Read Online REMEMBER US by Glenna Sinclair - Free Book Online Page A

for a few days, had the car fixed, and made sure no one saw me at the scene. He might even have paid off the cops, but I’m not too sure about that. It’s not something he talks about often.”
    “You can’t really think that Xander would be as understanding. He doesn’t have the same bond with you that your father does.”
    She stood slowly, coming toward me with the gun outstretched between us. “Xander loves me. He always has. If I’d told him about the accident, he would have helped me just like Daddy did. He did it once before. What’s another hit and run when you’ve already walked down that road?”
    “If you love him, how can you be so unaware of who he is as a person?”
    Margaret’s face tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means that Xander carried around a hell of a lot of guilt after the first accident. Do you know that he stayed in contact with the victim? That he used to send him money and that he sends money to his daughter now? Did you know that Xander attended the trial that sent the man to jail for nine years, and that he plans to go to his first parole hearing in six months?”
    Margaret stared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.
    “He doesn’t do that.”
    “He does. And when he first told me about it, he said he was driving. That’s how much he cares about you. He never told anyone the truth until today. Until he was trying to save your dad from his own fate.”
    “Xander?”
    “He was the one feeding the feds information on your dad. Did you know that? Did you know they threatened his mother? Did you know that what I was doing that day, trying to meet with that reporter, was just to protect Xander?”
    “But Xander wouldn’t turn on my dad. He knows how much that would hurt me.”
    “Yeah, well, he was doing it. Maybe his mother meant more to him than you.”
    Margaret shook her head, her dark eyes widened by emotion. Her hand was shaking. I thought that maybe if I timed it right, I could knock it out of her hand. But then her focus cleared, and she stared at me.
    “You’re lying. You’re just trying to upset me so that you can run. But that’s not happening.”
    “I’m just telling you the truth, Margaret. No one is really who you think they are. Not even Xander.”
    Tears started to roll down her cheeks. “All I know is that my dad is going to jail because of you. And Xander is gone because of you. That’s all that matters.”
    I inclined my head slightly. “You saw Xander when I was in the hospital. You saw how he refused to leave my side, saw how he brought me here even when I didn’t know who he was. Do you really think he’d get over my death that easily?”
    “I’ll help him through it.”
    She gestured with the gun. “Let’s go into the sitting room. It’ll be more believable there.”
    I reluctantly turned, leading the way. She poked the gun into my back, causing me to step wrong on my injured leg. I stumbled and nearly fell. My hand slammed into the wall and my chest followed.  I suddenly realized that Xander’s cellphone was in the front pocket of the shirt, and I carefully took it out and held it in my palm.
    Margaret grabbed my arm and pulled me up straight.
    “Come on, let’s go.”
    “My leg,” I moaned, stumbling slightly again.
    She groaned, but she held me under my arm to help me into the sitting room.
    Xander’s phone was small, several generations behind the iPhone. I teased him about being too attached to the thing, but I was glad he still had it now. Margaret could see it if I held my hand at the right angle. And I knew the phone the phone fairly intimately. I’d watched Xander use it millions of times, and I’d dialed it for him over and again whenever we went on long drives together. I knew exactly which set of hot buttons to use to get the person I wanted.
    I just had to stall a few minutes longer.
    “You realize he’s just upstairs, waiting for me to come back with ice cream, right?”
    “Then we need