by Elle Rush
Table of Contents
Title Page
Blurb
Copyright © 2016
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Interlude
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
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BONUS: DUTCH CINNAMON COFFEE CAKE RECIPE
About the Author
OTHER BOOKS BY ELLE RUSH
DECKER AND JOY
A North Pole Unlimited Romance
By
Elle Rush
Blurb
He was looking for an A.W.O.L. elf, not a date with the kitten foster-mom who was one of his suspects.
Somebody messed up and let a prototype escape from North Pole Unlimited’s top secret Toys and Research Division. Now P.I. Decker Harkness has the contract to track it down. He’s not exactly sure what E.L.V.I.S does, but he’s hot on the trail.
Joy McCall has her hands full of foster animals and pet treats at Kitten Caboodle, but she’s not too busy to notice strange goings-on at the pet shelter where she works.
When their paths cross during a triple kitten-napping, Decker and Joy will have to work together to close their cases. Will everyone make it home to celebrate a merry Christmas together? Only Santa knows.
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Copyright © 2016
Copyright and Published by Deidre Gould.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations used in articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Prologue
Mid-October
North Pole Unlimited Headquarters,
December, Manitoba, Canada (25 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg)
Nick Klassen, soon-to-be the new vice-president of Human Resources at North Pole Unlimited, knocked on the C.E.O.’s door with his free hand. “Hi, Gran. Jilly said you wanted to see me?”
The woman behind the massive oak desk was an impressive seventy-five. Her steel grey hair didn’t dare escape from the bun on the back of her head, but her face was all smiles. “Nick, come in. Pull up a chair and let’s chat,” the company president said.
The meeting request had come out of nowhere, and Nick wasn’t certain of the reason. He was preparing to take over for the retiring VP, and had a lot left to learn. He wouldn’t be surprised if she were checking on him to ensure the handover was going well.
“How’s my favorite grandson’s love life?”
Boss or not, he wasn’t answering that. He decided to misdirect. “I’m your favorite?”
“For the purpose of this meeting you are. Are you seeing anybody these days?”
He choked on his coffee. “Not at the moment. My hands are too full taking over the reins from George to have a social life.” North Pole Unlimited had thousands of employees around the world. With their strict employment contracts, Nick would be responsible for each and every one. He didn’t need any distractions while he learned to keep track of everybody in all the different divisions in all the different countries where the company operated.
“You know a balanced life is important for all NPU employees. There’s a lovely young woman in—”
“No, Gran!” He was not being set up by his grandmother.
“Fine, fine.” She waved her hand at him, and Nick saw a faint tremor. He was glad she’d be stepping down in the new year. Adelaide Klassen always said she loved her work, but she deserved a retirement while she was healthy enough to enjoy it. “Let’s get down to business then.”
“Yes, let’s.” Before she pulled out her phone to show him a picture of the lovely young woman, since Nick knew she’d have one.
She picked away at her keyboard and displayed her email on the large screen which hung over the fireplace mantle in the corner of her office. “Dr. Farnsworth is still looking for a new assistant. She wants someone before Christmas. How is that coming?”
“We have a bunch of promising applicants we’re working through,” Nick replied.
“Work quickly. Also, I want you to check with Andrea personally. She might already have somebody in mind.”
Which meant she did. Nick worked the same way. “Speaking of somebody in mind, I wanted to talk to you about a potential new security chief.” He pointed at an unopened email on the screen. “The one marked Decker Harkness.”
His grandmother opened it and clicked on the attachment. A photo of a stern, brush-cut man in his late thirties popped up. “He looks like a cop,” she said.
“He was with the Ottawa Police Service for fifteen years before he left with a work-related injury. Now he’s a private detective in the area. We’ve used him before. He’s competent, quick and discreet.”
She clicked on the next photo, showing a younger, equally serious Decker in his police uniform. “Does he ever smile?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.” Decker was good at his job, but they hadn’t had much social interaction. Nick had hired him to do background checks on potential employees, hunt down owners of properties that NPU and their affiliates wanted to acquire, and investigate claims made against the company. Every report he’d received had exceeded expectations.
Decker Harkness was exactly the type of security professional North Pole Unlimited needed. He had practical experience in the field, and had done a supervisory stint in the Computer Forensics unit while he was recovering from his injury. In addition to NPU’s physical security concerns, the attacks on the company’s servers were increasing again with the announcement of this year’s new computer game which was coming out for the holidays. The little hacker punks couldn’t access their air-gapped systems for the cheat codes, but they didn’t know that. It was a problem Nick couldn’t afford to ignore. They needed Decker, or someone else, to oversee it all. With the current security chief following George out the door, NPU had to hire somebody sooner rather than later.
