When Bradley forces Emmy to take time off work and go to an amusement park with her friends, he promises it’ll be a fun day out. But it turns out the escaped monkeys are just the beginning, and before Emmy’s even finished her first cocktail, she finds herself planning perhaps the most unusual rescue operation she’s ever been involved in.
Thank goodness she brought her gun…
Sphere is a humorous thriller novella in the Blackwood Security series.
Read now:
Retailers
Libraries
Also available on the Borrowbox app 🙂
Subscription Services
Apps
Add to your Bookshelf
Excerpt: The beginning…
I checked my phone for the tenth time in as many minutes, willing it to ring. A hostage negotiation, a shootout, a sting operation, a last-minute assassination… Anything would have been better than what Bradley had planned for me today.
Speak of the devil. He appeared in my bedroom doorway, bouncing on his toes.
“Are you ready? Why aren’t you ready?” He put his hands on his hips. “Emmy, you’re still in your pyjamas.”
“Technically, these aren’t pyjamas.”
I always slept in a pair of boxer shorts and an oversized T-shirt, borrowed from my husband’s closet. In my world, comfort came before style.
“Stop being facetious and hurry up. Everyone else is ready and raring to go.”
Really? When I got into the hallway—now dressed under protest—Ana was sitting on one couch and Dan, Mack, and Carmen were on the other, all looking as if they were waiting to head to the gas chamber rather than take a fun-packed trip to Virginia’s newest family attraction. Honestly, I’d seen more enthusiasm among prisoners of war, and I couldn’t blame the girls. SciPark was billed as “education meets entertainment,” but to me, it felt like the fine line between purgatory and full-on hell. Hellgatory. Was that a thing? Only the kids seemed excited—Trick, Vine, Race, Josh, and Tabby—although I suspected Tabby would have been just as happy if Ana had taken her out the back and taught her how to shoot a crossbow. The kid was only three years old, and though I’d never admit it to my sister, Tabby made me very nervous.
Excerpt: The Sphere…
The centrepiece of the park was impossible to miss, the towering silver globe designed by some fancy architect I’d never heard of. They’d named it “Inside Out.” On the outside, it was the earth, and on the inside, it was space. If you queued up for long enough, you could traipse through a tunnel billed as a wormhole and ride a roller coaster that took you on a tour of the Milky Way.
“We can do this, people.” Dan checked her watch as the kids got distracted by a giant model of a human being. According to the signs, you were meant to walk into it through the mouth, and I dreaded to think where you came out. “Only six more hours to go.”
Six more hours… I guess it could have been worse. I could have been staking out a Taliban stronghold, or trekking across Siberia, or skulking around a secure facility with armed guards at every turn. Or shopping. This was better than shopping.
The staff at the Steampunk Saloon welcomed us with open arms and bar snacks. Dan’s boys headed for the space sphere, where the line snaked out the door at the bottom and wound through the surrounding grassy park. A handful of groups had already set out picnic blankets, chairs, and even an inflatable sun lounger, although I couldn’t see them staying there for long if the black clouds on the horizon crept much closer. Ana headed towards the Ferris wheel with Tabby and Josh, and thankfully the line for that was much shorter. On a scale of bad to terrible, I figured her mood would rate as “foul” by the time we left at the end of the day.
The drinks menu contained a variety of mixological delights. Dan ordered a Steam Engine, Mack picked a Clockwork Orange, and Carmen decided on a Molecular Marvel.
“And for you?” the waitress asked me.
“Two Death in the Afternoons. Or should that be Deaths in the Afternoon?”
She giggled. “Two? Are you sure? Those have absinthe in them.”
“One’s for my friend. And could you bring a few bags of chips?”
A blur of turquoise streaking across the plaza below caught my eye. Good grief. Bradley had tamed his hair, but now he’d found a matching jumpsuit and he looked like a speeding crayon. Somehow, he managed to spot Ana in a sea of hundreds and made a beeline straight for her, squeezing under the barrier near the front of the line. Josh unhooked Bradley’s manbag when it snagged on the railing.
“Uh, excuse me?” I waved the waitress back over. “Would you mind making that three Deaths?”
