Mrs. Claus and the Evil Elves by Liz Ireland

Author:Liz Ireland [Ireland, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2022-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

A note on the outer door of Brightlow Enterprises informed visitors that, for the company Christmas party, business hours ended at three o’clock. The building was open, but this time when we entered, there was no Cookie the security guard to stop us or call for a handler to take us up to the executive floor.

In the vestibule, the sounds of Christmas music filtered through the glass doors. Claire, Jake, and I followed the sound.

The main workshop floor had been cleared. Tables were pushed against the wall, draped in red and green swags, and loaded down with goodies. Brenda Lee was belting out “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” over the loudspeakers. In the back of the room, a ginormous tree had been fabricated out of what looked like spare parts and decorated with homemade ornaments and flashing lights. I thought about what Holly had told me about firings. There were surprisingly few revelers here, although every elf present seemed to be singing, dancing, or both. From the glassy look in some eyes, I had a feeling there was some potent punch on hand somewhere in the room. Before we could escape to the third-floor offices, an elf grabbed Claire and reeled her off onto the makeshift dance floor.

Claire yipped in alarm, then glee.

“She likes to dance,” I told Jake.

“Evidently.” For a moment he was so mesmerized watching her that he seemed to forget why we were there.

I tapped him on the arm and his gaze snapped back to mine, startled, as if he’d forgotten me, too. “Dabbs?” I reminded him.

I hadn’t seen Dabbs among the partiers, so I assumed he was in his office.

Jake nodded, but he hesitated to follow me. He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the dance floor where Claire was spinning between two elves. “Should we . . . ?”

“Claire’s on vacation,” I said. “Besides, she knows the way.”

After we got off the elevator on the third floor, the clicking of fingers on a keyboard sounded from a nearby office. The rest of the corridor was so quiet, I couldn’t help poking my head in to see who was still working. An elf perched at her desk, a pile of papers at her side. She was obviously working on some kind of data entry project, and seemed irritated about it. Had she been forced to work instead of attending the party?

She looked up with red-rimmed blue eyes. “Are you lost?” she asked.

“We’ve come to talk to Dabbs Brightlow,” Jake said.

“End of the hall,” she answered shortly.

As we headed toward Dabbs’s office, I heard the elf we’d just left blowing her nose loudly. Maybe she was getting over a cold.

Dabbs’s secretary must have been downstairs. When we tapped on his door and opened it, we discovered the head of Brightlow Enterprises and a female elf in a passionate clinch across his executive desk. Dabbs was wearing a Santa hat, which might have offended me if I hadn’t been trying so hard not to laugh.

I cleared

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