Chapter Thirty-Four
Mandy offered to help with dinner to keep her hands busy. Not that she was very helpful; when Katy handed her a crate of tomatoes,
jalapenos, and onions to make pico de gallo, the simple ingredients formed a nine-dimensional puzzle she couldn’t parse. She
settled instead for warming tortillas on the griddle, letting the hot corn singe her fingertips with every flip.
They’d rowed across the Colorado to this beach in silence. Set up camp—Mandy lining up her sleeping pad in tight synchrony
with her sister’s—in silence. Grief and fear had rendered the group listless. Katy and Thor prepped dinner while Big Pete
radioed up to the Wild Adventures office, but Marc hadn’t shown up yet, so there was no new information for anyone to latch
on to. Lucinda was icing her ankle. PK dug in the sand with a stick like a little boy. Devon and Charlie were making a small
altar to their sister, Devon pulling crumpled white trumpet flowers from her day pack and laying them across a marbled rock
while Stefan, Imogen, and Guy looked on. Only Liv seemed engaged, her eyes bright, her big brain likely sorting questions
into categories and subcategories and Roman-numeraled lists. It was one of the paradoxes of her sister. Liv shied away from
physical exertion. She stubbed a toe on every edge of the great outdoors. But when it came to intellectual challenges or psychological
danger, she dove straight in.
Right now, Liv had her sights set on Fiona, who was sitting by the cook site, watching Charlie and Devon make their altar and drinking from a glass thermos that appeared to be lined with charcoal and glitter.
“I think you saw something when you examined Babette,” Liv said.
Fiona took a long swig, the minerals in her water bottle swirling into sparkly tornadoes. “As I said, I don’t believe she
died of heatstroke. Her skin was the wrong color.”
Liv nodded. “A useful observation. But I think you saw more.”
The dermatologist looked at her warily. “Are you here on behalf of your father? Making sure he covered his tracks?”
“He didn’t—” Mandy started.
But Liv talked over her. “As you said, you’re not a medical examiner. Not an expert on venomous snakes nor poisons. So my
guess is you noticed a reaction on her body you’ve seen before.”
Fiona stayed silent. She glanced back at Devon’s altar, her face blank.
Mandy could see Liv wasn’t going to get anywhere with this strategy. All Fiona had to do was keep quiet and drink from her
cylindrical snow globe, and eventually Liv would have to give up. Her sister was a trained investigator, but she was used
to working with the full force of the federal government behind her. Here, Liv had no jurisdiction. No way in. Mandy, on the
other hand, had never relied on a badge to get what she needed.
She leaned out over the stove, careful not to let her sarong hit the griddle.
“I saw it too,” Mandy said.
Fiona and Liv both looked up at her.
“On Babette’s body?” Mandy continued. “I didn’t remember until you two started talking about it just now.” Tactic number one:
Suggest that Fiona was an active participant in a conversation in which she had yet to contribute anything.
“But then something shook loose in my memory, and BAM!” Mandy slapped down a tortilla on the griddle. “There it is in front
of me again. You’re seeing it too, aren’t you?”
Fiona opened her mouth. “I—”
“Crazy, right?” Tactic number two: Cut Fiona off. A weird one, but it almost always worked. An interruption, before Fiona could disagree or shut down the conversation, would only make her more eager to be heard.
“There it is, front and center, clog-dancing through my brain.” Mandy snatched up the tortilla and waved it in the air. “I’m
even seeing it in these.”
The surface of the tortilla was a chaotic constellation of ground corn, char marks, and air bubbles. Mandy didn’t have a clue
what it might evoke, but it was like a horoscope or a Rorschach test: All that mattered was what Fiona saw in it. And Fiona
was staring at her now.
Mandy went in for the kill. “We should just tell her, don’t you think? My sister’s smart. She might be able to figure out
what it means.”
“It’s not conclusive,” Fiona mumbled. Her eyes flicked again to Devon’s altar.
“Does it have to do with Charlie and Devon?” Mandy asked.
“Sort of. Not exactly. I’ve only seen it once before.” She looked at Mandy anxiously. “You’re an investor; I assume you got
to see some of the focus group reports. Is that where you saw it?”
Mandy racked her brain for any clue to what Fiona was talking about. Every three months since she and her dad made the investment
two years ago, she’d received an email with an attachment from Babette’s lab about the latest tests of CareFree. The document
was always hundreds of pages, incredibly boring, and the last one she’d forwarded on to her father without even scanning.
Mandy tried to think back to earlier attachments, scrolling the reports quickly on her phone. There were testing protocols,
interviews with participants, and maybe . . .
“The photographs,” Mandy said.
Fiona nodded. “I’m surprised you spotted it. The stippling on the skin was subtle. I only recognized it on Babette’s forehead
because I’d seen it in person before.”
“Mandy’s an artist,” Liv said. “She sees things other people don’t.”
Her sister’s words flooded Mandy with warmth. On one level, she knew Liv was just playing into her game—which was remarkable in itself. But the compliment felt real. She hoped it was real.
“What does stippling mean?” Liv asked.
“Tiny bumps,” Fiona said. “It looks a little like acne.”
