Chapter Twenty-Nine
Big Pete led his group up out of Deer Creek Patio in silence. Clouds peppered the sky, but it was still brutally hot. While
no one complained, they weren’t exactly skipping up the trail either. At a wide creek crossing, Big Pete whipped off his long-sleeved
shirt, dunked it in the freezing water, and put it back on.
“Suggest you take this opportunity to cool off.” The lead guide stood in the creek, scooping water onto his head with his
hat. “This is the last water from here up to the trail junction.”
“We don’t have time,” Devon said. “We have to find them. Before my brother does something rash.”
“Or Babette,” Fiona said. “Those hat threats are creepy.”
“Creepier than what you’ve seen from her before?” Liv asked.
Fiona nodded. “During the Fierce Essence Quest, she did sew a fake tiger fang into the neckline of everyone’s windbreaker.
But this feels different. Targeted. And angry.”
Liv squinted up past the creek bed, searching the rocks for a sign of movement, of life, in the cracked landscape. “My sister
and Thor are still out there.”
Imogen giggled. “I bet they are.”
“Is everything a joke to you?” PK snapped.
Liv wondered at his harsh tone. It didn’t make sense that PK was so belligerent toward Imogen.
The girl was annoying. But what teenage social media star wasn’t?
Surely as the person responsible for influencer engagement at Babette, it would have been PK himself who recruited and invited Imogen and her PureImogeNation followers to the river.
And yet he’d been nothing but antagonistic to the teenager for the past two days.
The paucity of information Liv had about these people overwhelmed her. While the Babette guests were new to Liv, they weren’t
new to each other. She’d only scratched the surface of their relationships, the fault lines that might hold the answer to
the threats and disappearances. She didn’t know any of them. Not really. Not enough.
If Liv was going to figure out what was really going on with the threats, she had to go deeper. She had to get past first
impressions and gross categorizations to understand who was really on this trip, and why.
“Worried?” Lucinda was walking unassisted now, but slowly. Still limping.
Liv surprised herself by nodding.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Liv was just about to launch in when Imogen gave a little shriek.
“I hear something!”
It was quiet at first, a snuffling whimper. Then, a cry. Liv surveyed the area, homing in on a gray shuffle that sent a shiver
through a spiny bush high above the creek.
“Charlie?” Devon shouted. “CHARLIE!”
Another warbling cry. A long, horrible scrape. And then it became clear.
“Is that a pony?” Imogen said.
“A mule,” Big Pete said.
The animal was high above them, off-trail. It looked exhausted, its coat matted with sweat. A single saddlebag dragged below
its belly, the leather satchel picking up brush as the animal bumped along. Every few paces, the mule would pause, turn, and
lumber back the other way. There was no rider in sight.
“Maybe it’s the one the hiker mentioned?” PK’s voice was entirely too hopeful. “The one with Babette?”
“I don’t see any people,” Devon said.
“So it’s lost?” Imogen said. The mule sashayed forward and back, its drooping head making it look plaintive. As if it had
been cut off from any sense of purpose and was just drifting.
“Or its handler is up there somewhere,” Big Pete said. Liv followed his gaze up the empty trail. “Maybe they got detained.”
“BABETTE!” PK called out.
“Maybe she and Charlie found each other,” Devon said.
The mule lumbered into their midst, doggedly pushing to the creek. When it dipped its huge head and began to drink in big
snuffling gulps, Big Pete sidled up to it, patting its flank as he approached. Liv grabbed its saddle and pulled what she
could from the flopped-open saddlebag. There were just a few items inside. A hair tie. A Raw Power Hydrology Stick, whatever
that was. And a piece of mottled white fabric, which unfurled to reveal a spectacular dust-speckled kimono, the word “Babette”
blazing across the back in silver paint.
“That’s hers.” Devon stroked the kimono. There was a touch of surprise in her voice. “She made it.”
But where was she?
Liv scanned the horizon. Nothing but rocks and bushes. And a faint, ankle-twisting trail that snaked up to a cavernous amphitheater
of sun-baked boulders.
“There!” A hundred yards past the left edge of the rocky bowl, she saw someone. A hiker with hands on knees, bent over and
panting.
Devon shot off at a fast clip, charging off-trail up through the boulders. Liv tried to keep pace, flying past the rest of
the group behind the older woman. But just as abruptly as Devon started, she stopped.
“Wait.”
Liv looked up. The hiker still hadn’t moved.
“It’s a man.” Devon shook her head. “Why would Charlie be with Babette’s mule?”
