Ninja School Mum

by Lizzie Chantree

  ‘I used to work in an office,’ she began, a wistful lilt to her voice. ‘It was pretty run-of-the-mill, with rooms full of utilitarian desks, grey walls, and more grey shelves full of files of paperwork. It wasn’t the most inspiring of places to spend ten hours a day. I was pretty good at my job, but I let them walk all over me.’ Skye looked troubled and settled back onto her arms, waiting for Thea to continue. A couple of brown birds who were hopping nearby stopped what they were doing, and cocked their heads to one side as if they were eagerly waiting for the next instalment too, which made Thea smile. They quickly spread their wings and flew across the park towards a family who had just laid out a brightly coloured picnic blanket and were unloading an array of delicious-looking treats.

  Glancing at the children, who had moved onto the swings, Thea took a deep breath. Maybe this was a bad idea, but she had trained so many teams herself now that she could draw on her own years of experience, and she felt that the connection she had with Skye went much deeper than a playground chat and a few fish finger dinners.

  ‘One day, someone new arrived at the office; I certainly hadn’t seen them there before and the tension in the room was palpable. I thought I was going to be sacked, but instead they offered me a job. I didn’t understand what they were saying to me as they kept referring to my technical skills and saying they could utilise them. When I realised what I had jumped into, it scared the hell out of me, but I was too stubborn to run away and admit failure again.’

  Skye’s eyebrows shot up and she looked like she couldn’t have been more surprised. Thea understood it would be hard to imagine someone like her in a dangerous job, as she appeared to be so scatty and disorganised.

  ‘What was the job?’ Skye asked, sitting up on her knees and ineffectually brushing at the grass stains on her jeans. She took a small sip of the disgusting coffee and quickly looked round for a place to spit it out again, sighing in defeat before holding her nose and swallowing it. Thea smirked at her friend’s antics. Skye really couldn’t sit still for a moment. Maybe Thea was wrong about her? Surely someone this agitated couldn’t be the person Thea thought she was?

  ‘They asked me to come in and spend two years in technical training. It was like shoving me into a cake shop and locking the door. There was so much to learn and so many hidden depths to technology that I hadn’t realised before. To be honest, it’s scary how deep you can go, but I was mesmerised by the fact they were trusting me and I finally had some responsibility. I was only working for the benefit of my employer and I understood that, but I was on a power trip and couldn’t get enough of the adrenaline it gave me to be told at last that I was good at something. They loaded me up with responsibility and I revelled in it. I used to arrange for people to become someone else, or even disappear from history completely, if I wanted them to.’

  Skye jumped up in shock. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Thea hastily. Bloody hell! She had really misjudged this one. Maybe Skye was just a crazy woman and not what she thought at all.

  ‘You’re a handler?’ asked Skye incredulously under her breath, suddenly looking from side to side and scoping the park very vigilantly. ‘Are you here for me?’ she demanded angrily, still trying to speak quietly and keep control of her temper. ‘Who do you work for?’

  ‘Of course I’m not here for you! Why the hell would I be? As far as I know you’re an author who hasn’t published anything and an ex-high-school gymnast.’

  ‘What gave me away?’ asked Skye, obviously kicking herself for becoming complacent for the first time in years.

  ‘Nothing! It’s just years of dealing with people like you. I recognise the harried look,’ she tried to jest and dampen the deadly glow in Skye’s eyes. ‘I know your own tech team would have your details buried so deeply that no one could find them, but I think I could if I really wanted to. I just recognised your body language and I guess I was hoping I wasn’t alone.’

  Skye took this last comment in and thought about it for a moment. ‘You say you could break my cover if you really wanted to? If you can, then so can others. I’m usually so careful, but meeting you, my standards have slipped,’ she said accusingly like a spoilt child, anger flushing her skin red as she kept Leo in her line of sight at all times. ‘And what’s the likelihood of us being in one area at the same time?’ she added, giving up the pretence that Thea didn’t know what her real job was. ‘Who do you work for?’ she asked again.

