Chapter Thirty-Seven
When Liv walked back up from the riverbank, Big Pete was pacing behind the kitchen area, the clunky black satellite phone
clamped to his head. She caught his eye, but he put a finger in the air.
“Where is he now?” Big Pete waited. “I see. Makes sense.” Another pause. “No, you can call them off. Yeah. Tell him to call
first thing when he gets in in the morning.”
As soon as he flicked off the phone, she leapt.
“What did you hear?”
“Nothing new from the Park Service,” he said. “That was Jan, in our office. Marc made it back to the rim thirty minutes ago.
He went straight to Wild Adventures and told Jan we needed a medevac sent down. Apparently Babette did indeed get worse after
your dad left them. Jan called me for coordinates for the medical team.” He sighed. “I told her they aren’t needed anymore.”
“Did Marc say anything specific about her condition when he left her? Anyone else he ran into?”
Big Pete shook his head. “I didn’t get to talk to him directly. Jan said he was about to collapse from exhaustion himself,
so she sent him back to his trailer for the night. I told her I want to talk to him as soon as possible tomorrow.”
Liv felt a spike of disappointment at not being able to interview Marc herself.
But if the guide had hiked twenty-four miles that day, she supposed he deserved some rest. And her sense of letdown, she realized, ran deeper than that.
A piece of her had been holding on to the hope that Babette’s murderer was the guide, or someone else far from their small beach, no matter how little sense that made.
Now she had to confront the reality that the killer was most likely here among them.
It was enough to prompt her to put into action the idea Mandy had sparked. While the others lolled in their canvas chairs,
inventing constellations and passing around tubs of CareFree for reapplication, Liv pitched her idea to Big Pete. The conversation
was shorter than expected. The lead guide seemed hollowed out by the events of the day, and he had few questions to contribute.
Once they’d agreed on the basics, Big Pete stepped out from behind the kitchen into the circle of camping chairs.
“Folks, I have an announcement to make.”
It was dark enough now that Liv could make out only the brightest features of each person—PK’s frosted tips, Mandy’s toothy
smile—as they turned toward Big Pete.
“I’ve decided to appoint Liv as our safety officer for the rest of the trip.”
Liv braced for resistance, but she was met only with dazed puzzlement.
“Like, CPR training?” Fiona asked. “I’m a doctor. I’m good.”
“You want a vest?” Thor asked. “Or a badge?”
“My sister’s a federal agent,” Mandy said. “She already has a badge. And a gun.”
A few sets of eyes turned anxiously in Liv’s direction.
“My gun isn’t here,” Liv assured everyone. “There aren’t any guns here. Right?”
Big Pete and Thor exchanged a look.
“We have one gun,” Thor said. “In case of mountain lions. But it’s locked up tight on the supply boat.”
“We don’t typically need a security protocol on a rafting trip,” Big Pete said, “but this is anything but a typical situation. So I’ve asked Liv to take this on. And as her first order of business, well, why don’t you tell them?”
Liv inhaled deeply. Her sister had given her the inspiration, but she wasn’t going to like it. No one was going to like it,
even if they were half doped on CareFree. Liv didn’t have Mandy’s gift of gab or her dad’s ability to conjure belief out of
fairy tales. All she had was the truth. She exhaled and went for it.
“For everyone’s safety, we are going to separate Charlie, Stefan, and Guy from the rest of the group for the night,” she said.
“Separate?” Devon asked. “How?”
“Why us?” Guy said.
“You were the only ones with the opportunity to spend time alone with Babette before she died. We’re going to ask you three
to sleep on the supply boat,” Liv said. “It will stay staked in the cove on the other side of these rocks. The guides will
remain onshore, and you can sleep on their kits on the boat. The guides will take turns keeping watch from the rocks,” Liv
continued. “To ensure no one gets hurt or crosses over.”
“You’re saying one of the three of us is a killer, and the other two have to sleep next to him?” Charlie said.
“Not next to, exactly. The supply boat’s thirty-five feet long. The sleeping kits are on three different sides of the boat,
with all that equipment stacked in the middle. You won’t be able to see each other, let alone reach each other. This is for
your safety, truly. I’m not accusing any of you of hurting Babette. Maybe you saw something. Maybe you heard something. This
is as much for your protection as ours.”
Charlie wasn’t having it. “If one of us wanted to, we could take two steps around the supplies and jump the others before
the guide even got down to the water.”
“I have a plan for that.”
“Of course you do,” Guy said warily.
All Liv could do was say it plain. “We’re going to tie you to the boat. For your safety.”
“What?!” Mandy said.
“For our safety?” Guy said.
“We’ll be sitting ducks!” Charlie said.
“No, you’ll be safe from each—”
“Let us alone.” Stefan spoke in a low, slow growl.
