by Elise Noble
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
What's Coming Next?
Want to Stalk Me?
End of Book Stuff
Other Books by Elise Noble
SPIRIT
Elise Noble
Published by Undercover Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020 Elise Noble
v3
ISBN: 978-1-912888-34-4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Edited by Nikki Mentges, NAM Editorial
Cover design by Elise Noble
www.undercover-publishing.com
www.elise-noble.com
For Thing.
CHAPTER 1
IT WAS ALMOST time. The countdown had begun. Only half an hour to go until my most dreaded meeting of the year, and considering I was an assassin-slash-special-ops-bitch and most of my other meetings involved planning death, destruction, or some sort of near-impossible rescue, that was a big statement to make.
“Hurry up, hurry up, we haven’t got all day,” my assistant said. Yesterday, Bradley’s hair had been turquoise, but today it was pink. By Christmas Day, it would be either red or green, possibly with white tips, and he’d be wearing a sweater to match. He had a whole collection of cheesy knitwear, enough for a different outfit every day in December. “There’s mulled wine, mince pies, and Christmas cookies in the anteroom.”
“Tell me you didn’t start making the mulled wine yesterday.”
Last year, he’d been so eager to get everyone into the festive spirit that he’d set everything up the day before, only to get distracted by something shiny and leave the wine heating for so long that all the alcohol burned off. And boy did we need the alcohol.
“Mrs. Fairfax just finished making it.” Thank goodness. Mrs. Fairfax was my housekeeper and an absolute gem in the kitchen. “I did the cookies.”
I didn’t actually like mulled wine, but I’d drink a whole gallon if it made this meeting go any faster. Was ten a.m. too early for gin? Probably.
“Cheer up, bitch,” Dan said. My oldest girlfriend looked entirely too chipper at that time in the morning. “It can’t be any worse than last year.”
Last year, Bradley’s Christmas mission had involved us abseiling down Riverley Hall, my home, to cover the outside with thousands and thousands of stars. The only saving grace was that someone had popped out a baby in the middle of it, and he forgot all about the snow spray he’d wanted on the windows.
“Wanna bet? You said that the year after he recreated the North Pole out of polystyrene, and what happened?”
Dan grimaced, remembering. “The von Trapps.”
The Sound of Music was Bradley’s favourite Christmas movie, even though it didn’t actually have Christmas in it. His homage had included music, folk-dancing lessons, a fake mountain range, Wiener schnitzel, knödel, fondue, raclette, and schnapps. A whole month of it. I ate so much Sachertorte my jeans no longer did up, and if I ever heard those bloody songs again… My favourite Christmas movie was Die Hard, and only when I threatened to go full Hans Gruber on the speakers had Bradley finally turned the volume down.
“The von Trapps. Exactly.”
“The singing lessons were kind of fun.”
Sure, if you could sing. Which I couldn’t. “That’s a matter of opinion. And what about the costumes?”
“Okay, you got me there.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and then we both burst into laughter.
“The lederhosen,” Dan choked out.
Nobody was going to wear them sober, obviously, but once our friend and colleague Nick had drunk the best part of a bottle of kirsch… Those photos would haunt his nightmares forever.
My husband strode in our direction, his face impassive as always. He flashed a smile and kept walking. Towards the front door.
“Wait.” I grabbed his hand. “Where are you going?”
“Emergency call at the Catalan Tower.”
Our company, Blackwood Security, held the monitoring contract for the whole building downtown and had done ever since it opened. The tenants were mainly accountants, lawyers, and investment companies. Not the kind of people who caused trouble at nine thirty in the morning.
“What kind of emergency?”
“Not sure. That’s why we’re heading over there to check.”
I pulled up Blackwood’s monitoring app on my phone. Sure enough, a category-one alert had been flagged in the system. Unusual, but not unheard of. What was strange was the fact that it had been assigned to my husband, Nate, and Nick—all company directors and definitely not the first point of call for a fairly routine response. The other coincidence? They were all due to attend Bradley’s Christmas planning meeting in twenty-five minutes’ time.
“So, if I called Matt in the control room, he’d tell me this alert came in through totally normal channels and he assigned it to you and your fellow musketeers?”
And definitely not via Nate, who’d designed the alert system, tinkering in the back end.
“Uh…”
Busted. I pointed back the way he’d come.
“Get your arse in there. If I have to sit through this shitshow, so do you.”
Share the pain, that was my motto.
Black turned around, his expression a cross between storm clouds and resignation, and slunk towards the biggest meeting room.
“Don’t forget to take Nick and Nate with you.”
He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Why do we let him do this?” but at least he didn’t give me the finger.