  Thea knew the drill. A knot of worry would be gnawing at Skye’s stomach and she would feel queasy at the thought that maybe Thea was a threat. Was the way they had met and bonded a coincidence? Was Flo even her daughter, or Allie related to her at all? Skye knew how this worked. People who appeared to be part of a community with an ordinary job and family could be anyone. The mum or dad who worked away for weeks at a time could easily be on assignment. Thea knew how far her old boss would go to get a job done, and they had told her they would ‘persuade’ anyone who left to come back into the fold. They might push the boundaries, but pretending someone was a mum with a baby and a family was sick and unlikely. Skye would realise this as soon as she calmed down and began to think rationally again.

  Thea saw the range of thoughts flitting across Skye’s face, as her eyes darted from Flo to Allie. She looked like she was about to grab Leo and bolt. Thea reached for Skye’s arm and restrained her gently, but she was easily shaken off. ‘Skye,’ reasoned Thea. ‘I think we work for the same people. I’m surprised our paths haven’t crossed before, if I’m honest, but there are hundreds of techy guys and girls like me. Your team must have had one.’

  Skye’s eyes narrowed and she scanned Thea’s face, but obviously didn’t see anything threatening there. ‘Are you being genuine? What the hell is going on?

  ‘You’re hiding from someone, aren’t you?’ Thea asked suddenly.

  ‘Yeah, my boss!’ said Skye angrily, kicking the base of a nearby tree, then probably wishing she hadn’t as she yelped in pain. Thea wondered why Skye didn’t feel ready yet to tell anyone about the danger she must have put herself in every single day. Thea raised her eyebrow at Skye’s avoidance of her question.

  ‘What the hell!’ fumed Skye, stomping around in circles. Flo blinked her eyes wide and her lips wobbled at the tension she felt radiating from her mum. Skye slumped down next to Thea on the grass in defeat and put her hands over her eyes to shield them from the last few rays of the sun. ‘I can handle seasoned interrogators, but I crumple at one raised eyebrow from you.’

  ‘From what I can tell,’ said Thea, ignoring her friend’s theatrics and waiting patiently for Skye to stop sulking, ‘you have the skills to determine fairly quickly who you can trust and you have training to back up your decisions. How the hell two of us ended up in this back of beyond with two children is what’s worrying me.’ Skye straightened up at this comment and looked into Thea’s eyes to see if she was being played. ‘I’ve never thought of what happens to people like us when they leave or retire. Do you think there are playgrounds all over the country full of dangerous assassins?’

  Skye choked back a laugh and she begrudgingly sat up and stared at her friend. Thea’s shoved her hand through her hair, which wasn’t an easy feat with all those curls, and her forehead crinkled as she was deep in thought. Skye rolled her eyes, but Thea saw her. She knew Skye was trying to work out how such a messy and disorganised person as Thea could arrange the lives of so many other people? She used to be so efficient. Maybe she could use the excuse that having Flo had addled her brain?

  ‘Are you working undercover?’ asked Thea, as a horrible thought popped into her head. She suddenly reached forward and scooped Flo up into one arm, turning her back on Skye and grabbing the baby bag with her other hand, before swiftly getting up and placing her baby and her belongings into the pram with practised ease. She really was a klutz and wished she’d had this particular thought, that Skye might be dangerous, before she had blurted her whole life history out to a complete stranger. Someth
ing about Skye made you want to tell her your secrets, even though Thea had really only intended to say that she was a bit of a computer whizz, with a history of helping solve crime, and wait for Skye to spill her story. Thea could kick herself as she had blabbed like the needy creature she used to be, who couldn’t survive without someone else validating her existence. She pushed her shoulders back and turned to face the astounded Skye, who had an expression like a slapped fish, as confused as hell.

  ‘Are you?’ countered Skye, who seemed to be trying to regroup, keep control of her anger and not frighten Flo, who was looking at them both with concern.

