Intrigued: The Dark Christmases

by Arkadie, Z. L.

  I didn’t have to walk far up a dirt road until I met the paved street. Home free. I took out my cell phone, and even though my fingers were nearly numb, I performed a regional search for Sally Preacher, which didn’t take long. There was only one in Providence, so I figured she had to be who I was looking for. Next, I called an Uber, which would pick me up within fifteen minutes. To keep myself occupied, I did some more research. There weren’t any photos of Amelia Christmas on the internet, so I shot a quick message to Kylie and asked if she had any.

  She messaged back immediately: Are you using their internet?

  I replied quickly: No. I’m off the property. My hotspot. Send pics if you have them and I’ll call u when I’m in the Uber.

  Kylie answered by sending a gallery of photographs of Amelia Christmas.

  I studied one after the other, enlarging them, taking in every aspect of her face. Then I noticed something about Amelia that I wondered if Kylie had ever questioned.

  * * *

  “It’s one reason why I wanted that coroner report,” Kylie said. “Amelia always looked stressed, which made her appear older, but her true age is—”

  “In the eyes,” I said.

  “Yes,” Kylie said.

  I was in the back seat of the Uber, heading to Sally Preacher’s house. The heat was on full blast, and my body felt as if it were thawing after being on ice.

  I heard a flight number being called in the background. “Are you at the airport?” I asked.

  Kylie coughed then sneezed. “Yes. I’m following up on that lead you sent me.”

  My jaw dropped. “That was quick.”

  “Well, I’m motivated. And by the way, I’m not supposed to engage in any investigation of that family we talked about. But…”

  I smiled from ear to ear. “They’re your unfinished business.”

  Silence fell between us.

  However, the driver said, “No way,” gossiping with whomever had just said something to her through her ear pods.

  “And before I board, I want to send you some other facts I’ve unearthed,” Kylie said. “I was supposed to destroy everything I had on them, but I didn’t.”

  I grinned. “Of course you didn’t.” My email chimed, alerting me of a new message. “Got it. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” I could tell she was walking fast by her accelerated breaths. “I’ll tell you what I find, and then I’ll have to wait for you to finish the rest. Good luck, Holls. May you get further than I did.” She ended the call.

  The driver, who appeared to be barely out of high school, whipped around a corner, heading onto the interstate at around fifty miles per hour. She was laughing at something her friend said.

  I figured the best thing for me to do was to keep my head down and pray I made it to Sally Preacher’s in one piece. So I opened the email Kylie had sent me and started reading. The first attachment was an interview with a college friend of Asher’s named Peter Turgot. He claimed people had wanted to get to know Asher because he was a Christmas. Peter said Asher had done everything he could to make everyone see him as a normal person, even sell poppers at frat parties. That was how Asher had gotten involved in chemistry. He’d come to be known around campus as Santa Claus because he would always show up with the best dope.

  However, Kylie noted that she couldn’t get anyone on the record about how one of his concoctions had caused multiple overdoses. She’d sent me a list of people whose palms had been greased by Jasper. A guy named Benjamin Dow had actually pled guilty to making the drugs. According to Kylie’s notes, he had been released from prison after serving nine months of an eight-year sentence. She’d included a list of her current observations on Benjamin Dow:

  Benji’s house, San Francisco, CA – $3,789,999

  Car – Mercedes G-Wagon

  Job – N/A

  Bank Account: $16,000,000 + Various stocks that cannot be traced back to the Christmases.

  Conclusion: They’re paying him off for taking the fall.

  My mouth fell open. “Wow,” I whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” the driver said. “I’ll slow my speed.”

  “Thank you,” I said, even though I wasn’t talking to her. Immediately, I felt the car slow.

  “So, do you live in that big house?” the driver asked.

  Damn, she wanted to talk. “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?” I asked.

  “I’m Tiffany.”

  “Tiffany, I’m in town visiting friends, but I have an errand to run and—”

  “Don’t the Christmases live next door to where I picked you up?” she asked.

  She had my attention, so I closed my laptop. “Yeah, they do,” I said leadingly.

  “Are they your neighbors?”

  “No. I’m just in town visiting a college friend for the holiday.”

  “Oh. Because there’s a weird vibe I get from the Christmas mansion,” she said.

  I brought exaggerated intrigue to my expression. “Ooh, why’s that?”

  “They don’t really call for Ubers because they’re richer than God, but once I picked up this girl. I actually picked her up at the same spot where I picked you up from.”

  “Oh, crazy,” I said.

  “Yeah. And she was really young, much younger than I am. She had two swollen black eyes and a busted lip. I asked her if anyone hit her, and she said, ‘What do you think?’ With an attitude and everything. She was really tough, like from-the-streets kind of tough.”

  “Oh. Then how did you know she was at the Christmases’?”

  She cut a sharp left to beat the traffic light, and I had to hold on to the passenger’s-side seat to keep from hitting the door.

  “Because when we passed by their place, she scooted all the way down so no one could see her and kept yelling at me to go faster. It was weird.”

  “Wow. That is strange. So you think she was roughed up by someone at the Christmas mansion?”

