New York publisher Dex Dellum sends his fiancée and star photographer Katy Mazur to Swaziland to shoot the taita falcon. There she meets 'highman' (altitude stuntman) Grant Orion, who practices skydiving. After an initial clash, they become hot lovers, her first infidelity. She's drugged before he leaves unannounced. In London Grant saves her from armed killers and discloses to be an Interpol agent. Dex has an incompatible story but is killed. It's the start of a cascade of violence and charades.

After his father disappeared during a mass shooting on Christmas Day one year earlier, 10-year-old, precocious Jesse Genesis creates a "12 Days of Christmas List" of tasks. If he completes them all, including teaching himself to become a karate black belt, he believes his father will return on Christmas. Jesse's sophisticated, workaholic mother, Abby, believes her husband was lost in the shooting, but has a glimmer of hope through visions that Jesse reports to her. After Abby enlists the aid of an eccentric psychic-turned-law professor, a roller coaster thriller ensues, where the trio unravel a mystery that no one expected - and maybe, just maybe witness the delivery of a miracle that can only happen on Christmas.