“This is totally unacceptable,” Mandy said.
Liv frowned. “We need to—”
“Let us alone,” Stefan’s voice intoned again. “What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become portions
and parcels of the dreadful past.”
“I can explain—”
“Let us alone!” Stefan was practically shouting now. “What pleasure can we have to war with evil?”
“Is he speaking Dutch?” Imogen asked.
Thor squinted at the raving investor. “That’s Lord Tennyson. A poem from the 1800s about Odysseus. The lotus eaters.” Thor
turned to Liv and Lucinda. “Weren’t you two talking about them?”
Liv gaped.
“What?” Thor said. “I spend weeks in the backcountry, just me and the bighorn sheep. I like to read classics. Is that a crime?”
Stefan stumbled away and continued spewing poetry, lurching down the beach and addressing his recitation to the black, shining
river.
“Have you seen this happen with CareFree before?” Liv asked Devon.
“Quoting old English poems? This would be a first.”
“He drank five margaritas,” Liv said.
“I might have given him double shots,” Thor added.
Devon winced. “That isn’t recommended. But the CareFree won’t hurt him. I think mostly this is just his way of dealing with”—she
waved her hand around, encompassing the darkened river, the looming canyon, their ragtag crew on the beach—“all of this.”
Liv remembered the message in Devon’s hat. This is my company, not yours. Was it possible Stefan and not Babette had written it? Had Babette’s lead investor killed her to take control of the company—and
was he now cracking up after doing so?
“The lady has gone too far!” Stefan cried. “She disposes without care plans well-crafted, rips asunder that which all hold dear. Her violence has no place in this affair.”
“He’s right,” Katy said.
“About what?” Liv asked.
“Datura. I told you, she’s a demon goddess. A destroyer of false idols.”
“Great,” Imogen said. “He’s not nuts. He’s possessed by a devil plant.”
“Maybe someone should follow him.” Liv glanced over at Devon’s altar to make sure Stefan hadn’t made a snack of the datura
plants she’d harvested. The white trumpets looked untouched. “And, Devon, those flowers? They shouldn’t stay out in the open.”
“You’re right. It was sentimental. But Babette wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.” Devon moved to wrap the wilted flowers in
a paper towel, tucking them into her pocket. Then she turned to PK. “Keep an eye on Stefan, will you?”
He shot her a sour look. “Fine.”
“I’ll join you,” Lucinda said. “I don’t mind poetry.”
The two of them took a few careful steps down the hillside. They stopped well short of Stefan and spread out to flank him,
watching at a cautious distance as Stefan continued his raving soliloquy to the riverbank and the night sky. Apparently Lord
Tennyson wasn’t one for brief poems.
Guy stepped forward. “Can we go back to the whole ‘tie your dear old traumatized dad to a boat’ proposal?”
“It’s not personal,” Liv said. “I just think everyone will sleep better if the people who were in one-on-one contact with
Babette are contained.”
There was a loud splash from the river.
“He’s throwing rocks,” Imogen said.
“I see the Lady mad for blood! No good will come of this sorry business. We should come like ghosts to trouble joy!” Stefan
shouted at the water. PK took a big step back toward the group.
“Was there a Lady Tennyson too?” Fiona said.
“Definitely,” Thor said. “She was his proofreader.”
“Yeah right,” Katy grumbled. “She probably wrote the poems that made him famous.”
“I can understand tying up Vincent van Weirdo over there,” Guy said. “But me and Charlie? Her brother and the trusted advisor
she brought down here? You really think one of us would hurt her?”
Charlie stiffened. “Don’t put yourself in the same category as me. You hardly knew her.”
“I knew you were trying to steal the company out from under her,” Guy snapped back.
“What?” Devon said.
“And you,” Guy said.
“I knew it!” PK said.
Guy nodded. “So did Babette. You two were going to—”
There was another splash, and a shout.
“Enough,” Liv said. “There’s a lot to hash out about what might have led to Babette’s death. But it’s late. The priority now
has to be to get us safely through the night.”
“Not all of us,” Guy muttered.
“The guides will trade off watching you throughout the night. You couldn’t be safer.”
“Couldn’t Dad just sleep next to us?” Mandy said.
“It’s not personal,” Liv repeated.
“You keep saying that,” Devon said. “But it is personal. Someone killed my sister.”
Stefan came bounding up the hillside, soaking wet and grinning. Lucinda and PK trailed, giving him a wide berth.
“I feel better,” Stefan announced. “CareFree is good, but that river! It has true healing powers. Perhaps we can commercialize
that.”
Liv looked at Stefan carefully. His eyes were shining, pupils dilated. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”
“That was quite the recitation,” Lucinda said.