Evil wears many faces…
When Emmy Black, director of Special Projects for Blackwood Security, takes a trip to Edinburgh to collect DNA samples in a long-running cold case, a favour for a friend soon leads her to Glendoon Hall, a crumbling castle on the edge of the Highlands. Locals say a legendary beast walks the land, and Emmy’s sidekick Sky wants to catch it.
Crazy.
Emmy’s not one to pass up a challenge—or a bet—but the Beast of Glendoon definitely doesn’t exist…does it?
Chimera is a standalone novel in the Blackwood Security series. This one's a little shorter than some of the others, hence the lower price – that's just the way the story goes 😁
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Excerpt – Emmy…
“You eat it.”
“No, you eat it.” I shoved the plate of haggis back across the table to Sky. “You ordered it.”
“I thought it would be a little less gross.”
“It’s offal, onion, and oatmeal cooked in a sheep’s stomach. The description on the menu didn’t give you a clue?”
“Yeah, but it’s Scotland’s national dish—I figured it must have at least one redeeming feature.”
“Perhaps if you tasted it…”
Sky poked at the lump with her fork and wrinkled her nose. “Or maybe I’ll stick with the potatoes.”
“Tatties.”
“Whatever.”
This year, Newcastle had been selected to host the New Dawn Film Festival, but one of the featured documentaries turned out to be a tad controversial, and death threats had left the organisers understandably twitchy. Blackwood, the security firm I c0-owned along with my husband and two others, had been hired to provide security, and since this was a new, high-profile client, I’d flown to the UK with Sky to carry out additional checks before the event.
And from Newcastle, it had only been a short hop up to Edinburgh to make one last attempt to solve a cold case that had been bugging me for ages.
Seven-year-old Mila Carmody had disappeared five years ago, snatched from her bed in the middle of the night in every parent’s worst nightmare. No witnesses, no ransom demands, and no sign of the little girl despite a manhunt involving half the cops in Virginia plus the FBI. The only physical clue had been a tiny speck of blood on the latch of Mila’s window, a speck that didn’t belong to her or anybody else in the various DNA databases the authorities maintained.
When the cops failed to find her kidnapper, Mila’s wealthy family had hired us to do a case review. Then they’d fired us when we suggested a family member might have been involved. There’d been signs of an inside job—no evidence of a break-in, a lack of a struggle, and not one peep from the family’s dog. But when we’d asked questions about Mila’s uncle, her father—his brother—hadn’t been impressed.
And now it seemed we might have been barking up the wrong tree entirely.
A trail of breadcrumbs had led us to Scotland, and if the genetic genealogist advising us was right, the owner of the blood speck found in Mila’s bedroom had relatives living on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Our job this week was to collect a few DNA samples to see if she was right. Coffee cups, cigarette butts, used tissues… People tossed their DNA away every day. All we had to do was follow them around and pick it up. Blackwood’s London forensics lab was on standby to process the samples, and in between waiting for results and strategising, we had time to kill. So far, Scotland was living up to my expectations—this afternoon, we’d climbed a bloody great hill in the rain because it was “scenic,” and then we’d got stuck in a traffic jam caused by cows.
Oh, and Sky was absolutely right about the haggis—it was gross.
But I couldn’t admit that.
“How are you gonna survive jungle training if you can’t even eat pub food?”
“Do they have oatmeal in the jungle?”
“So you’re saying it’s the oatmeal that’s the problem?”
“Shut up.”
Hallie sat beside her, looking oh-so smug with her fish and chips. She’d tagged along because the Carmody file had landed on her desk several months ago, and she’d grown as curious about it as I had. Now she opened the guidebook.
“We could do a ghost tour tomorrow? Walk around the underground vaults and the graveyards?”
“What, you think we haven’t seen enough dead people recently?”
Surprisingly, Hallie’s body count was higher than mine for the past month. I’d been slacking.
Excerpt – Hallie…
“Black told me that trouble follows Emmy around, and he was totally right.”
Ford’s forehead creased into a frown. “Is this the type of trouble that’s likely to put you in danger again?”
A part of me hated to worry him, but at the same time, warmth spread through me because he was worried. I’d never been in a proper relationship before, not one where a man cared enough to call each night I was away and ended every conversation with “I love you.” Ford was the man I hadn’t known I needed, and now he was the man I never wanted to live without.
“Only if I fall through a rotten floor.”
“What kind of dive are you staying in? I always figured Emmy would be a five-star gal.”
“Oh, the hotel’s amazing. My room has a view of Edinburgh Castle, and the bathroom’s bigger than the trailer I grew up in. Take a look.”
I showed him around the bathroom, panning across the fancy robe and slippers and the basket of luxury toiletries. Housekeeping had left chocolates on my pillow, and a small cupboard held tea, coffee, and packages of cookies, none of which I could eat, seeing as I’d stuffed myself with two dinners tonight. Technically, the hotel restaurant had been closed when we arrived back at nearly midnight, but Emmy had asked the concierge nicely, and a chef had served us pizza in a private dining room.
“I’m impressed.”
“It’s dark outside, but I can show you the castle in the morning.” Duh, I couldn’t. Hello, time zones. “Actually, you’ll still be asleep, but I can take a picture.”
“Early start tomorrow?”
“I’m meeting an investigator from Blackwood’s Edinburgh office at eight.”
“I thought you were working with Emmy and Sky on this?”
“I was.” And Ford hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic about the prospect, mainly because he was a cop and Emmy and Sky tended to pay lip service to the law when it suited them. “But they got pulled onto a side project.”
Ford’s sigh was more resigned than anything else. He didn’t like the fact that Emmy bent the rules, but he tolerated her habits better than I’d ever thought he would, probably because they had the same goal at heart. They both wanted justice. It was merely their methodology that differed.
“Do I want to know about the side project?”
“It’s not a case. It’s barely anything to do with Blackwood at all.” Ford sipped from a bottle of beer as I summarised tonight’s Highland adventure. When I was in Richmond, he spent most of his time at my apartment, but tonight, he was back on his boat a little way down the James River. “So Nick asked Emmy to go back in daylight and see just how bad of a shape the place is in. I think that maybe he’ll hire an electrician or something to help Paige out, seeing as she’s a friend of his brother.”
“She’s really living in a stable?”
“I’d hardly call it living. Existing, more like.”
“Just be careful—there’s a reason derelict buildings usually have warning signs.”
“I will, I swear. Nothing’s going to happen.” Okay, I might have left out the story of the monster, but I was inclined to side with Emmy on that one—it didn’t exist. At least, I hoped not. “I’m not even planning to go inside.”
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