Page 3 of Disappearance at Angel's Landing
“Aren’t you rangers supposed to be nice?” She landed back on her feet, sweat beading her upper lip. “My taxes pay your salary. The least you could do is pretend you know something about customer service.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Branch forced himself to refocus on his job, but Ranger Barbie’s incessant high-pitched drone proved too much to ignore. It probably deafened dogs.
He hadn’t come up with Lila’s nickname. Actually, he wasn’t sure where he’d heard it the first time, but the shoe fit with her pink socks, pink jewels decorating her belt, the pink nail polish and the pink bandana tied at her neck. He’d never met someone so disrespectful of the uniform.
He turned back to the hiker. “Drink something before I get called to come collect you off the trails.”
Her shock only lasted a second. “You—”
“Branch, want to give us a hand?” Risner’s question was more of a command.
It pissed Branch the hell off. He’d been doing just fine all the way over here, as far from Lila as he could get. Though his ears would argue it wasn’t far enough. “Any of you move, and I’ll have you banned from the park for life.” Leaving his post, Branch closed the distance between him and the small ring of rangers staring down at the remains.
The near-6000-foot drop hadn’t been kind. The hiker’s bright yellow jacket contained most of the mess, but unmistakable brain matter splayed out in a burst of red and pink against the dirt. A hand had survived, at an odd angle, but it was there.
Risner pointed at the body. “The medical examiner is ready to turn her over to search her front pockets. Hopefully get a positive ID. Grab a side and help me lift her.”
“How?” Branch’s stomach revolted at the idea of…pieces slipping through his fingers, but he wouldn’t lose his breakfast. Not here and sure as hell not in front of anyone. Weakness would only cost him.
“You could imagine it’s a sensory bin.” Lila set brilliant blue eyes on him, the color of which could shift from stormy to clear in a matter of seconds depending on her mood. Right now, they were somewhere in the middle. Most likely due to the fact a dead hiker had interrupted her afternoon of chasing unicorns and rainbows or whatever the hell she did out here. “Have you ever played with a container of those water beads you can squish between your fingers?”
Branch swallowed back a rush of bile. Did she seriously just compare a dead person to squishing a water bead? Leveling Ranger Barbie with every ounce of hatred in his bones, he let his revulsion for everything she stood for bleed into his expression.
His obvious dislike didn’t deter her. “What about slime? Have you ever played with slime? I have some in my trailer. I buy it from a seventeen-year-old named Melissa who makes over three hundred different kinds right from her bedroom. She’s aninternet sensation. She puts all different kinds of things in it, like cotton candy scent, crunchy glue, sprinkles and any color you can imagine. And she does ASMR videos, especially when she uses foam beads. I can send you her socials if you—”
“Let’s get this over with.”
Ranger Barbie’s smile slipped slightly, but within a second, it was right back in place.
Branch stepped up to the body. Definitely not thinking about the kind of noises a broken body trapped in a yellow jacket might make once they got their hands on her.
He took the fallen hiker’s right side while Lila took the left, putting them opposite each other. A hint of her perfume—one he couldn’t seem to stop himself from inhaling—tickled the back of his throat. Something ambery and feminine. Like a dual personality. Jekyll and Hyde. Who in their right mind wore perfume in over a hundred-degree heat in the middle of the desert?
Risner took control of the hiker’s shoulders, his feet spread wide to avoid the carnage around him. “One. Two. Three.” Risner moved first.
They worked as one, slowly turning the remains, and set the hiker on her back. The body had stiffened some. Rigor mortis was setting in. Not at all like squishing water beads or playing with slime.
Lila dusted her hands, that irritating smile back in place with an exaggerated shoulder shrug. “Well, that wasn’t so bad. Not as gooey as I thought it would be. Great job, team—”
“Can you shut up and show some respect for once?” The words snapped out of Branch’s mouth before he had a chance to think it through.
The instant flash in her gaze told him he’d at least accomplished breaking through her cheerfulness. Lila cocked her head to one side, all signs of that Ranger Barbie smile buried.“Can you imagine what it will feel like when I open a Nature Valley granola bar on your bed?”
Branch fought against a resulting shiver. He could feel the crumbs already.
“Jordan, knock it off.” Risner hiked his chin toward the medical examiner. “Search her pockets. We need a positive ID to inform the family of the accident.”
Jordan? Since when did Risner address rangers by their last names?
“This wasn’t an accident.” Lila held Branch’s gaze, almost daring him to interrupt her again. Or planning his murder. Branch couldn’t be sure. Crouching beside the body, she pointed to a dark pattern of blood around a hole in the hiker’s jacket. She unzipped the yellow abomination, revealing a deeper laceration. A stab wound. She glared at Branch before standing. “Sarah Lantos was murdered.”
Chapter Three
She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.
Lila tried to breathe through her mouth as she, Branch and Risner transferred the remains to a black body bag. The squelching in her hands was nothing like a sensory bin or playing with slime. Sarah Lantos’s body had basically exploded on impact but couldn’t escape the confines of her clothing, so putting a pretty label on the squishiness of bone and sinew didn’t do much to ease the nausea in Lila’s stomach.
But she wasn’t going to let it show. She wasn’t about to lose the banana she’d forced down her throat an hour ago. Not here and definitely not in front of Branch Thompson.