So, why did we let Bradley do this? Good question. I mean, we did pay his wages. Well, basically he got away with it because he was the most efficient person we’d ever known. He managed to oversee our household staff, redecorate constantly, refresh our wardrobes, update our fleet of cars, do my hair and make-up for events and most of my friends’ too, pack for trips, and still find time to create his “Christmas vision” each December. He loved Christmas, and we loved him, even if Black would never admit that out loud. So we allowed him to go a little over the top at his favourite time of year, although we always tried to rein him in a bit.
Just as we would today.
“Have you seen Bradley’s presentation?” Mack whispered as we trudged towards the meeting room. She was another of my besties and also Blackwood’s number-one IT geek. “It’s seventy-two slides long.”
Oh, hell. Perhaps I could check out the non-alert at the Catalan Building?
The meeting room was full already, forty or so people sitting in chairs and another ten hovering by the doors in the hope of making an early escape. Most were Blackwood employees, but a few had dragged along their significant others for moral support. As I said: Share the pain.
“S
hould I have brought a cyanide capsule?” Ana muttered.
“For you or for Bradley?”
“Preferably Bradley, but it’d be comforting to know there was a way out.”
“Maybe we could stand over by the window? In emergency, break glass.”
“Is this food or a decoration?” Luke asked, holding up one of the offerings from the snack table.
Thankfully Tia, his sister, answered for us because I had no idea. “It’s a sugar cookie. Bradley said the glitter’s edible.”
“But there’s more glitter than cookie.”
Yup. We’d all be pooping rainbows. And don’t even get me started on the pink mince pies. They reminded me of the inside of a colon.
Thankfully, I’d stuck with the mulled wine, and looking around, I wasn’t the only one. Some people—the ones who’d been at Blackwood the longest and were well used to Bradley’s shenanigans—had a glass in each hand. Precisely one person wanted to be there, and he’d made himself a little platform to stand on at the front.
“Quiet, quiet, everybody quiet!”
How bad would this be?
CHAPTER 2
THE FIRST SLIDE had pictures of a reindeer and a unicorn, and I realised the answer to my question: pretty damn bad. On a scale of zero to jumping off the top of the Empire State Building, we were on roughly the ninetieth floor.
“Has everybody seen the new Wonder movie? Rudolph and the Unicorns? Because if you haven’t, you should. It’s excellent.”
Unfortunately, I’d managed to watch most of it over the past fortnight because Bradley had been playing it on a loop and singing along to the soundtrack. Every time I was in the same room as him, I caught another five minutes of sugary Disney-esque cartoon action. Blitzen framed Rudolph for steering Santa’s sleigh into a chimney, and because reindeer didn’t have a union, Rudolph got fired. Rather than take it lying down, he set up a rival sleigh team with a bunch of ditzy unicorns, and when Blitzen and the other reindeer overate and couldn’t get off the ground, Rudolph and friends stepped in to save Christmas.
The room stayed silent. Either nobody else had seen the movie, or they weren’t about to admit it.
“Tia, would you mind handing everyone a copy of the DVD? They’re in the silver box by the door.”
Usually, Tia was quite happy to help with Bradley’s schemes, so her lack of enthusiasm led me to believe that she knew what he was planning and it was too much, even for her. Dread settled in my stomach like week-old porridge.
“Okay, okay, so this Christmas, we’re going to transform Riverley into a paradise Rudolph and his girls would be proud of. We’ll have sleigh racing… A build-your-own toy factory… A pin-the-tail-on-the-unicorn game… Ooh, ooh, and a giant model of Rudolph with a glowing red nose. Because we’re going environmentally friendly this year, we’re going to hook the nose up to a pedal-powered generator and we can all take it in turns to keep the light burning bright. Obviously, we can’t get real unicorns, but I’ve found a lovely lady who’ll rent us miniature white horses, and she’s agreed we can dye their manes and tails.”
“You were right,” Dan whispered. “This is definitely worse.”
To my left, Logan groaned. “Miniature horses? That’s, like, multiple Spocklets, right?”
Unlike Bradley, who’d been too busy shopping, Logan had been part of Operation Spocklet four years ago. At Blackwood, my Special Projects team got hired to do the impossible by whatever means necessary—assassinations, rescue missions, a touch of spying, the odd investigation, and, on one memorable occasion, hunting down an escaped Shetland pony. Spocklet had been born Bressay Monarch IV, but thanks to ears that had always stuck out a little more than normal, he’d been bestowed with his nickname by his owner, the sixty-seven-year-old wife of a global shipping magnate who’d sobbed uncontrollably as she described how Spocklet had kicked up his heels and galloped off while she attempted to lead him into the ring at the American All-Star Miniature Horse Show. The little bastard had gone on a rampage around town before disappearing into the wilds of Montana.
We’d once helped a friend of Mr. Shipping Magnate to track down his missing son, so guess who got recommended for the job? It took three weeks plus a team of former special forces operatives armed with thermal imaging scopes, night vision goggles, GPS units, and years of knowledge and tracking expertise to find Spocklet living his best life with a herd of deer, then another week for us to catch the fucker. His “mom” had sobbed gratefully into his mane when they were reunited and didn’t quibble over the quarter-million-dollar invoice, but still, it wasn’t an experience I cared to repeat.
