“Not bad for your first try, Rylie,” Greg said with his unending enthusiasm. “How about Shayla takes a turn now?”
Nikki handed the wheel over to Shayla, and she too had troubles maneuvering the boat. When Brock’s turn came, he accidentally pushed the throttle forward rather than backward, and his boat plowed into the side of ours.
“Dammit.” Brock threw his arms in the air.
“That’s what the bumpers are for,” Greg consoled. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”
“When hell freezes over,” Nikki whispered.
“Okay, why don’t we go back into the coves and have a look around?” Greg said. And he and Nikki both jammed the boats into forward motion. This time we all knew what was coming and held on.
The coves were nearly empty. Fishermen dotted the shoreline, and there were two or three boats, but otherwise, the reservoir was completely peaceful.
“Who can tell me which cove this is?” Greg asked.
Nikki smiled and raised her perfectly manicured hand.
“Of course you can, Nikki. Anyone else?”
Shayla tentatively raised her hand. “Muddy Water Cove?”
“Very good,” Greg said. “It looks different from this angle, doesn’t it?”
Without the dead body and catfish traps? Yeah, it looked different. I squinted to see the spot from where we’d pulled the traps. The water was completely undisturbed. Maybe Ronnie had been the MWB after all.
“Isn’t this where they found Ronnie’s body?” Nikki asked.
“Yep, Ben and Rylie were the ones to recover it.” Greg smiled at me.
“Do they have any leads on who the killer might be?”
“You’re talking to the wrong person. As I hear, Rylie’s been pulled into the investigation. She knows one of the investigators assigned to the case.”
Nikki’s look of pure hatred hit me like a freight train.
“Nothing new, I’m afraid.” I wasn’t about to let her in on the investigation, no matter how scary she was.
Each of us was given several more opportunities to operate the boats. We practiced approaching buoys as if they were other boats, keeping the boat steady while we pretended to check licenses, and then drive away without running over the buoy. I definitely wasn’t an expert by the end, but I could probably manage to not kill anyone with the boat by the time we were done.
“Ranger Two, to all Ranger staff,” Kyle’s voice came from our radios.
“Go ahead,” a voice that I hadn’t heard on the radios much, replied.
“We are all needed in the training room at Alder Ridge stat.”
“Five and I are pretty far out,” the voice was deep and smooth. “You sure we need to be there?”
“Ursula requested all of our presence.”
“Copy. Be there with bells on.”
“Sounds like we need to head back to the docks,” Greg said, a look of panic shadowing his face.
Nikki nodded and they both idled out of the cove. As we floated past the other boats and shore fishermen, Greg waved and the fishermen waved back. They all seemed to respect and like the rangers rather than fear them.
I sat next to Shayla and watched the shoreline. As we reached the part where the Ronnie had been found, a figure stood in the trees. The same shape and size as someone I knew. Ronnie’s wife.
I had to get back there to talk to her. Luke might be sure she wasn’t the one who offed her husband, but I was still convinced she was our prime suspect. Lunch would be the only free time I could sneak back there, but Cherry Anne was prohibited from driving around the trails, and I hadn’t been given rein to drive the patrol trucks yet. I would have to drive around outside the park and find the gate in the neighborhood behind the reservoir, but I wouldn’t have a ton of time to talk to her once I found her. Hopefully, whatever this Ursula woman had to tell us wouldn’t take long.
By the time we reached the dock, I was growing impatient. Ronnie’s wife could be anywhere by now. She was probably gone.
Nikki expertly backed the boat into the slip and I yanked off my life jacket, handed it to her, and took a wobbly step onto the dock.
I started to walk, but my boots slipped in a pile of goose poop, my arms went flailing, and I landed ass-first in the shallow water next to the dock.
I stood as fast as I could, trying not to submerge myself entirely, but it was no use. I was drenched.
“Oh, oh my!” Greg splashed into the water after me. “Here, take my hand.”
He helped me up and back onto the sandy beach where Nikki and Brock stood, not even trying to hide their amusement. So much for my perfect uniform.
When we reached the training room to grab our stuff for lunch, we were met with an entire room full of people.
“Welcome,” a woman as tall as she was wide with long black hair said from the front of the room.
Sitting at our desks were Antonio, Ben, and Kyle.
“Please, take a seat. We’re still waiting on the trail rangers.”
My shoes squeaked all the way to my seat, and a puddle formed around my chair as I sat.
“Boating accident?” the woman asked in a grating voice.
“Oh no, n-nothing like that,” Greg stammered, his voice far from its usual happy tone.
Nikki spoke up, “Rylie just tripped on her own feet and fell into the water next to the dock.”
“Rylie, are you all right?” the woman asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I smiled as sincerely as possible. Who was this woman again?
“Great.”
No one moved. They all seemed petrified of this roly-poly woman.
“Let me introduce myself while we wait. I am Ursula Vilago, the city’s Director of Parks and Recreation.”
This woman was the big Kahuna, the head honcho, and effectively