  “I do. Another time, I picked up the brother with the strange eyes. I was just trying to be nice, make conversation, you know. So I said it was strange he called us when they have a lot of cars and more money than God. He told me to just shut up and drive. Such a rude ass!”

  Yep. That sounded like Jasper to me. “Yes, very rude.” I fought the urge to laugh.

  Tiffany watched me through the rearview mirror, and I smiled at her.

  “So where are you from?” she asked.

  I took her change of subject to mean she was done talking about the Christmases and she wanted to engage me in conversation. Since I loved listening to people’s stories, I told her that my parents had moved a lot and that I’d been the happiest when we moved to Pittsburgh. Then I asked her where she was from. Tiffany was a talker and told me that her parents thought she was in school full-time at Rhode Island Art Institute, but she had taken the year off and used the tuition to travel to Costa Rica and Morocco. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life other than travel.

  “Why not start a travel blog?” I asked just as we stopped in front of a Dutch-style home with two bare trees on both sides of the yard.

  “Nah. I’d rather not do all of that writing.”

  I nodded as I took in the red, green, and white Christmas lights strung along the edge of the roof and the inflated Santa Claus and reindeer-drawn sleigh on the lawn. “I get it. Writing isn’t for everyone.” I opened the door and looked over my shoulder at Tiffany. “And you’re going to wait for me, right?”

  “Absolutely,” she sang as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

  I smiled thankfully at Tiffany and exited the back seat.

  The sidewalk had been shoveled, and since the day was dank, the porch light was on. I stood up straight and made sure my expression looked confident but friendly as I rang the doorbell.

  Soon, a plump woman who appeared to have had a hard life opened the door. She seemed to be wearing a permanent frown. “Can I help you?” she asked sharply.

  The trick was not to falt
er. “My name is Holly Henderson, and I’m a guest at the Christmases’. Your daughter, Crystal, told me about you.”

  Her frowned turned more severe, and she looked as if she wanted to club me to death. However, she didn’t slam the door in my face, and that was a good sign. But I could tell she was waiting for me to say something else that would convince her not to.

  “I’m a friend of Bryn’s,” I said. “She’s the reason I’m here.”

  “She’s the reason you’re at my door?”

  “Sort of, yes.”

  “Sort of? Explain sort of.”

  “You worked as a maid for the Christmases for a number of years.”

  Sally didn’t say anything. Jeesh, her personality was not as warm as the Christmas decorations around her house. But I had dealt with hundreds of Sallys during the course of my career.

  “Was that a question?” she asked.

  “A statement. Listen, for some reason, Bryn hired me to uncover what she needs for her book about her family. Perhaps she wants them to atone for their sins. She and I were college roommates for a year.”

  Finally, Sally stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. She hugged herself to keep warm, even though she was wearing a thick green turtleneck sweater.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  I had to make my question good. I had to confirm all my earlier leads. “How old was Amelia Christmas?”

  Sally searched up and down the street, then her eyes fell on Tiffany in the car.

  “She’s my Uber driver,” I said.

  Sally closed the space between us. “I’m forty-seven. Amelia and I were close. Probably best friends, as much as she knew how to have a best friend. But we were the same age.” Then her eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s all I could say.”

  I felt my incredulous expression. “But that would mean she was fourteen when she had Jasper.”

  “Was that a question?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t go anywhere.” Sally walked into her house and closed the door behind her. When she came back, she handed me a hairbrush. “This used to be Amelia’s.”

  I wanted to do a happy dance, but instead, I pressed my lips together and said, “Thank you for this.”

  “You were never here,” she said. “You understand?”

  “No one knows I’m here, and no one will ever know I’ve been here.” I made sure my tone was credible.

  She pointed her chin at Tiffany. “She knows you’re here.”

  “I covered my tracks. Believe me. I’m an investigative reporter.”

  “I know who you are.”

  I gulped. “You do?”

  “Yes. And that Randolph Christmas was a lecherous bastard. Amelia Rainier was a healthy woman until she wasn’t. Make him pay for what he had done to her. That’s all I have to say.” Sally turned her back on me, walked into her house, and carefully closed the door.

  I stood there for a moment then slipped the brush into my purse. Having that evidence was like striking gold. I couldn’t take it back to the mansion with me, so I stopped in the middle of the walkway, took out my phone, and called the laboratory I always used to process the sort of evidence Sally had given me. Rich, the lab tech, reminded me of the rules before he agreed to accept my delivery. The results could not be used in a court of law unless the sample was resubmitted by a law enforcement agency. Also, the sample could not be part of an active law enforcement investigation. I assured him both were true.

  “Then send it on, although we won’t have results until after Christmas.”

  “That’s fine,” I said and continued walking. “Will tomorrow be too late to send samples to compare with the one I’m sending you today?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  I put my hand on the car door handle. “Great. I’ll overnight what I have today.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tiffany drove me to the nearest FedEx, where I overnighted the brush to the lab. On the way back to the neighbor’s mansion, Tiffany kept herself occupied with a hands-free phone call with one of her girlfriends. They were planning a trip to Bali in the near future.