“A whole damn herd of Spocklets,” I confirmed. “No. No way.”
“And that brings us to the reindeer,” Bradley announced. “Rudolph’s the star of the show, but of course we can’t leave the others out, so we need to create a reindeer village. I’ve had plans drawn up…” An honest-to-goodness architectural blueprint flashed up on the screen. “And we need to get started right away because there are only eight weeks until Christmas, and once we fly the reindeer in from Norway, they’ll need time to acclimatise before visitors start arriving. We also need to bring over a supply of lichen for them to eat, and their handlers will need to stay in the guest house.”
I stuck up my hand, and Bradley huffed a bit.
“Yes, Emmy?”
“Who wants to come to Cabo with me?”
There was a chorus of yeses, and Bradley put his hands on his hips. “You can’t do a proper Christmas in Cabo.”
“I promise to play Christmas music while I’m on the beach.”
“You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”
“Oh, I’m taking it very seriously. Do you not remember the last time you brought a reindeer here for Christmas? It headbutted anyone who went near.”
“I’ll concede he got a tiny bit territorial. But we’re having female reindeer this year, and the herder assures me they’re friendly.” He clicked to the next slide. “We’ll also need to man the toy factory, so I’ll need volunteers for that. Although we won’t actually be making all the toys from scratch—not after Isaiah’s accident with the sewing machine—so it’ll mainly be wrapping.”
Three years ago, Isaiah had gotten distracted by Dan’s tits and sewn through his finger. Visiting the emergency room on Christmas Eve wasn’t fun, let me tell you.
“How are we gonna get the gifts to the underprivileged kids this year?” Nick asked. “I’m not wearing that Santa outfit again. The pants chafed like hell.”
“I thought they could come here to see the animals.”
Black shook his head. “Security risk.”
We’d been through this before.
“They’re children.”
“Who will need to come with their parents. No visitors outside of Blackwood employees, our friends, and their families, not unless they’ve been vetted first.”
“But—”
“No buts, no exceptions. We don’t have time to vet hundreds of people.”
This was why I hated Christmas. Bradley called me the Grinch, but it was basically one long argument that drove me to distraction. And every year, the debacle got longer. Christmas used to start on the first of December, but now Bradley plunged us into a new nightmare as soon as the Halloween decorations were packed away.
Everyone started talking over each other, and I slid down the wall until my ass hit the floor. Dan did the same, then produced two tiny bottles of vodka from her jacket pocket.
“I came prepared this year.”
She passed me one, and I unscrewed the cap.
“Cheers.”
“Happy fuckin’ holidays.”
I was about to slug back the whole lot when Bradley almost deafened me with an air horn. For fuck’s sake. His heart was in the right place, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
“One at a time. Let’s all act like adults here.”
Said the man carrying a magic wand instead of a laser pointer.
; “Knox, do you have a question?”
“How many tiny horses are we talking?”
“The current plan calls for sixteen. But we may need a couple of reserves.”
Why? Was he expecting them to escape?
Evie tentatively raised a hand, no doubt wondering what fresh hell she’d landed herself in. She was new to Blackwood, but since she’d recently got engaged to Cade, one of the guys on my team, it looked as if she’d be sticking around for a while. As long as Bradley didn’t scare her off, anyway.
“Yes, Evie. Go.”
“Uh, this may be a dumb idea, and I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, but it seems to me that you’re really keen to help children and also that Emmy and Black would rather keep the, uh, festivities here to a minimum. So why don’t you pick out some other places to decorate, like a retirement home, or a children’s home, or a community centre? You could take the gifts there too, and maybe even ask what treats their users would appreciate the most?”
That… That was brilliant. Why the heck hadn’t we thought of it before? Bradley would still get to do all his Christmas shit, but he’d be out of our hair, and we could streamline the logistics when it came to distributing the gifts.
“But if we did that, then the folks here would miss out on the full range of celebrations.”
Literally everyone in the room spoke at the same time.
“I don’t mind.”
“We’re good.”
“It’s fine.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Bradley looked slightly taken aback by the volume of support. “But we always do Christmas at Riverley. It’s tradition.”
“Why don’t we start a new tradition?” I suggested. One that didn’t involve wreaking havoc in my bloody house. “We’re lucky to have as much stuff as we do, so why not share Christmas with people who aren’t so well off?”
“But what about the unihorses? And the reindeer?”
“I’m sure the reindeer would rather stay at home than fly halfway around the world to be gawked at by us. And do you know what mini horses do? They piss off into the sunset. Do you want to spend Christmas Day trekking through the forest with a bucket of apple slices?”