Mandy nodded. Now that Fiona mentioned it, she did remember a surprising smattering of bumps across Babette’s forehead.
“It was shiny too,” Mandy said.
“That’s right.” Fiona looked somber. “But I don’t really understand how you saw those photos. The accident happened after
the focus group was over. Devon and her siblings did everything they could to cover it up.”
Finally, Mandy made the connection. “Justine Long. The woman who died in the third focus group.”
“After the focus group,” Fiona corrected.
“How did Justine Long die?” Liv asked. “The same way Babette did?”
Fiona glanced one more time to Devon and Charlie. The siblings’ heads were bowed now, and each had a hand on the marbled rock.
The blossoms before them wilted in the last tendrils of sun.
“I can’t be positive,” Fiona said quietly. “Not without tests. Tests we’re never going to be able to conduct out here.”
“Datura flowers,” Liv said.
“What?” Mandy asked.
“Those white trumpets Devon laid on that rock. She showed them to me when she picked them earlier today. They’re another strain
of the datura used in CareFree. A deadly varietal.”
Mandy turned to Fiona. “Did Justine Long eat datura flowers?”
Fiona said nothing.
“Hey, Katy.” Mandy looked over to where the guide was roasting green chiles with a pair of tongs. “Can someone die from eating
datura?”
Katy put down the tongs. “Definitely. It happened here in the canyon three years ago. A guy thought they were grape leaves
and tried to wrap them around some beans and rice.”
“It’s the leaves that can kill you?”
“Leaves, flowers, seeds . . . Any part of it can. My friend, the plant mystic? She calls it a devil drug. Like, death magic.
Especially the seeds.”
Mandy looked back at Liv. “Do you remember any remnants of seeds or leaves by Babette’s body?”
“I don’t know,” Liv said. She turned to the river with longing in her eyes, as if she’d consider swimming across to scour
the Throne Room once again.
“I told you,” Katy said. Her voice was low.
“Excuse me?” Liv said.
“I told you the plant wouldn’t like it if they tried to commercialize her.”
“You think the plant killed her?” Mandy asked. “Of its own volition?”
“Magic is magic. Lady Datura is a deadly sorceress.”
The guide looked completely serious. A true believer. But even Mandy couldn’t conceive of a scenario where a killer plant
witch had come down and slain Babette.
“I think Babette would have known about the dangers of consuming the live plant,” Liv said. “And Justine Long wasn’t exposed
to a bunch of flowers, was she? She was exposed to CareFree.”
Mandy turned to Fiona. “Is that what happened? Did Justine and Babette overdose on CareFree?”
“The product is safe,” Fiona insisted. “CareFree has always been safe, even when it wasn’t working properly. That’s not what
killed them.”
“Then what did?” Liv prompted. “Fiona, if there’s something wrong with CareFree . . .”
The dermatologist looked at Charlie and Devon again. They were standing now, heading back to the camp chairs. “The product
is ready for market. It’s incredible. Transformational.”
It sounded like Fiona was telling the truth, even as she was hiding something at the same time.
“Why are you here?” Mandy asked softly.
“Same reason as you,” Fiona said. “Babette invited me.”
“Why?”
The blond woman looked at her. “I wish I knew.”
Fiona flipped her water bottle over and back, over and back. Glittering charcoal spun and danced from end to end, as if the
bottle were an hourglass gone haywire.
Finally, she spoke. “After Justine died, I pitched a proposal for how to manage the more volatile parts of CareFree’s manufacturing
process. Instead of considering it, Devon fired me. Babette and Charlie backed her up. That was a year ago. Since then, I’ve
had no contact with the company beyond the negotiation of my severance package and the reports they have to send to everyone
who has shares in the business. Then, out of the blue, Babette called me two weeks ago. She said she needed my help, that
she’d tell me everything when I got here. Instead . . .”
Fiona flipped her water bottle over again.
“Babette died in the same way as Justine,” Liv said. “Which was?”
Fiona grimaced once, quickly, a razor slicing across her perfect face. “I can’t talk about that.”
“Do you think the product they’re going to release is dangerous?” Liv asked.
“I’m telling you, CareFree is fine. I genuinely believe it’s going to change the world.”
“And whatever it is Babette wanted to talk with you about?”
“It dies with her, I suppose. Devon sees me as a threat. Charlie does whatever his sisters demand. They aren’t going to listen
to me.” Fiona looked down at her empty, sparkling container. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my hydration is calling.”
The dermatologist stalked away, clutching her thermos like a weapon.
“Well,” Liv said.
“Well,” Mandy said.
“Your tortillas are burning.”
Ouch. Liv was right. And had returned to her lifelong occupation of pointing out Mandy’s undependability. “Tacos hardly seem like the priority right now.”
“When you agree to a job, you should do it well.”
Then Liv looked her right in the eye.
“What you did there,” Liv said. “How you led her in?”
Mandy was on guard now, waiting to be chastised for not following her sister’s lead.
“It was great,” Liv said. She reached out and tucked in a corner of Mandy’s sarong that was flirting with the fire. “Now pay
attention to the griddle. If that’s how Fiona acts when she’s dehydrated, I don’t want to see what happens if she goes hungry.”