Page 52 of Claimed
Chapter Sixteen
Zach couldn’t fly back to the compound with Katie. He had to return to his shifts at the hospital in Queens, where he worked as a resident. Jasper had flown him on his own private flight back to New York City and insisted that he stay in his apartment in Manhattan,where he would be kept under guard. Zach didn’t want any special treatment, but Jasper was able to convince him by explaining that as long as Katie loved him, he could be used as a pawn in a long-standing war between families that was close to ending.
Jasper gave him two choices. “Go with them back to the compound or live within my security measures.”
Zach tried to present a thirdoption, which was have Jasper’s security personnel come to his small apartment, which was above a meat store. Jasper wouldn’t budge, and after Zach saw pictures of the place, his arm didn’t need to be twisted any longer. So Bryn and Katie returned to the compound together, while Beth was flown west to begin her time at a famous drug rehabilitation center in the California desert.
Jasperand I had one more stop before securing ourselves in the luxurious compound where Jasper promised we would finally relax, make love, and eat a lot of Chef Bart’s food. We had flown to Charleston, West Virginia.
It was early in the evening when Jasper’s rental car rolled to a stop in front of a white house with large, tall eaves facing the front, flanked by a redbrick fireplace on each sideof the house. Warm light glowed along the edge of the curtains. Even though the yard was covered with snow, it had a lot of space. The trees had been beaten by the cold spell that had befallen the country that winter, but I could tell that in spring, their branches would carry healthy green leaves. The mailbox was made like an old tree house and had the name Hollander engraved on the front.
“This is it,” he said, looking at the house in awe.
“Yep,” I said, still studying the scale of the property Jasper’s grandparents had made for themselves, trying to assess what sort of people they were.
“What are you thinking?” Jasper asked.
I quickly turned to look at him. If Jasper asked that question, then he wanted me to really tell him the truth, no sugarcoating.“They seem to be people of means.”
“I suspect my father had something to do with that,” he hissed.
I raised my eyebrows. “Perhaps. I’m sure you’ve been trying to find any payments that were made to them.”
“I have.”
“Any luck?”
He hesitated as his eyebrows pulled together. “No.”
I faced the house again in time to see another light turn on in the part thatappeared to be the living room. The grandparents were definitely home and actively moving from room to room.
An unexpected yawn escaped me. “Sorry about that.”
Jasper reached out to take my hand. “I’m glad you’re here with me, but if you prefer to rest, we can check in to a hotel and come back tomorrow morning.”
I was worn out, that was for sure, but I’d spent years pressingon despite exhaustion. Plus, we were about to embark on a significant piece of the puzzle to the mystery of Amelia Christmas’s past. My body was tired, but the investigative journalist in me had the stamina of a superhero. We were about to discover if Harold and Marie Hollander’s gene pool was as despicable as Randolph Christmas’s.
I squeezed his hand. “I’m fine, my love. We’re here now,so let’s not drag out the inevitable.”
He nodded. Earlier, Jasper had vacillated between contacting the Hollanders to let them know he would be visiting and just showing up on their doorstep. The second option prevailed. But we already knew his grandparents had been contacted the previous morning with the information that their daughter had passed. Jasper’s friend at the bureau told himthat as someone who’d been working with missing persons for fifteen years, he couldn’t say for a fact that the Hollanders had known their daughter was still alive. He told Jasper that Marie Hollander had broken down over the phone at the news that her daughter had lived long enough to become a grown woman. Then they pressed for details about her life. Jasper’s contact told them he would share moreonce he knew more. Of course, that was a stalling tactic.
Jasper was at the Hollanders’ home to learn what they truly knew and to tell them what they didn’t know. However, ever since that conversation with his bureau contact, he had taken the edge off of his anger toward his grandparents, which told me that even though he wasn’t willing to voice it, he had some ray of hope that they weregood people.
Jasper surveyed the scene again and asked me to say seated. He got out of the car, shuffled around to the front, and opened my door. After I got out, we smiled pensively at each other.
“You look beautiful this evening,” he said.
I beamed at him. “So do you.”
Our kiss was short but as warm, sensual, and sweet as usual. Even under the circumstances, my mindfloated to that familiar place it went to whenever Jasper kissed me.
As we walked up the driveway, I wasn’t sure if Jasper knew how tightly he was gripping my hand. When we made it to the snow-layered sidewalk, he took a deep, steadying breath. I wasn’t sure he was aware of that, either. Here was the brave man I had come to know—cool, calm, and collected in the most contentious situations,and though he was clearly more nervous than usual, he kept going as our breathing and the sound of our feet scrunching the ice resonated. Then we made it to the porch. Without taking another second to collect himself, Jasper rang the doorbell.
