Jenny had texted that an hour ago. I wanted to believe that Fox niggling away at me with his ridiculous suspicions about her was just the jealousy talking. But this was unlike Jenny. She was, what? Volunteering at a cake sale rather than helping us plan our potential escape routes from The Chameleon? Maybe Felix had got into trouble. Maybe he’d guilt-tripped her into being there for him for something. But if that was true, why wouldn’t she have just said that? I would’ve understood. We were in this together, weren’t we? And there was nothing more important than protecting us from the person who had us in their crosshairs.
I tried not to think about how Jenny knew all our history. Last year, we’d given her a list of every man we’d eliminated on foreign soil. The details of how and where. It was for our own protection. We’d armed her with information on our every kill in case she had any insight into what could give us away.
She knew everything—but she would never betray us.
If there was someone in our life reporting our every move to The Chameleon, we hadn’t found them yet.
My phone pinged. I looked down at it. Frederica, confirming plans for our double date tomorrow night. I’d only agreed as she was so persistent. I had no way of getting out of it, short of admitting we would rather watch Netflix than hang out with them. And upsetting the queen bee of the school mums could have repercussions for Bibi—I didn’t want her to be blacklisted from parties for having an antisocial mother. Especially as Diana Morgan was clearly determined to make my life hell. How long until she tried to turn the other mothers against me? Although, in fairness, I wouldn’t notice—Frederica was the only one who seemed determined to get to know me.
Frederica. Wanting to be friends. Someone who had recently inserted themselves into our lives. We’d always said The Chameleon could be a woman. There was every chance the criminal mastermind, a subcontractor of services for the most dangerous European gangs, could be female. And Frederica was steely. She was a formidable new arrival at the school gates. Almost as if shehad experience of navigating complicated groups and how best to rise within them. Jenny had written her off as being just another mum, but she hadn’t met her.
I comforted myself with the thought that this dinner had now gone from being a boring duty to another reconnaissance mission.
—
We arrived at Balgray Hall to find it busy. Very busy. It was mostly women. A surprising number of them had brought babies and toddlers with them. I walked up to the sign by the front door of the Hall.
Parenting top tips with US bestselling author and mindful parenting coach Bells Brightley.
It became clear why Jenny had failed to tell me exactly what kind of “conference” we were attending. I turned to Fox. “Bells is one of those nutters who loves everything to do with kids.”
“What’s wrong with—”
“You know what I mean. She embraces every shit stain.” I put on an American accent. “You are a Mama now. Be grateful. Be present. Meditate.” I shuddered. “What even is mindfulness? I’m mindful of how fucking tired I am.”
We walked into the ballroom. A small stage had been set up at the back with a large screen behind it. Rows of chairs were laid out, nearly all of which were already full. Every row had at least one person with a baby or toddler on their lap. It looked like Fox was one of only four men here.
I was wearing a baby carrier with Reggie snuggled inside. It felt like I’d strapped him to me to announce to the world my eligibility for being inside a room of simpering parents.
Fox looked around. “Wow. She’s popular. There must be more than two hundred people here.”
“She has three million Instagram followers. She lives on a farm in the Midwest, and it’s all homemade everything. No help. Beingwith the kids twenty-four-seven. Still managing to look perfect. Still managing to run her reassuringly expensive homewares shop. Sitting on a pottery wheel making perfect vases while breastfeeding. Never raises her voice. Never shows any sign of being a normal human being who regularly loses her shit. I hate her.”
“If you hate her, why do you know so much about her?”
My husband really was clueless. “Come on! Everyone knows we love watching people we hate.”
Bells walked onto the stage to enthusiastic applause. She was a blonde wisp of a woman in a flowered dress and cowboy boots. She always looked tiny in her photos when standing next to her hulking six-foot-five former-American-football-player husband and their children (all born naturally at over ten pounds without even a helpful Panadol).
“Hello, darlings! It means so much that you’re here, and I love that so many of you have brought your precious little ones.” Bells clasped her hands to her chest. “We don’t trust our children to anyone outside our family. My mother has been a huge support. Blood looks after blood.”
There was a cheer from the crowd. I rolled my eyes.
“I love that my children need me so much. Hearing them call to me, at all hours, no matter the time, I can’t help but think how blessed I am.”
I leaned over to Fox. “She must be on drugs. No one enjoys being woken up all night.”
Fox scanned the ballroom. “This is where the main dinner will be. If The Chameleon is going to try anything, surely it won’t be in here?” He shook his head. “The fact everyone will be wearing masks means he wouldn’t necessarily even be able to find us.”
I was annoyed that Fox wasn’t engaging with my commentary on the rubbish Bells was spouting, but in fairness I couldn’t complain. He was focusing on the job at hand. I tried to do the same.
“The auction is happening in the library.” I remembered the evening’s program from the booklet I’d stolen. “We should check it out.”
We slipped out of the ballroom as Bells was saying, “My husband is the head of the family, and I am the heart.” I dug my fingernails into my palms and took deep breaths. Reggie could feel me tensing and looked up at me. I gave his little head a kiss. I loved my kids my way. I hated being told how best to raise them. It was, though, hard to argue that Bells should keep her stupid opinionsto herself, given that so many people seemed to want to hear them.
The library was closed off for today’s events, with a red rope blocking access. Not quite enough to scare us off. We slipped behind it and into the library.
Reggie was gurgling. I jigged him up and down as we walked past the mahogany bookcase–lined walls.
