Page 16 of Claimed
Chapter Five
Ithought Jasper was going to attempt to navigate the horrendous traffic that came with snow-covered roads, but a break in the conditions allowed the helicopter pilot to see his way through the sky with better visibility. I couldn’t look away from Jasper to admire howthe mist snaked through the skyscrapers below. He was on a call with his contact at the FBI and was taking the blame for submitting the DNA specimens to the lab in LA. Whomever he was speaking to was doing most of the talking. My headset was playing “These Foolish Things” by Billie Holiday. It had been so long since I’d heard that song, which felt beautifully appropriate for the moment. Every timeI tried to deny it, I couldn’t: I was in love with Jasper Christmas. Even if our relationship ended badly, I was content with knowing that the love we had made, the conversations we’d had, and just being near to him were the best things I’d ever experienced.
I watched his mouth move, reading his lips the best I could. I made out “family” and “missing.” He also might have said, “grandparents.”Still on the phone, he broke our eye contact to rub a hand over his face. Jasper did that whenever he felt distressed. Then we were looking at each other again. He said a few more words and ended the call.
The helicopter flew closer to the earth and stopped in midair. I gave Jasper a final smile before looking out the window to see how the aircraft slowly made its way down to the helipadon the top of a towering building. Once we were in position, the pilot got out and opened the door on my side. As he had done while boarding, he instructed me to keep my head down as Jasper and I held hands, racing toward an open door in the building.
The difference from outside to inside was jarring. The cold air threatened to freeze my face off. Not only was I missing my gloves, but Ihad also forgotten my scarf and earmuffs before leaving that morning. This was usually the time of year when I started planning a long two-week vacation to at least three tropical-island destinations. But nothing in my life was how it used to be—I was holding hands with this beautiful man.
Two burly men in suits held the doors open as we walked past them into a carpeted hallway, which hadgorgeous photos of New York City on the walls. The fact that Jasper’s security was pretty tight wasn’t lost on me. He’d often warned me that these were dangerous times. Even though I felt all of his worries in the tightness of his grip, I knew right then that I was in the safest place possible, which was by his side. But I couldn’t wait to hear what his FBI contact had to say about Amelia Christmas’skidnapping. I also wanted to know if Jasper had heard anything about Bryn’s whereabouts. Then there was this fairy tale I felt as if I was living in. It was dangerous but safe, dark but light, and happy but sad. My existence was saturated with so many binaries that I still didn’t know whether I was coming or going.
Even that exact moment felt surreal as I watched Jasper use his thumbprintto open the elevator doors. He guided me inside it. Before I could ask about Amelia Christmas, he pressed my back against the mirror-glass wall. My arms were above my head, his hands around my wrists. I was in complete surrender as our mouths merged. And just like that, all the things I’d been thinking about faded from my mind, and all I wanted was more of what was happening right then and there.
“Finally, I have you to myself—all to my fucking self.” His words came out hot and heavy on my lips.
His mouth struggled to break contact with mine, but finally, he pushed the button. It was only then that I realized we hadn’t moved up or down since entering the elevator.
We were kissing again—feverishly, greedily, as if we had only one more time to do it and then never again.One of those binaries came into play again: this felt so wrong yet so right. The elevator ride was short, only one floor up. The door slid open. Jasper ended our kiss. The lightheadedness was leaving me as I observed the gray light from the dank day filling the space. This was nothing like the Christmas mansion. This was the quintessential bachelor pad. The place was very modern, and everythinginside it—including a window showing the New York skyline—stood out. The furniture was comprised of comfy black-leather sofas and couches with silver armrests and legs. A large black, white, and silver coffee table was the central point for all the furniture. There were matching long silver tables with decorative pieces made of metal, crystal, ivory, and obsidian. The furniture sat on a humongousarea rug that contained a design of a black-and-white photo of the back of a young woman in a sundress, her hair blowing in the wind as she stood at the edge of the shoreline, looking toward a lighthouse on top of a rock cliff. I couldn’t look away from the graphic. I felt as if I’d seen the landscape before.
“Was that shot taken at the Christmas mansion?” I asked, pointing at the rug.
“Yes.” Jasper’s voice came from behind me, and I became aware that I’d walked deeper into his space, compelled to drink it in. After all, I had just been given access to another side of Jasper Christmas I never knew existed.
There were lots of black-and-white landscapes on the wall, blown up to about seventy-eight by forty-two inches—poster-sized, stylishly framed photos. There wasone with Jasper, Spencer, and Asher, their shirtless arms around each other’s necks, smiling as if they were the epitome of happiness and brotherhood. They were boys, really, on their way to becoming men. Their smiles made me smile. There was another one of Bryn with a hand covering one side of her face as she played coy for the camera. She had to have been fifteen or sixteen years old. It was aside of her I’d never seen before or could have imagined existed.
“Who took these?” I asked, standing in front of the one of Bryn.
Jasper was now standing beside me. “Amelia.”
I snapped my attention to Jasper then studied the rest of the photos, but this time, I looked at them differently, as though I was looking through the window to Amelia Christmas’s soul while rememberingshe had been kidnapped. One photo was of two little boys in sailor suits, running on the grass and holding up toy airplanes, the bay in the distance. Another was of Jasper standing at the window but turning to look over his shoulder while smiling at the camera. I could see the affection he had for whomever was taking the picture.
Then I was struck by a very heartbreaking thought. “How areyou dealing with the possibility that your mother may have been abducted?”
Jasper studied me for a moment. “My mother wasn’t a prisoner in our home.” His frown intensified. “Why didn’t she leave when she had a chance?”
It felt heartless to voice a few of the possibilities that ran through my mind, so I nodded gently. His and Amelia’s lives could have been threatened, or even worse,Randolph could have made her leave Jasper with him if she’d chosen to go home to her family.
Finally, Jasper took a deep breath through his nostrils, which made him pull his shoulders back and stand up straight. “I didn’t know this film existed until after my mother died. I used to see her with her camera every now and then, snapping photos here and there, but she never had the film developed.”
I respected the sort of silence that lingered between us. Jasper was not finished speaking. He was merely collecting his thoughts.
“She didn’t take one photo where my brothers and sister and I weren’t happy. I’d forgotten every single moment and still can only sparsely remember them.”
I wanted to say something that would ease the melancholy. However, his candidness had broughtup memories that put us in similar shoes. When I thought of my life as a child, I could only remember being miserable, hungry, and cold and asking God why he’d given me to the worst parents on the face of the earth.
“I want my mother’s soul to rest in peace, Holly. That’s how I feel.”
I nodded. “I understand. You must’ve loved her an awful lot.”
He looked down at me. “I did.”
“How did you find those pictures?”
He narrowed an eye. “Are you asking as a journalist or as my girlfriend?”
I grinned flirtatiously. “Am I your girlfriend?”
He smirked. “At least for now.”
