that Charlie would get lost. He was on a straight path
to all of you.”
“And yet he isn’t here,” Devon said.
Liv felt something itch at her chest.
Charlie.
Babette.
Mandy.
Thor.
There were too many people missing.
She knew better than to jump to any terrible conclusions.
But the itch was starting to burn. Statistically, missing people didn’t do well in the Grand Canyon.
There were too many caverns to fall into, too many ways the sun could leach away common sense.
Maybe Mandy was with Thor. Maybe Charlie and Babette had found each other and were having a kumbaya moment. Or maybe . . .
“I changed my mind,” Liv said. “I think we should head up the trail toward the junction.”
Devon stood up. “Are you worried about your sister?”
“As far as we know, the only person who isn’t accounted for is Charlie. My sister is with Thor. Babette’s on her way.”
“But if Charlie was on the trail, we would have run into him,” Fiona said.
“And those hikers said Babette should be here by now,” Imogen added.
“We should wait here,” Big Pete said. “I don’t need to lose any more of you.”
He was right. But it didn’t feel right. And there was an obvious reason why.
“There’s something you don’t know,” Liv said. “Charlie believes his sister is trying to kill him.”
“What?” Fiona said.
All eyes shot to Devon.
“Not her,” Liv amended, putting a hand on the botanist’s stiff forearm. “Devon was threatened too. Several people were. By
Babette. Charlie thinks she might have hired someone to confront us on this trip.”
“Those two men she’s traveling down with?” Imogen asked. “Nasty.”
“Are the threats credible?” Lucinda asked.
“I don’t know,” Liv said. “But she suggested Charlie might meet his end. And now he’s missing. Until we find him or talk to
Babette directly, we won’t know—”
Imogen let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Babette is one bad—”
“This is none of your business,” Devon said.
“Of course it is our business.” Stefan’s voice crashed into the conversation. “It is all of our business. Businesses. We are here because of Babette. And Charlie. And you. You have made promises about CareFree. We are here to see those promises fulfilled.”
His outburst stunned the group into silence.
“How were they threatened?” Lucinda finally asked. “Babette isn’t here.”
“They’re in the hats,” Liv said. “Devon, would you?”
Reluctantly, the older woman took off her cap and showed the group the message on the inside brim, the words glowing in pale
thread against the reddish memory of sand.
“This is my company, not yours,” Imogen read. “Hardly sounds like a threat to me.”
“Charlie’s was worse,” Devon said.
“Did anyone else get a message?” Lucinda asked.
“Ooh! Did I get one?” Imogen said. “Show me.”
She thrust her cap at Liv, who plunged it into the creek before rubbing it with sandstone dust. But there was nothing there.
“Rude,” Imogen said. “Charlie was wrong. This hat really isn’t personalized at all.”
Liv turned to Fiona and Lucinda. “Where are your hats?”
“I packed mine away in case Imogen needed it for her filming,” Lucinda said. She touched the straw hat resting on the ledge
next to her. “I prefer my own approach to shade.”
Fiona adjusted her visor and nodded. “Me too. I can’t recall where I put that hat. If I’d known . . .” The blonde looked uneasily
at Devon’s upside-down hat, as if it were a snake readying to strike. “How was Charlie’s message worse?”
“She threatened him with death,” Liv said.
“Oh,” Fiona murmured. “And now he’s missing.”
The heaviness of the situation was hitting everyone. Even Big Pete looked rattled now.
PK dug frantically through his day pack. “I don’t know what happened to my cap.”
“Enough playing find-the-hat,” Devon interrupted. “We have to find the people. Charlie and Babette. Mandy and Thor. I don’t see how deliberating about my sister’s questionable communication choices will help us do that.”
“If Charlie’s really scared,” Liv said, “it’s possible he’s run off, or gone into hiding. Maybe he decided to sneak back up
to the rim while avoiding the trail Babette was taking.”
“It’s twelve miles straight up from here,” Big Pete said. “Ten from the Thunder Spring junction where he left Stefan. And
there is no other safe path up to the rim besides that trail.”
“Maybe he took an unsafe path,” Liv ventured. The landscape flanking the trail was vast and twisted, riddled with thick bursts
of thorn bush, dizzying drop-offs, and crumbling rock. She saw a series of pockmarked caves further up the creek bed, a constellation
of shallow divots and dark, yawning craters. There were a million places to get lost. A million ways to fall. She only hoped
her sister was on solid ground.
“I should have hiked with him,” Devon said.
“Can’t turn back the clock now.” Big Pete spat on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “All right, we’ve
got folks to find. Any other life-or-death revelations before we get moving?”
Everyone was silent.
“This is, like, insane,” Imogen said. “You all know that, right?”
“What’s the plan?” Fiona asked. “Do we form pairs, send up smoke signals, or . . . ?”
“Pray this is all a horrible dream?” PK said.
“There is no need for hysteria,” Stefan said. “I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason for all of it.”
“Is everyone capable of hiking?” Big Pete asked.
Imogen looked to her grandmother. Lucinda pulled her bare left foot from the water and turned it in a slow circle. She put
her straw hat back on and nodded.
“No more splitting up,” Big Pete said. “We’ll all head up the trail to the Thunder Spring intersection together. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for movement off either side of the path. If we get to the trail junction without running into someone or receiving further information, we’ll reassess.”
He seemed to grow a little taller as he issued his instructions. “If Charlie is indeed hiding, we need to get him out. He
likely hasn’t gone far. But out here, too many people get lost or trapped or hurt. They disappear. That isn’t going to happen.
Not to Charlie. Not today.”
He looked up at the sky, where the previously white clouds were now lined in gray ruffles. A few darker wisps trailed behind,
edging their way into the perfect blue.
“One more thing,” he said, turning to Devon. “Is it possible your brother is carrying a weapon?”
Devon looked confused.
“A firearm,” Big Pete prompted.
“As far as I know, he’s never shot a gun in his life.”
Big Pete gave no indication of whether this was a good answer or a troubling one. “All right, then. Let’s get this search
party started.”