Chapter Fifty-Nine
Haze
Getting glammed up to go to a black-tie masked ball at a stately home should have been fun, but the whole potential deadly threat of what lay ahead was putting a bit of a downer on things.
The usual pre-event jitters with heightened stakes.
Less worry about dying of boredom from a banker’s bad chat, and more worry about actually dying.
I’d squeezed myself into a tight black Roland Mouret dress that hugged my curves in all the right places.
My sheathed knife was strapped to my right inner thigh so as not to upset the lines of my dress—its fastening at the back could unzip upward, releasing me to run, climb, fight.
The three-inch Louboutin heels were perhaps a little impractical.
But I really couldn’t wear flats with this outfit.
We’d assessed it repeatedly and had concluded it would be unlikely that we were walking into an outright attack. If they wanted to make a scene, it wouldn’t be at a home of national importance and in front of such polite society.
Social hand grenades only.
Tonight was the night we would hopefully once and for all lift the shadow of the last year. We could finally come face-to-face—or, really, mask-to-mask—with The Chameleon.
Drake might have tried to warn us off, but he didn’t realize that we had to go. We needed answers. We didn’t hide from our problems; we confronted them head-on.
I came down to the kitchen to find Fox looking resplendent in his black tie.
“Hot,” I said to him.
“And hotter,” he said back as he kissed me.
We were absolutely nauseating, and I was totally into it.
Our masks were on the kitchen table. Mine was an elaborate peacock feather one that hid most of my face. Fox’s was the classic Phantom of the Opera.
Fox picked up mine and put it on me, gently tying the ribbon at the back. Then he put on his own and pulled it down. It was a little large for him, but that worked, as it hid more of his face.
“The masks are great.” Jenny walked in, gripping her laptop and a large thermos of coffee. She always brought her own instant coffee, as she said our expensive coffee machine was overcomplicated and underwhelming. “You’re nearly unrecognizable.”
Jenny had insisted she was up to manning the fort: babysitting Reggie and Bibi and scanning the relevant local police channels.
And she was the only person we truly trusted to be with our kids on a night like tonight.
We didn’t know what might happen. We just knew we didn’t want someone in our house who would ask questions when we returned, whatever state we were in.
Frank and Sandy were at Jenny’s house with Felix but on standby in case they needed to swoop in and take our kids.
None of us had said it out loud, but we’d all felt more than a little guilty about potentially having to use them for childcare when they had enough going on.
They had both insisted that if it was called for, it would be no trouble.
Just like Jenny had said when we’d questioned her, any distraction was a welcome one.
Having Jenny at base camp monitoring us and looking up anyone we wanted her to was the best course of action.
If things went bad, really bad, we didn’t want all three of us neutralized.
She needed to be clear of it all, ready to come to our rescue.
Like in Ivrea. I shook off the thought. Tonight was not going to be a repeat of that night.
Admits two. The Chameleon had made it clear he didn’t expect Jenny to attend. We needed tonight to run smoothly. He needed to think we were playing ball, right up until we smashed him in the face with it.
Jenny placed her laptop down on the kitchen table.
Her hair was scraped back in a high ponytail.
“Your watches will make sure I know exactly where you are. Remember, if things look like they’re going bad, ring me and I’ll keep the line open so I can hear everything.
” Balgray Hall was too far away for our headsets to connect to Jenny on our secure encrypted radio channel.
I checked my watch. “We’d better go. The kids are asleep. The baby monitor is on the countertop, and the sharpest knife we have is the one on the chopping board.”
“Good luck.” Jenny looked between us both. “I won’t hug you, as I don’t want to crumple you.”
—
Ours was the only minivan in the Balgray car park. We left Danny’s gun in the footwell of the passenger seat. We couldn’t risk being caught with one at the party.
The path toward the house was illuminated by a long line of lanterns plunged into the ground. We joined the many other masked people walking toward the outline of Balgray Hall.
I held hands with my husband because I loved him, and because the gravel made it tricky to walk in heels.
The murmur of those around us talking, the masks, the dark grandeur of Balgray. It wasn’t a particularly cold night, but I felt a shiver.
Inside the house, the entrance hall that had looked mundane by daylight had been transformed.
Gone were the black partitions for queuing and the information desk with boxes of leaflets on the history of the estate.
Now, huge floral displays adorned the staircase, and waiters and waitresses holding silver trays of champagne were accosting everyone as they arrived.
We entered the main reception room, which was already bustling.
Fox pulled his mask up over his head. “I can’t see properly with this on.
” He looked out at the sea of people. The majority of women had favored feathers and lace for their masks.
The men were in anything from animal masks to simple black-and-white ones.
There was one joker who was wearing a Scream mask.
A good percentage hadn’t bothered at all, and more than a few already had their masks half-off.
A tall man with foppish dark hair approached us, a jester’s mask perched on top of his head. “Nathaniel! Good to see you here, supporting the cause.” He gave Fox a hearty backslap. “And this must be your wife?”
Fox tore his eyes away from scanning the room. “This is Haze.”
“Benjamin Norwood.” The man gave me a firm handshake, his fingers gripping mine for just a moment too long.
“Wonderful to have you both here.” He was slurring a little. This was Fox’s big new client. The idiot who didn’t realize Unique Events was using his little charity to launder money for gangbangers. There was already a large red wine stain on his white shirt.
“It’s good to see you, Benjamin, but we’re just looking for some friends.” Fox put a hand on my back and guided me forward.
“Good, good. Have fun!” Norwood stumbled off.