He shook his head as he thought of something else.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I just realized we are going to be having a huge turnover on the board over the next couple years.” Some replacements were already lined up, but finding the others would all fall to him.
“Then I suggest you start filling them as soon as possible. Does Mr. Harkness know what we do here?”
“Not exactly. He’s been receiving standard freelance assignments from us.”
His grandmother clucked through closed teeth. “That’s not good, Nick.” She closed her email and clicked a file on her desktop marked “Top Secret”.
Nick recognized t
he project specs which appeared on the screen. “What about it?” The prototype was still in its testing phase in the Research and Development department. It was going to be huge once it got to market, but at the moment, there were a few…bugs.
“Tinka—Dr. Kovac—was running some trials out of the lab.”
“And?” he asked. Because there had to be an “and” with a set-up that good.
“And it might have gotten away from her.”
“Might have?”
“She’s still searching the area. There’s a slim chance it made it onto a truck. With a shipment headed to Ottawa,” his grandmother continued.
He looked around for the nearest flat surface to bang his head against. Malfunctioning proprietary technology on the loose? That was a disaster waiting to happen. Nick eyed her desk. It looked sturdy enough to knock him out of his misery.
“We’ll give her a couple days to find it. Think of it this way,” she said with another smile. “If she can’t, it will be an excellent test. If Mr. Harkness can solve our little problem, you know he’ll be perfect for the job.”
Chapter One
Decker
Late October
Ottawa, Ontario
A year after hanging out his shingle as a private investigator, his dream of being a private detective was dying a painful death. Decker Harkness needed an income-generating, career-making case if he wanted to keep the doors open, and he needed it yesterday. Strip-mall office rent was all he could afford, but he wouldn’t even be able to manage that if things didn’t pick up soon.
He didn’t mind doing corporate security checks. They could be boring, but he was good at online investigations. Second best were the fraud cases his insurance-agent friends occasionally tossed his way. He was tired of the divorce and custody cases which paid most of his bills. They were beginning to permanently tarnish his view of humanity.
Which was why the email from North Pole Unlimited came at the perfect time. Decker had done a handful of jobs for NPU in the last year—employment checks on locals, tracking down owners of property they wanted to buy—but the message he received the day before hinted at a much bigger case. Proprietary technological information and potential corporate espionage were mentioned and set his heart racing. Decker had waited months for this kind of opportunity.
He pulled out one of his surviving suit jackets from his Ottawa Police Service days, and pressed his shirt and tie. He took a moment to check his fresh buzz cut in the mirror, and was pleased with how it hid the half-dozen silver hairs invading the brown at his temples. He looked ready to deal with a sensitive, classified problem for an international, multi-million-dollar company.
He’d even cleaned his office, sort of. He scanned the room one more time. His university diploma was visible on the wall behind him, as was his graduation picture from the police academy, and the photo of him getting his ten-year pin from the mayor. His office wasn’t big, but he only did the parts the camera would catch.
It all looked good, except for the bald, lumbering black man who appeared outside his office door window holding two coffee cups. “Harkness, what are you doing in there? Open up!”
“Charlie? What’s wrong?”
Charlie Barr had been his partner, first on patrol and later again when they’d worked together in Robbery. They’d kept in touch after Decker had left the force, but their run-ins had grown fewer and further between as their jobs pulled them in separate directions.
Decker unlocked the door and relieved Charlie of one of his cups before he cleared the threshold. “This is a surprise.”
“But a surprise with coffee,” Charlie said, his rough smoker’s voice mangling the words.
“Which means you want something.” He didn’t mind.
“A sounding board. A new shoplifting ring has popped up with one of my sergeants. Get this. They use coupons,” Charlie said.
“If they have coupons, it’s not shoplifting.”
“If they have legitimate coupons, it’s not. This crew is printing and distributing them. Then, when the store is swamped with people wanting their freebies, they take their pick of the merchandise and walk out the door in all the confusion.”
Why couldn’t he have had this kind of case while he was still on the force? It was more challenging to catch thieves who used their brains instead of their brawn. Then he had a sip of the coffee Charlie had brought him, and remembered a perk of being self-employed: no more squad-room java. “That’s incredibly low tech. Aren’t they worried about security cameras?” Decker asked.
“When I say swamping the store, I mean close to a hundred shoppers descending at once. They target small stores where crowding is an issue.”
“How can I help?” Charlie had shown up for some unofficial assistance, whether he admitted it or not. His old partner was a great cop, with an infallible ability to sniff out evidence, but his memory was horrible. Charlie had bought three copies of the same memory improvement book in the time they worked together, and he’d read them all.
