Page 7 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

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D oreen jumped out of bed, looked at the animals, and announced, “Time to eat, and we need to do it fast—or we’ll have to convince Mack to stop and pick up something on the way.”

She raced downstairs, fed them, and, with everybody busily munching away, she grabbed her coffee and managed to get one cup halfway down before he pulled into her driveway.

She put on her extra layers to protect her from the cold weather.

With the animals not protesting, now picking up on her excitement, she headed them all out to his vehicle.

He smiled at her, petting all the animals, and asked, “You ready to go?”

“More or less. I wasn’t sure if we would stop and pick up coffee or what.”

“We can,” he said agreeably. “Absolutely no reason not to.”

With a beaming smile, she nodded. “I did manage to get almost one cup of coffee but only that.”

He gave her a fat smile. “Right. Let’s go then.”

Soon they hit the nearest drive-through, and very quickly she was nursing a large hot coffee and smiling, quite content to be where she was today.

“You look as if this is quite the field trip,” he noted, glancing at her sideways.

She nodded. “And a good one,” she admitted. “I’m really happy to be here today.”

“Good to know. Normally you’re not quite so agreeable.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “Not about going to the department to give a statement or to share my ideas that haven’t worked out in my head yet, no. But today? I get to come out with you to the crime scene, so that’s a whole different story.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” he muttered. He smiled and asked, “Did you get any breakfast?”

She shook her head. “No, I fed the animals. Then the choice for me was coffee or food.”

He pulled into another drive-through and ordered breakfast sandwiches for both of them.

She laughed. “So, was that something you were planning on doing already, or something you just figured out that we needed, since I hadn’t eaten?”

“Not eating,” he stated, staring her down, “will burn you through blood sugars and make you even more tired than you can imagine. We have to be prepared for anything, and that means you must have food in your stomach.”

“I’m good with that,” she replied, giving him a pleased smile.

When the breakfast sandwiches were handed to him, she suggested, “Can we just go to the park and eat there?”

“We can.”

And that’s what they ended up doing. With the animals outside with them, she walked them over to a tree stump nearby, where she sat and proceeded to polish off her breakfast sandwich.

As she crumbled up her empty wrapper, she looked over at him and asked, “How come they’re so… moreish ? As in, I could eat more?”

He smiled. “It goes along with the whole setting, doesn’t it? It’s an outing. It’s fun, and occasionally… it’s nice to have a treat,” he added, “but you are right. They are moreish .”

“Yet you only had one,” she noted, frowning at him.

“Only needed one,” he replied, with a shrug. “I’m a big guy, but that doesn’t mean that I need to eat all the time, every time.”

“Which means you had breakfast earlier.”

“Which means I had breakfast earlier,” he agreed, with a nod.

“I wasn’t expecting this invitation today, so I was still in bed.”

“Really?” he asked, frowning at her.

She nodded. “I had my laptop open, and the animals were around me, but we weren’t pushing on anything in particular just yet.”

“That’s not a bad thing either,” he said. “You can always relax, as you decide which something you can be working on.”

“That’s what I figured, but then you called. So I jumped up, fed them, and carried on.”

He smiled and nodded. “The animals appear to be totally okay with spending some time out here with us.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked, with a chuckle. “You’re their favorite visitor. So, as far as they’re concerned, any time you come, it just means fun times. Plus, I want them with me. They are all very special to me.”

“Of course they are,” he said. “In many ways, they’re the reason you survived every attack over the last eight or nine months.”

“I definitely survived, and they are the reason I did.”

Immediately his expression dropped. “No matter how much I try to keep you safe…”

“And I appreciate all your efforts. I do. Plus, I am doing my best to stay safe too,” she admitted. “At least I’m trying to…” He gave her an eye roll at that. She chuckled. “So, what will we do here?”

“I want to get a bunch of photos of the lay of the land, so I can compare the area over the years,” he explained. “Just backup information for any potential court case, you know, trying to get on top of it before we end up buried in so much other stuff.”

“So while we’re waiting for the information to come back from Elizabeth, we’re doing some of the basic prep work for a trial.”

“That’s a good way to put it,” he agreed. With the animals walking at their sides, he took a bunch of photos and measurements.

She had been quiet for a long while, but now she broke the silence. “It just seems so odd that somebody that size could disappear.”

“Not really. What if he was driving down to the coast and never told anyone? What if he and his wife split, and he just decided he didn’t want to live here anymore? I mean, there are all kinds of possibilities.”