  I tuned them out as I searched as much of the information Kylie had sent me as I could to see if she had uncovered what I’d just learned. She hadn’t. I felt proud of myself for finding a pot of gold at the end of this murky rainbow. But then I wondered if Bryn seriously wanted me to continue with the investigation. I didn’t need to do it for myself. I couldn’t give a damn about the Christmases’ deep, dark secrets. One didn’t take on the task of ruining a powerful family unless she was willing to sacrifice her safety for it. Every now and then, I found myself looking over my shoulder, wondering if someone was on the verge of taking me out on behalf of the Howsleys. The acclaim I’d received for writing my book helped keep me safe. If something sketchy happened to me, the Howsleys would be the first people the authorities would look at.

  But Bryn was my friend. I owed her dark and crazy family a lot for paying for my dorm room. I’d lived comfortably, and having enough money for room and board was something I’d never had to worry about during college. I’d often suspected the Christmases had paid for my first year of graduate school as well. My scholarship had dropped me at the last minute for a reason that was still a mystery. However, on the day I’d gone to the financial aid office to fill out the loan papers, I was told that another scholarship had picked up my tuition. However, the source had requested they remain unidentified. The financial aid officer had assured me the company was reputable, though. They’d tried to pay for my second year of grad school as well, but I’d turned down their scholarship and allowed my fellowship and position at the city paper to pay for my second year.

  Finally, we arrived at the neighbor’s gate, where I thanked Tiffany, wished her the best, and headed back onto the Christmases’ property the way I walked off. My pace was so brisk that by the time I made it to my room, I was warm instead of cold.

  I opened the closet and then my suitcase, searching through my dirty clothes for the shirt I’d worn that morning. Jasper had bitten and sucked my nipples through the material, so I had his DNA already. All I needed were Spencer and Bryn’s DNA. Thank goodness I could pass on Asher, being that he and Bryn were twins. She would easily cough up a sample for me, but Spencer would be tough.

  As I carried my blouse out of the closet, I tried to figure out the easiest way of acquiring Spencer’s DNA. A face came to mind, and I turned toward the wall that separated my room from the one next door.

  “Where have you been?” a man asked.

  I yelped loudly and jumped, pressing my hand over my pounding heart. Then I saw Jasper standing where he’d stood yesterday. He was looking out the window, and I couldn’t help but notice how divine he looked in black silk twill pants and a crisp white shirt.

  “What are you doing in here?” I asked.

  “I asked, ‘Where have you been’?”

  He was being a dick, which helped me relax a little. “I know what you asked, but you’re in my space. I’m not in yours. So, why are you here?”

  Finally, he turned to face me. “I’m sorry about this morning. Whatever the hell I did. I don’t have a clue.”

  I felt trapped by his gaze for more reasons than one. First, I had the shirt with his saliva on it in my hands, and I hoped to God he wouldn’t ask me what I was doing with it. Second, I was just about to go to Gina’s room to ask if there was a way she could help me collect Spencer’s DNA.

  Desire lit Jasper’s eyes as they undressed me. I remembered what he’d said to set me off that morning. He’d called me Miss Henderson. Now that we were beyond the heat of the moment, I could see that my reaction was severe.

  I sighed as I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything really. I don’t like it when you call me Miss Henderson. It feels…”

  We stared at each other. However, I could see that he was waiting for me to finish what I was saying. A
nd I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t tell him that I felt cheap. I felt as if I were his sexual object. He could never love me. He could never want me, not for real.

  My head turned dizzy as he approached me. Jasper took me by the waist and drew me against his ready cock. Our kissing was always so damn sensual. We had natural chemistry. Our tongues brushed each other delicately, and our lips rubbed as though they were engaging in an erotic massage. Then he gently bit my bottom lip and sucked it into his mouth. When he released it, I did the same to him, and that drove him wild with lust.

  The next thing I knew, Jasper tossed me on the bed. I tossed the shirt in my hand above my head. Screw the DNA sample, at least for the moment. He lifted my leg and pulled off one of my boots then the other. I tried to beat him to the button of my pants, but he was fast.

  Jasper undid them and yanked them off. “Spread your legs,” he whispered thickly.

  His eyes blazed as I separated my knees. I could feel his glare stroking the wet crotch of my black lace panties. Fueled by lust, I wondered what he was going to do next. Jasper dropped to his knees, pulled my pussy against his face, and began stimulating my clit with his tongue through my panties.

  I cried out and squirmed, feeling the vigorous and marvelous sensation of orgasm. My head was woozy as I sat up and reached out to unbutton his expensive pants. It was time for me to do him.

  Jasper’s hand seized my wrist. “Not now,” he whispered, even though I could see that he was about to burst. “I just want to smell you on my face.” He cracked a smile. He helped me to my feet. He was still rock hard. “What’s going on between us stays between us.”

  Once again, I felt relegated to being his temporary concubine. But I didn’t care. Jasper Christmas was sexy as hell, and he had made my body feel sensations I’d never thought existed. Plus, in one statement, he’d reminded me of what was really important. Now he’d given me even more DNA to send to the lab—his saliva on my panties.