Charlie. Was it possible? Liv couldn’t make out the stooped hiker’s face, but the silhouette looked about right—slender, in a dark windbreaker and shorts, with a ball cap and a day pack creating a little hump on his back.
Devon cupped her hands around her mouth.
“Charlie!”
The man looked up from his crouch and waved in their general direction. Devon waved back. Liv still couldn’t make out his
face, but she could see the sharp afternoon light slicing across the canyon, and below it, the wobble in his wave. Was he
dehydrated? Or was he just as blinded by the sun as they were?
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Devon said. She kept waving, as if her arms could pilot her brother back to her.
“Maybe he got lost on his way from Thunder Spring, found the mule, and followed it back down.”
“Charlie doesn’t wander. Especially in the wilderness.”
Something didn’t seem right. The man had turned his back to them now, balancing himself to shimmy down a sandstone boulder.
There was something about the recklessness of his movements that didn’t sit square with Liv. Charlie struck her as careful
and timid, but now, he leapt down from the rock with confidence—overconfidence, even—executing a lurching spin just before
he crash-landed on the ground. Was he just desperate to reach them? Was this one of those situations where dire circumstances
unlocked a hidden reservoir of strength?
And then there was the mule. She supposed it was possible the animal had come along just as Charlie was returning from some
unknown destination. But it had Babette’s kimono. When had Babette been separated from the mule? What if this man wasn’t Charlie
at all, but one of Babette’s mysterious hiking companions? What if there really was a hit man and he’d murdered Charlie and
was now coming down to . . . what? Kill Devon as well?
Liv stepped in front of Devon. She looked down.
Most of the group was still way behind them, which was good.
Whatever this man intended, whoever he was, Liv would be the first to confront him.
She could feel the adrenaline buzzing in her fingertips.
The man was moving faster now, blazing down the trail.
His gait was so familiar. The closer he got, the more the itchy sense of recognition grew in Liv’s mind.
Not Charlie.
Not a hit man.
Someone else.
Oh no.
“What is it?” Devon asked. Liv hadn’t realized she’d voiced her concern out loud. “Is he hurt?”
Of course he wasn’t hurt. He was too lucky, too experienced at skating away from pain and responsibility, to ever get hurt.
His footwork was sloppy from fatigue, his shins red and scraped. But the look of triumph on his face was unmarred. He stopped,
cocked a smile, and put two fingers to his mouth, letting out a whistle loud enough to pull over every taxicab in the state
of Arizona.
“That’s not my brother,” Devon whispered.
The man whistled again.
“I know.” Liv’s stomach was doing backflips now. Her face froze into a grim, false smile, the kind she would employ if she
ever were to face a firing squad.
“Who is it?”
“It’s my father.”
“Your . . . who?”
His voice boomed across the shortening distance between them. “Livvie Lu!”
Liv closed her eyes. She had no clue how to process Guy Chisholm’s presence here, in this wild incorruptible place. But that
didn’t stop him from bounding over.
“I am so glad to see you, baby.”
She opened her eyes. There he was, sunburned and smiling, arms stretched wide, blocking out the sun.
“No hug for your old man?” He chuckled, then lightly touched the sleeve of her gray T-shirt. “I suppose you always were formal.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Wild, right?” His smile looked slightly manic, strained. Or maybe that was just the heat. “I know, I know, this is one of
your sister shindigs, and I won’t interfere, Scout’s honor, Dad’s honor, but—where is your sis? Who’s your friend?”
“I’m Babette’s sister.” Devon looked wary. “Did you hike down here with her?”
“That’s right. Almost killed me, but I made it.” He smiled almost shyly at Devon, as if humbled to be in her presence. “Dr.
Devon. The botanist. Babette told me all about you. I’m a big fan of your work.”
His voice had turned cozy and interested, a bottomless jar of honey.
But Devon wasn’t looking for sweetness. She was looking for her siblings. “Where is Babette? And why did she bring you with
her?”
“She isn’t here?” He rubbed his mouth for a moment, hiding a frown. He’d always told his daughters no one likes to see negative
emotions, not even in the mirror. “Huh. And she must not have had the chance yet to tell you about her charming and brilliant
investment advisor.”
“She has not.”
“I’m sure she’ll give you a glowing report.”
“I don’t need a report. I need Babette. Where is she? When did you last see her?”
“She’s not here yet? Really?”
“Really,” Devon said.
“The guide told me to find y’all. But I got lost. I was sure they’d reach you ahead of me, but I guess—do you have any water?”
It was a classic Guy Chisholm stall tactic. Then again, if he’d been hiking all day down from the North Rim, he really might
be dehydrated.
Liv handed him her bottle. “Dad. We need to know what happened.”