The room was so busy it was hard to take everyone in. Fox looked around. “I’ll head to the back. You check through to the library.”
I pulled his mask back down. “We’re avoiding Drake, remember.”
Our headsets were in. We could keep talking to each other as long as we were within radius.
I walked through the party.
One figure stood out. Diana Morgan, in a white jumpsuit, was holding court in the center of the room, surrounded by several masked partygoers.
She hadn’t ruined her hair or hidden her perfect makeup with a mask, instead wearing just one feather on a hairband.
She caught me looking at her and smirked as she glided over.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you’d be like Cinderella. Stuck at home, busy with council paperwork.”
“That would make you the evil stepmother.” I had nothing to lose by pushing her.
If she was here, it wasn’t a stretch to believe she was involved with The Corporation.
It was her law firm that had set up the company they were hiding behind, after all.
“I see that Backhouse Dunne had a hand in Unique Events. So much for lawyers abiding by the law.”
She shrugged. “It’s technically legal.”
I couldn’t believe she was so blatant. “Is that what you say to yourself so you can sleep at night?”
Her brow furrowed. “A tax break is not a crime. Rich clients are always looking for deductibles—and why not something that means you get to go to a fabulous party in a grand location?”
I took in Diana and her immaculate ensemble. She was a successful lawyer. She cared about her appearance, her son, and her money. Fun parties, exotic holidays, beautiful interior design. Nothing as complicated and seedy as gangsters and assassins and The Corporation.
It was suddenly very clear to me that she would never dirty herself with all that. Why would she? Reputation was everything to someone like her. She wouldn’t risk putting little Ted through the humiliation of his mother being arrested for being involved with criminal gangs.
She wouldn’t take such a risk—but we were happy to, apparently. I shook off the thought.
If I believed what Diana was saying, that meant that Unique Events was just a tax dodge. But we were so sure it was The Corporation. It all fit. What could it mean?
“You’ll have to try harder to find something to pin on me, Hazel.” She swept off, waving at a handsome bearded man on the other side of the room.
A woman with cropped pink hair was weaving a little as she made her way through the crowd, clutching a glass of champagne. Her mask was pushed up onto her head. She looked familiar. Where did I…?
Razia. Danny’s PA. Danny still hadn’t been reported missing yet. Clearly, no one cared about him enough to notice he’d been off-grid for nearly two weeks.
I stopped her. “Hi! Razia, isn’t it?”
I lifted my mask a little. She looked at me and tilted her head. “Oh, the pretty one. You were at my office.”
“Is Danny here tonight?”
She frowned. “Who’s that?”
Danny had lied. No surprise there. But why? Was he pretending to have a PA to seem like a bigger deal? Or was it something else?
“Danny. The man I was in a meeting with when you came in.”
“Oh, him. I’ve no idea.”
“He doesn’t…he doesn’t work for Unique Events?”
“We let out those meeting rooms to local creatives. I thought you guys worked together.” She spotted a waiter brandishing a bottle of champagne and headed for him. “Oh, here, please!”
I tried to make it make sense. Danny did not work for Unique Events. He’d had no part in organizing this party.
Danny was here at Balgray Hall that first day because he knew we were coming.
That chance meeting had not been chance at all.
The Chameleon wanted us to think we were getting one step ahead of him.
But we weren’t. He knew about my history with Danny.
As soon as Danny told me about the party, he knew I’d use Danny to find out more.
Everything we’d seen, The Chameleon wanted us to see.
Fox crackled in. “I’m at the seating plan. Something’s not right. All the names from the guest list are different to the names up here.”
The guest list. That had come from the booklet I took from Danny. They could’ve written anything they wanted in it. There were no elderly clients who only liked printouts. If something was too easy, there was usually a reason for it.
Those booklets had just been sitting on a desk, waiting for me to take one.
The guest list was fake. Criminal names had been put in to make us think something big was happening. And the Joe Jones name was planted to make us go to the Airbnb.
Unique Events wasn’t The Corporation. It was just an events company Backhouse Dunne had set up as a tax break.
Diana Morgan was just a vicious school mum.
This wasn’t a great criminal get-together of all the big players. This was…just a party.
Blood was pounding in my ears. Every instinct was telling me this was a trap.
Just like Ivrea.
We’d gone charging into that apartment thinking that it was the perfect place to kill the target. We’d been so busy thinking about attack, we hadn’t thought about defense.
And now he’d done it again.
At the Airbnb, The Chameleon had showed us he had evidence on all our past kills. He’d used that as leverage to make us come here tonight.
But why?
He’d had people following us. He could’ve got us at any time at home.
It must be because he didn’t want to get us at home.
Was it because our children were there, always with us? Maybe he wanted us here to get us alone?
Did he want us here, without our children, so they wouldn’t be harmed?
Or—
Did he want us here, without our children, so they could be harmed?
I felt my handbag vibrating. I took out my phone.
Jenny.
I answered it without speaking. I knew whatever she was going to say would be bad. I braced myself, but I still fell to my knees when she got the words out through her racking sobs.
Bibi.
He’d taken Bibi.
His last big job wasn’t happening at Balgray.
It was at our home.
Him taking Bibi was what all of this had been leading up to.
With all this running around we’d been doing, we’d thought we were chasing him—but he’d been drawing us in.
We’d done exactly what he wanted. And now he had our daughter.
My heart was breaking.
Everything was spinning.
I couldn’t breathe.
My worst nightmare was coming true. My child was in danger. And it was all our fault.