  Thea thought about lying, but was too tired from lack of sleep and baby brain to be able to co-ordinate her ideas at that precise moment. Thank goodness she wasn’t at work, or she might have sent people to the wrong locations, or put their lives in danger. Anger and tension flared into her bloodstream and she felt herself want to yell at Skye to move away from them, but she knew this could endanger everyone. Quickly dropping a kiss onto Flo’s nose and unhooking the back of the pram so that Flo could lay flat and sleep, she signalled to the other children to come and collect some money for an ice cream, as the brightly coloured van had just pulled up at the side of the car park. She winced as the sound it played dropped out of key, drawing children from the far corners of the park, until the area was swarming with families. It looked like they were dancing around the van in anticipation as they tried to get a glance at the choices of ice cream in the window, even though they had all seen them a thousand times before.

  Thea waited for Leo and Allie to join the queue before she continued. She had trusted Skye for a reason. She felt they were connected and she had never doubted her instinct when she was at work. It wasn’t the time to do that now. She felt in her bones that Skye wouldn’t hurt her, so she would have to find out what was really going on. Skye didn’t look like she was about to be forthcoming on the real reason she was nervous, so Thea reverted back to her original plan, of drawing Skye’s story out, by confiding to her a little of her own. Settling Flo, checking on Allie and then making the decision to sit down again, Thea waited for Skye to relax and do the same.

  ‘Flo’s dad was someone I worked with. I know, I know,’ she held up a hand to stop Skye’s surprised questions, so she shut her mouth and waited patiently. ‘He cheated on me before I found out I was pregnant, so I decided my job wasn’t an ideal place to stay and bring up his child, when I would want to beat him with a stick every day. Although, to be fair, he told me from the start that he never wanted children or any commitment from me.’ Thea bit down on her lip as it wobbled a little and she turned away and ran her hands restlessly through her hair again, but they got stuck halfway in her curls, so she hastily pretended she was brushing a leaf away and placed her hands in her lap. ‘Flo needed at least one parent who wasn’t a knobhead to look after her, so I left.’

  Skye seemed aghast. ‘Didn’t he come looking for you when he found out you were pregnant?’ Thea had the decency to look a bit shamefaced and Skye asked, ‘You did tell him?’

  Thea ignored that question and started to collect the last of the detritus of Flo’s toys. ‘He couldn’t come looking for me. Everything I put on my original job application was a lie.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Skye couldn’t believe what she’d just heard and threw her hands up in mock surrender. She must be really losing her mind, as she’d thought Thea was timid and scatty, but here she was telling her that she was a technical genius, who’d kept her baby from its father and who’d lied about everything, even before she was recruited to the agency. She was worse than Skye. Skye was supposed to be the best in her own field, but she had been out of the game for way too long, she could see that now. The thought frightened her, as she had always been confident that she could keep Leo safe on her own.

  ‘I was so fed up with never getting a job and being compared to my sister on every level by my parents and family, so I snapped one day and made a new life up. My old company never even checked my pretend references,’ Thea said, appearing surprised that no one had ever found her out.

  ‘I lived in fear for years until the fateful day I was recruited. When I eventually left the agency, I presumed Flo’s dad might look for me, but he didn’t,’ she said sadly. ‘I knew how to cover my tracks, but he could have found me if he’d really tried. It seems either I’m not valuable enough to look for, or he doesn’t need me right now, so he’s left me alone. I know I look a bit of a mess, but I was one of their best code breakers and I can pretty much access any computer in minutes,’ she said proudly, before seemingly realising that it made her look like a complete prat, as her bosses obviously didn’t value her enough to try and get her back.

  Maybe she wasn’t as red-hot as she thought? sighed Skye. ‘My background check?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say for once and glancing over to see the kids walking back with melting ice creams and happy faces.

  Thea nodded, looking a bit sheepish. ‘I have a habit of doing a basic background check on anyone I meet. It’s a bit of an obsession. When I couldn’t find more on you than the last couple of years, I knew it wasn’t real. The only reason you would have a new identity would be for a career like ours, or if you were in witness protection, but the cover would have gone deeper for that.’ She looked at Skye apologetically, but also with censure for not being more careful.