“What was the name of the printer from that art gallery case we worked a few years ago? The one making the prints but wasn’t legally complicit because they thought they had a contract? When was that?”
“Three years ago. Rainbow Ink. Wasn’t it in your file notes?” As Charlie had said, the case had gone nowhere; no wonder he didn’t recall the details.
“I didn’t remember where I put them, and you were closer,” Charlie said. “A cup of coffee is cheaper than asking the file clerk to pull everything.”
Decker’s computer beeped to signal the start of his video conference.
“I’ll get out of your hair since you obviously have a date,” Charlie teased.
“It’s a business meeting. And at least I have hair,” Decker countered.
“Well, if you’re going to insult me, I’ll leave.” Charlie laughed on his way out. “Thanks for the help,” he yelled as the door clicked shut.
When Decker answered the video call, he was surprised to see Nick Klassen at the other end of it. All his prior contracts with North Pole Unlimited originated with George Macintyre. When Nick explained that he was stepping in as the new vice-president of human resources, Decker offered his congratulations. “That’s great. Please tell George to enjoy his retirement and go after all those fish he was talking about. I’m pleased that you thought of me. I hope we can continue working together.”
His new employer nodded in agreement. “Me, too. This call wasn’t just to inform you about George’s retirement. As I mentioned in my email yesterday, I have a delicate situation that I need your help with.”
Decker leaned closer to the screen, one hand gripping the pen he used to take notes. Nick might know who he was, but that didn’t mean anything. Decker needed to prove himself all over again. He was up to the task; impressing a new—sort of new—client could lead to lots of work, and he needed every bit he could get if he wanted his business to stay afloat. There was no case too big or small for Harkness investigations.
Although this one was definitely on the small side. “You want me to find a doll?” Decker repeated for the third time. “An E.L.V.I.S. doll?” His alarm bells were clanging; the case couldn’t be as easy as Nick was presenting it as.
“It’s a prototype,” Nick explained. “A very expensive one. It has some animatronic components and some recording playback devices that aren’t ready for consumer use, which is why we need it back. We’ve been working on this project for years as a replacement for an existing product. E.L.V.I.S. accidentally went to a store in your area which sells our Funster pet toy line. Unfortunately, we aren’t certain which location it was shipped to. I’m going to send you a list. We need you to visit the stores, find it, and retrieve it at any cost. The unit has a GPS chip installed. That should help you.”
“Why can’t you track it with the GPS?” Decker asked. He wanted the business, but this was basically running an errand. It wasn’t the stepping stone to bigger, more important cases he’d hoped fo
r from NPU. If anything, it was a demotion. But if the situation were as insignificant as it seemed, why would a vice-president be involved? Something was fishy about the entire setup.
“The chip is currently on the fritz. It broadcasts, but only on an extremely limited range. That’s one of the kinks we need to work out. E.L.V.I.S. can’t be running around in the wild, Decker. I cannot emphasize how important it is to get it back to our labs as soon as possible. Can you handle this?” The blond giant leaned into the lens on his computer. “You’ll have a week to find E.L.V.I.S. We can’t give you any longer.”
A week to recover a doll? Now Decker was insulted, but he didn’t let it show. “No problem,” he assured the man on the screen. The job wasn’t what he’d thought it would be, but it was one less cheating spouse he’d have to follow. And recovering private property was a legitimate job.
“Excellent. We’ve sent an encrypted email to your account. My assistant Jilly will text you the security password. We’ll include a picture and some of the specs for you. There will also be a link to the GPS tracker and a list of the stores where it might have been sent. I’ll expect daily progress reports, Decker. Again, I cannot emphasize how dangerous this can be in the wrong hands. Good luck.” The screen went dead.
It was a doll. How much trouble could it be?
The email arrived in his inbox moments after he shut down the video link. Decker spent the rest of the morning studying the file. The prototype looked like G.I. Joe and Malibu Ken had a secret love child. The figure in the photo had a black, plastic pompadour and a shiny utility belt over its navy ninja suit. Decker didn’t have children, but he didn’t see it appealing to boys or to girls. Then again, he didn’t have to play with it. He just had to find it.
The GPS app which Nick’s assistant sent was simple to use. Unfortunately, the results were inconclusive. It displayed a large circle around Archer Plaza, a two-story shopping center off the Queensway, before flashing an error message and dying. Decker couldn’t tell if the problem was with the app or E.L.V.I.S. Three of the possible locations on Decker’s list were in that area. It was convenient for narrowing his search, but it meant he had to brave a mall. A week before Halloween. And the night before, he’d seen a news segment about how some stores were already putting up Christmas decorations. E.L.V.I.S.’s timing was terrible.
