Page 19 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

Doreen thought about it long after the woman had left.

Then Doreen got up and headed toward the other side of the park, where she and Mack had driven the other day, trying to find where the older couple had walked off to.

She was trying to figure out in her mind how to broach Meghan and to get a name from her as to who it was she hadn’t seen in years.

Yet Doreen expected Meghan to be extremely touchy about anybody talking to her. Just as she had been while in the park.

As she came around the corner, Meghan was coming down a different way and seemed startled to see her.

Doreen smiled. “That’s funny to see you here. I just left on this side.”

“I often keep walking,” Meghan admitted. “It’s lonely days.”

“Winter can be that way,” Doreen shared. “Just checking. You don’t remember the name of that guy who went missing, huh ?”

“I told you it was something weird like Eli.”

“Right. Well, here’s my card, if you come up with his last name…”

“What difference would it make?” Meghan asked, frowning at her. “I mean, it’s just one of many people I lost touch with over the years.”

“I understand that,” Doreen replied. “We don’t have any leads, so anything we can come up with would be a help.”

“That guy is just like I said, one of many.”

“Of course.” Doreen forced herself to smile at Meghan and gave her a nod.

Doreen kept on walking, after giving Meghan her card.

As she walked ahead, she saw the back of an older woman.

This was the same older woman she had spoken to the other day, when she’d been at the park with her grouchy husband.

Doreen sped up so that she was close to catching her, and then watched as the other woman headed across the street and back up to the same house that she had walked to before.

Doreen hesitated, but she didn’t really have any questions to ask or anything to bother her about.

Not sure why the impulse was so strong to go talk to her.

Yet, knowing that she didn’t have any reason to right now, she slowly turned back.

And then found Meghan staring at her from the end of the block.

“It almost looked as if you wanted to talk to her.”

“A part of me says I should talk to her, but I really don’t have any specific questions to ask.”

“If you’re trying to find people who have been missing for years and years, that couple could probably help you, as they have been around here since forever.”

Doreen nodded. “And yet when I did speak to them not all that long ago, they didn’t have anything to offer. They’re probably too scared to talk to the police anyway. The old man didn’t seem to be all that friendly.”

She snorted. “No, he’s not very friendly at all. He’s kind of like my husband, and I suspect she’s found herself in exactly the same situation.”

“And what is that?” Doreen asked.

“Left with a controlling husband, and you don’t have anything, no family or friends left once they’re done with you. And that was me. I’ve tried hard, but it’s been very difficult to get to know people.”

“I’m not sure what age category you’re looking to become friends with,” Doreen began, “but I’m sure quite a few people in town are in the same boat.”

“Maybe they are, but that doesn’t mean that any of us feel comfortable reaching out,” Meghan shared. She looked back at the park and shuddered. “You really are trying to figure out what’s going on here, aren’t you?”

“I sure am,” Doreen declared, “and, yeah, it makes me seem nosy, and some people don’t like that.”

“Of course not,” Meghan agreed. “You really are just ready to pounce with questions.”

“I do ask a lot of questions, and again some people don’t like it,” Doreen acknowledged, with a cheerful smile. “I tend to alienate myself too.”

Meghan frowned at her. “Then why do it?”

“Because I’m not particularly worried about how people view me,” she explained. “I’m much more concerned about finding justice for all these victims.”

Meghan nodded slowly. “In theory I get it, but the cost, the personal cost to you, is really high.”

“That depends,” Doreen replied. “There will always be people who see it from that point of view, and then other people see it differently. I think we each need to find our tribe, the people who think about things our way versus other ways. In other words, I hang around people who see that I’m doing a good job and who appreciate what I’m doing, versus people who just think I’m being nosy. ”

“Well, of course.” Meghan laughed. “Everybody wants people to like them.”

“I don’t even think it’s about being liked,” Doreen corrected, smiling at Meghan.

“That’s not really anything I’m particularly bothered about.

I’m much more concerned about knowing that these victims and their families find closure.