“But sad ones,” she said.

He glanced at her and nodded. “Potentially sad ones. If we get into specifics, then a lot of life can be sad.”

Her face fell. “I know.… I guess I’m still looking for happy endings.”

Startled, he smiled at her. “That’s a very interesting concept, considering you’re the one who so often finds such very unhappy endings.”

“Yet I think that finding closure for everybody is what makes me happy at some point,” she clarified. “Obviously we don’t want these murders to continue.”

“Do you think this one continued to kill other people?” he asked her. “I mean, so often you do connect your cases to my cases,” he noted, “and I never really understand how.”

“Instinct,” she replied.

“Which doesn’t hold up in court.”

“I know that, trust me,” she said. “And it’s one of the reasons why I struggle because I think people need to be better. I think they should be nicer to each other.”

“Of course they should,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t mean they will be, at least not on your say-so.”

She glared at him. “They should.”

He grinned. “Yes, they absolutely should. But whoever did this… could also potentially be either very old, like Bernard Winters, or already dead. You need to prepare yourself for that.”

“I know,” she muttered, “but I don’t want them to be dead. I want them brought to justice.”

“So, you’re assuming foul play was involved?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Do you really think it’s possible it wasn’t foul play?”

“Sure. He fell off a building and someone found him on the sidewalk, already dead. They buried him instead of reporting it. Yeah, not a great example, but all I’m saying is, you can’t jump to conclusions.”

“Why not?” she muttered. “It seems to me that is something people do all the time.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t lead to the facts. And we need evidence.”

She groaned. “I’ll give you that.”

When he was done documenting the current state of the crime scene and beyond, he looked around and nodded.

“Not a whole lot that can be done here, is there?” she asked, as she too looked around.

“No, not at this stage, but we must get everything we might need before we release it back to the city. I understand the park will be reopened to the public soon.”

“Do you think anybody will care that someone was buried here?”

He nodded. “Plus, I wanted to see if anybody would come back to the scene of the crime, now that the crime scene tape is gone, and it’s been opened up to the public again.”

Her eyes widened with excitement, as she slowly nodded. “That is a really good point.”

“Thank you,” he replied, with a mock bow. “I would like to think I can be of service occasionally.”

She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “Oh, stop. You do an incredible job, and you know it. I’m the one who just blunders around in the dark and somehow manages to get people to either talk or to make a mistake.”

“I think any unidentified criminals are all scared of you,” he said.

She frowned, then nodded. “You could be right.”

“Hey, I was joking,” he replied, raising his hands in defense under her piercing gaze.

“No, I think you’re right. I think they’re scared of me because I delve into these cases and then won’t let it go. So, then they’re afraid of what I could find—or what I will find.”

“That makes sense,” he admitted. “The thing is, if you bring up fear in people, they tend to lash out.”

“Exactly, and I’m not too bothered about them lashing out verbally. Sometimes I’m tempted to do a little more lashing out right back, especially if people will be jerks about it all.”

He smiled. “I don’t think they’re necessarily being jerks. They’re just following their instincts for self-preservation.”

“I am on my way after them,” she announced, “so, if they don’t like it, they’ll have to run.”

He frowned at her and added, “Let’s not announce that to the world. I really don’t want you to get hurt.”

She smiled. “I’m not planning on getting hurt.”

“You might not plan on it,” he noted, giving her a death stare, “but we both know how quickly the tide can turn. You’ve had an incredible amount of luck with solving these cold cases and with surviving people attacking you,” he pointed out.

“So, yes, by now, you’ve made a lot of really interesting deductions that ended up being correct, something that warrant a scientific study in itself,” he murmured, followed by a headshake.

“But the bottom line is that we don’t always have answers—or the ability to keep you safe. ”

“Which is why I have the animals with me,” she shared, with a sweet smile, then caught sight of an older couple, slowly walking through the park, holding hands.

Mack saw it too and smiled. “It’s nice to see, isn’t it?”

“It is very nice to see,” she began. “But then again, based on what you were just saying about people returning to the crime scene—”

“Do you really think that old couple is somebody returning to the crime scene?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Not necessarily,” she conceded, with a headshake. “But considering the estimated age of our victim, it certainly could be.”

“Good point,” he muttered. He put down his cup of coffee and said, “Wait here with the animals, please.” With that, he strode off in the direction of the couple.