  Skye could have used someone like Thea on her own team. Her handler, Marcus, spent so long moaning about all of the rules they kept breaking as a team and the risks they were taking, that it always took twice as long to achieve anything. Skye had a feeling that there was far more to the story about Flo’s dad, but didn’t push it for now, as she wasn’t sure how she felt about him not knowing that he was a father. She was confident that Thea thought she was making the right decision, but what if she was wrong? Skye could easily do her own background check and find out about Thea, but if her cover ran as deep as she suspected, it would be an impossible task.

  ‘It was my own fault for becoming complacent,’ said Skye, apologetically. ‘I was bored and made some silly stuff up this time. I’m usually pretty thorough and can do the basic wipe of my past history. I have someone I trust and he clears and resets the rest. This time I didn’t even want him to know where I was. I wanted a fresh start away from my past, but then you popped up. I thought you would be a shining light for the new me, but instead you’re entwined in the life I’m trying to leave.’

  Thea looked hurt by this, but Skye was lashing out and had no one else to direct it towards. Skye’s perfect ideal of a new life here was crumbling before her eyes and she needed Thea to persuade her that having a friend you trusted wasn’t such a bad thing, but a bonus instead.

  Skye helped Thea to collect the last of the bottles and toys and they unceremoniously shoved them under the pram, before following the children out of the park towards home. ‘Don’t think you’re off the hook,’ said Thea levelly, looking sideways at Skye who was scowling beside her.

  Skye’s step faltered a little and her shoulders slumped. ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘What do you want to know?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Zack had reluctantly let Emmie go to Miles’ house after school for tea and was dreading having to go and collect her. He’d tried asking Mike’s wife, Marlo, to pick Emmie up and drop her home, when she had popped in earlier to give Mike the phone he’d left on the kitchen counter before work. She had laughed in his face and told him to stop being such a baby and to man up. Bloody women! They were put on this earth to annoy the hell out of him. For some reason this had brought to mind a picture of his new tenant and the cheeky wink she had sent his way at the school. He didn’t think she knew he was her landlord, but for some reason he wanted her to. Zack wanted her to know that he owned the bed she slept in at night and that he could walk in at any time he pleased. He knew he couldn’t really, but she wouldn’t know that. He wanted her to be aware of him, for some reason, as she had pretty much ig
nored him since the day in the field. His skin prickled when he was around her and he was sure that it was because, even on such a limited acquaintance, she got under his skin. She made his blood warm up and his mind immerse itself in lust. He tried his best to be angry with her and was sure he had riled her for how rude he was in front of Emmie, but that wink of understanding at the school had stayed with him and made him hot and bothered when he thought about it. He kept dreaming of those long legs in those skin-tight black jeans. He really needed to get a grip, or get laid!

  The weather was starting to warm up and his tenant would have to peel off some of those layers soon and start wearing shorts or skirts. He began to salivate at the thought of her soft silken skin and what it would feel like in his hands. He sighed in frustration; he really needed to find a girlfriend. That woman was bloody annoying and probably just as manipulative as his ex and Belle. He shivered at the thought. He was much better off on his own.

  Bending down to pick up a crumpled crisp packet discarded on the floor by the tree climbing area, Zack scanned the area for any other remnants of the day’s activities. He had a small cleaning crew that did a sweep of the site every evening. He didn’t want the local wildlife choking on the colourful plastic people carelessly left around. Zack had to adhere to strict health and safety guidelines now that he was running this business and it had been a baptism of fire on how quickly he could learn how to do it. He had been selling his app for a while now, so he knew how to run a business, but being swamped by kids and their parents or carers every day was not what he had down on his business plan. Both companies relied on the good faith of families, as they were the target audience for his apps and CloudClimb but, as a grumpy old goat, he preferred the distance he had from the customer with his app business, to the hands-on way he had to run the tree climbing centre. Now that he had actually come to terms with owning such a zany business, Zack found he wasn’t as much of a recluse as he had previously thought, and was starting to unfurl his cold heart and enjoy seeing the look of delight on the children’s faces when they finally climbed the big trees or even got to the lowest walkways, their faces shining in surprise at their achievement.