Little Stolen Memories: New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

Chapter 24

The three of us sat in silence for a time, and I waited for Xander to tell his brother what happened to him when he was in high school. But Xander didn’t seem interested in talking or in clearing up the confusion. He stared at the floor, somber and grim, like he wanted the conversation to end, but I saw no way forward until we tackled the demons from his past.

Marcus made a few more attempts to get Xander to talk. When his efforts didn’t yield a result, he shifted the conversation back my way.

“Who told you my brother was tied to a tree when he was in high school?” Marcus asked.

“Who told me doesn’t matter,” I said. “What matters is that the story is true. Your brother was bullied by several of his fellow classmates.”

“Who would have done such a thing? And why? What did my brother do to warrant that kind of treatment?”

“The ringleader and his friends were the same teens who were murdered,” I said. “They picked on your brother at school sometimes. They teased him, berated him, pretended like they wanted to be his friend, even though they didn’t. They lured him to the park, got him drunk, stripped him down to his underwear, and then hung a sign around his neck.”

Marcus looked at Xander. “Is what she’s saying true? Tell me.”

Without looking up, Xander nodded and said, “Let’s not do this right now, okay?”

“Uhh … we’re doing it,” Marcus said. “I want to know what happened that day in the park.”

“Why? It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter,” Marcus said. “I don’t understand why you never told me.”

The fact Marcus knew nothing about the extent to which his brother had been treated in high school came as a surprise.

What else didn’t he know?

Marcus shook his head, leaning back in the chair as he huffed out an irritated, “Come on, Xander. Talk to me. I need to know why this is the first time I’m hearing this story.”

Xander looked up, and I leaned toward him, curious to know what he was about to say.

“Dad thought it was best not to talk about it, so we didn’t,” Xander said. “You remember how Dad was about this stuff. He didn’t like drama, didn’t like to admit that I wasn’t liked or accepted in school. He wanted us both to be tough. To complain about anything, no matter how big or small, was seen as a sign of weakness. To show emotion of any kind was … well, unacceptable.”

“Dad was an avoider, yes,” Marcus said. “He hated talking about feelings, about anything that mattered. I’m not him. You could have come to me. I would have listened. I would have been there for you.”

“You’d moved to Visalia, and you were busy with your own life. Besides, it wasn’t like I wanted to admit what they did to me. I wasn’t proud of it.”

“Why did they treat you that way?”

Xander glanced in my direction, studying my face like he was trying to decide if I knew the entire story or just bits and pieces of it.

Did I know about the prank calls the girls thought he’d made, the heavy breathing, the word game he’d played with Aubree? Rather than keep him in suspense, I decided to shed light on what I’d been told.

“I know about the phone calls you made, Xander,” I said.

“What phone calls?” Marcus asked.

Xander buried his head in his hands.

For such a strong, brawny man, he appeared fragile and weak to me now, much more like the boy Cora had described.

Frustrated, Marcus pressed his brother for information, saying, “What phone calls?”

Xander lowered his voice. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say something,” Marcus said, arms splayed. “Because right now, I don’t understand any of it.”

“I’m not in the right frame of mind to have this conversation,” Xander said. “I’m going through a lot right now. I don’t want to drag my past into it, all right? I can’t. I just … I can’t.”

Marcus faced me and said, “You can. Can’t you?”

I supposed most people in my current predicament would have felt awkward to be put into a position like the one Marcus had just put me in. But since Xander remained quiet and hadn’t piped up with an objection about me filling in the gaps, I decided to accommodate his brother’s request.

“In Xander’s senior year of high school, some of his female classmates started receiving prank phone calls,” I said. “The male who made the calls waited for the girls to answer, and then he breathed heavily into the phone while saying the girls’ names.”

“That’s it? No threats or anything?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Why do you assume my brother is to blame?”

“During one of the calls, he played a word game with the young woman on the other end of the line. She believed the caller gave her a scrambled version of his name, which turned out to be Xander.”

“Did Xander ever admit to making the calls?”

“No,” I said. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Unless he comes right out and says he did it, I’d bet he didn’t. Seems to me the word game was just another way for the school bullies to blame one more thing on my brother.”

“Given we’re sitting here with your brother, it seems like an easy thing to clear up, wouldn’t you say?”

We turned our attention to Xander, and I said, “If you made those calls, now’s the time to set the record straight.”

Xander remained quiet.

I figured he wasn’t going to speak on the matter, but then he looked up, his tear-filled eyes full of remorse, and said, “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“You never meant to hurt anyone,” Marcus repeated. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying … it was me. I did it. I made those calls.”

Marcus shot out of his chair, pacing the room as he chastised his brother. “Why in the world would you do such a thing?”

“I … I don’t know. I was bored, and I liked hearing the sound of their voices. I liked knowing they were giving their attention to me.”

“They weren’t giving their attention to you,” Marcus said. “Not willingly. They were scared.”

Xander shrugged. “I made a mistake.”

Marcus shook his head, looking over at me and saying, “I’m sorry. I think it’s best if you go now. I need to speak to my brother in private.”

I respected Marcus’s position, but I had more questions—questions it seemed I wasn’t getting answered today.

Marcus walked me out of the room, his expression one of dismay and confusion.

He opened the front door and said, “This doesn’t change anything. My brother may have made some inappropriate phone calls because he was seeking attention. It doesn’t make him a killer.”

I walked to the car wondering who Marcus was trying to convince about Xander’s innocence more—me … or himself?