Look at you. You don’t know what happened to this Eli person, who you know, and yet he’s on your mind every once in a while. ”

“Sure, but more because I feel so guilty.”

Doreen nodded. “And that says more about you than you know. If you think of anything, any specifics about him, just let me know, and I can add it to the growing database I have of missing people.” She wasn’t lying, and technically it was growing.

She didn’t say a whole lot about what was growing, but, as she didn’t have a ton to go on, she was trying to deal with some definite issues here.

Meghan looked at her and nodded slowly. “You seem to think I know more than I do,” she said finally.

“I think everybody knows more than they expect,” Doreen replied, shrugging.

“It’s just one among many facts of life.

You don’t know what’s important, and, because of that, you don’t think your answer is important.

And I get that, but nobody is expecting you to know everything.

However, if you have even that one little bit that’s helpful, it could be the missing piece, and you don’t even know it. ”

“It would be interesting to solve some of this. And the reason I’m curious about what happened to Eli is that he was a nice guy.”

“And you just treated him that way because everybody did, is that it?”

“Yeah, and, looking back, I feel terrible about it.”

“Did he appear to be upset at the way everybody treated him?”

She frowned, then shook her head. “No, not really. I think, in a way, he was just used to it or even expected it, I don’t know,” she muttered. “It sounds terrible to even say it that way.”

“It might sound terrible, but we also know that people do some pretty rotten things, and you don’t necessarily have any idea where they’re coming from or why it happened, but it did. So you just go with it.”

“Maybe.” Meghan didn’t seem to be too happy with that explanation.

“If you think of anything else, let me know.”

Feeling that had been a very odd conversation, Doreen headed back across the park to the other side where she had parked her car. As she turned, Meghan still stared at her.

Doreen frowned, wondering exactly what was going on here.

When Meghan didn’t do or say anything else, Doreen waved, and, not waiting for a response, she got her animals into her vehicle and started to drive home.

Only as she put her car into Drive and pulled out onto the road did Meghan wave and shout something.

Doreen hit the brakes, then frowned and wondered if she was supposed to go see Meghan, who was now headed over to her.

As soon as she got abreast of her, Meghan asked, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Doreen looked at her and sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Eli, but I will try to find out. I would definitely need a little bit more than his first name though. Right now, he is just Eli, and I need more.”

Meghan winced. “Eli, but I can’t think of the last name. It’s been so long. Honestly I’m not sure I ever knew it. He was years ahead of me at Kelowna Secondary school. No clue where he went before then.”

“Okay, if you come up with anything else, I’ll try to find out more about him, but there could be nothing.”

“Right,” she muttered, turning to look at the grave. “He was really tall.”

And such sadness filled her tone that Doreen asked her again, “What’s the reason behind your concern though?”

Meghan hesitated, then nodded. “I know that you’re trying to get me to admit something,” she began, “but, even at this stage in my life, it will be very hard for me to go against what everybody had us doing back then.”

“You mean, generally being mean to people?”

“Yeah, generally being mean to people,” she repeated. “I know it was wrong. I mean, I really know it was wrong. I just didn’t have any way to get away from what everybody else was doing, so I could be free of it.”

Doreen suggested, “Sometimes you just have to be you and don’t let anybody else tell you what you should look like.”

“It’s not that easy,” Meghan declared, frowning at Doreen. “Back then, some really big people would have been upset.”

Doreen stared at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, there are always bosses, and I was weak. And, if you didn’t do what everybody else told you to do, well, you didn’t get anywhere.”

“And you wanted to get somewhere?” Doreen asked.

“We all wanted to get somewhere,” she cried out. “You can’t blame me for that.”

“I’m not blaming you for anything,” Doreen stated, staring at her. “Really, I’m not. You’re blaming yourself.”

Meghan started to cry. “He was really sweet, and everybody was so ugly to him.”

“Would they have treated him ugly enough to have killed him?”

The woman stared at her in shock, then looked back at the grave and shuddered. “I don’t know.… I don’t know.”

And, with that, she turned and bolted in the opposite direction of the park.