Page 3 of Desire
My thoughts raced through all the actions I should take in order to move forward effectively with my day, ones that did not include the Christmases.
Jimmi, an editor who I often worked for, had never run the story I’d submitted before my trip to the Christmasmansion because I had ignored his request to get one more source on record in order to back up my claims against a corrupt judge. Bringing down judges was a tricky business, and if a journalist was to take a strike at one, then she’d better not miss. I hadn’t missed, and I could’ve easily found that other source if heartbreak hadn’t kept me bedridden for the past two weeks.
Shit, that wasn’tlike me at all. Regardless, the story had never been published. And Jimmi was pissed, threatening to stop work with me if I ever ignored him again. But I was the only journalist who’d written the story, and that meant if he wanted breaking news, then he damn well had to work with me.
Regardless, my mind was preoccupied for days. I couldn’t let go of my investigation of the Christmases,not yet at least. It wasn’t Jasper who was tethering me to them—it was Bryn. My reasoning told me her disappearance had something to do with Arthur Valentine wanting her to marry his son. The Valentines had an awful reputation.
The Christmases’ image, even through their apparent darkness, had remained unsullied. Jasper and Bryn’s value to Arthur Valentine was as clear to me as a shot ofvodka. Those of us who reported on power always knew Arthur Valentine was very much like Joe Kennedy. He would wheel, deal, destroy, and build to have ultimate power in the palm of his hands.
But the Valentine family’s good name had been ruined. Twenty-five years ago, the family’s political aspirations were halted after the great Daniel Arroyo, one of the top investigative reporters inthe world, broke a story about the deception of Conrad Valentine, Arthur’s father. Daniel had discovered Conrad’s World War II story, which depicted him as a hero, had been fabricated to score political points. It was a carefully crafted manipulation laid out in a twenty-page exposé. The report had ruined the Valentine family’s chances of ever gaining access to the highest political seat in the land,and rightfully so. No matter how many decades had passed, the Valentines’ deception would haunt them.
But all the pieces came together in my head. I had no doubt that Arthur Valentine wanted Jasper and Bryn to be his soap, his abrasive pad that would scrub his image clean. Also, I suddenly understood why Bryn was yanked out of college after her first year. She was a bad girl, into bad shit,like drugs, fucking married professors, and even cheating on exams. Three more years of college, and she would’ve created for herself a reputation that rivaled that of Conrad Valentine yet in her own unique way.
It dawned on me that for all those years, Bryn had been something like a prisoner held in her family home. If only she could’ve sullied her good reputation to extricate herselffrom Valentine’s and Randolph Christmas’s expectations. Without a shadow of a doubt, I believed the reason she had given me entrance into the Christmas world was so that I could dirty her good name. She’d wanted me to destroy her, as I had the Howsleys. However, I believed she had given up on me and that was why she’d faked her own death. Of course, I had no evidence she’d faked it, other than myintuition and experience with solid evidence. I believed she had taken the situation of never giving into expectations in her own hands. I could still help her, though. I had collected a lot of pieces of the dark Christmas puzzle during my stay at their family estate, but so far, I had no idea how to fit them together. I would, though. I wanted to.
I thought long and hard about the jobmy friend had entrusted me with as I walked back to my office. My mind raced back to the day we’d first met. She had plucked me out of obscurity. It was because of Bryn Christmas that all the girls at the university regarded me with a certain level of respect long after she’d dropped out. I had never been ungrateful for all that she had given me, and I wasn’t going to start being unappreciative now.
When I got backto my desk, the first thing I did was call the lab in California to ask for theresults of the DNA I had collected and submitted two weeks before. I’d acquired DNA from the Christmas siblings along with a hairbrush that was given to me by Sally Preacher, the longtime personal maid of Amelia Christmas.
Rich, from the lab, said he’d been waiting to hear from me. My heart sank to my feet, and my insides felt as if they’d turned to stone as he read me the results. Whathe was telling me made no sense whatsoever, or perhaps it made all the sense in the world.
First of all, Bryn, Ashe, and Spencer were not related to Amelia Rainier Christmas. She wasn’t their mother. However, she was Jasper’s mother, which meant my earlier and very disturbing guess was right. Amelia Christmas had given birth to Jasper when she was only fifteen and Randolph was in his sixties.Essentially, he’d broken the law by marrying and having sex with such a young girl. That was enough information to stain their reputable image, or was it? Their story could easily spin into one of those unique but taboo love stories. I shook my head. The fact that Randolph had remained married to Amelia until the day she died made it difficult to depict him as a pervert.
Then Rich droppedanother shoe. None of the siblings shared the same maternal link, but they did have the same father. That was when my instincts blared, and I was sure he was a pervert. I just had to prove it without a shadow of a doubt.
Two words came to mind—Chattanooga, Tennessee. The city was one of my puzzle pieces that had no connection other than Gina, a very damaged prostitute. She’d told me shewas from that place and that was where she had first met Randolph Christmas. She’d known he went to a certain house when visiting that city and had given me the address. I’d shared the address with a reporter friend and colleague of mine, Kylie Roberson, who—because she had crossed the line so many times while investigating the Christmases—had been forbidden to ever investigate them again. She hadpaid a coroner to defy rules of privacy. We’d all paid off sources to get classified information from time to time, but Kylie had gotten caught. Instead of ruining her career, Jasper had made her agree to stop investigating the Christmases. Hidden somewhere under lock and key, he must’ve kept the evidence that could still destroy her. I should’ve hated him for doing that to my friend, but I didn’t.All was fair in the game of the reporter and the reported. She had lost. Jasper had won. And that was that.
Perhaps I could find something there that would lead me to the mothers of the other siblings. I had no doubt in my mind that Randolph Christmas had gone there to do some dirty business, which had more to do with sex than building his empire. I suspected that because the lead had comefrom Gina.
Stimulated by ambition, I rose to my feet and turned to look out the window. Snow raced to the earth, speeding to the land just as fast as my thoughts raced. Then clarity struck me, and I knew exactly what to do next.
