Forget Me Never

USB safely out of our hands. I could hardly believe that just a few days ago I’d been thinking this whole thing was exciting, a bit of fun. Fun?! I felt small and hopelessly out of my depth, like a kid who’d been shoved into a game where they didn’t know the rules and didn’t want to play any more.
    The bus station was right nearby. We hurried over to look at the timetables – and at that moment a car appeared out of nowhere, overtaking one of the arriving buses and screeching to a halt next to us. The driver wound down the window. He was a bearded man in his thirties who I didn’t recognize.
    ‘Reece? Sophie? Get in. Mr McIntyre sent me.’
    For a moment I was too surprised to react. ‘How come . . . ?’
    ‘No time!’ the man said. ‘We need to make a move.’
    The urgency in his voice spurred me into action. I opened the door, pushing Sophie forward. She hesitated, then scrambled across the backseat. I followed. Almost before the door had closed the man put his foot down and we were off, past the bus and down the road.
    I leaned forward. ‘What’s going on? Is someone following us? Did you manage to stop the man getting on the flight?’
    ‘One moment,’ the man said. Suddenly unsure, I opened my mouth to ask another question. But then the car jerked to a halt by the pavement. Startled by the suddenness of the stop, I looked up – and then the front passenger door opened and someone got in.
    It was the man who’d tried to kill Aiden.
    I grabbed the door handle but the driver moved just a second faster. There was a sickening click as he pressed the button that locked all the doors.
    ‘Well,’ said the newcomer as the car started moving again. ‘That wasn’t too difficult.’

SOPHIE
    The men didn’t take us far. We drove along the road by the bus terminal, then turned left by Hatton Cross station. We turned on to a smaller road, and it was there that the car stopped, in the shadow of a warehouse. An industrial estate, I thought. It reminded me of somewhere Julie had driven out to once to get new tyres for her car. Most worryingly, it was deadly quiet.
    If they wanted to do something to us, this was probably the kind of place it would go unnoticed . . .
    I glanced at Reece. He’d looked dumbfounded when the man who’d chased us had got in. Something had gone very badly wrong. I thought about Aiden. I wasn’t sure why I’d saved him from falling in front of that train – it had been instinctive, one of those things you just do . Aiden would be on his way home now, and then he’d probably go somewhere he couldn’t be found, with a whopping great sum in his bank account. But I bet he’d be freaking out as much as we were – he’d nearly been a goner back there. Who was to say they wouldn’t try to kill him again?
    The question now was, What were they going to do with us?
    It was the man who’d chased us who broke the silence. His accent was easy to identify – American. I guessed he was probably around the same age as Aiden, with longish light brown hair and expensive-looking sunglasses propped on his head. ‘Give it to me.’
    Reece and I stayed silent.
    ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,’ the man said. ‘I know you have the memory stick.’
    Reece cleared his throat. ‘Look, I dunno who you are or what you want, but there are laws against kidnapping. So you can let us go right now.’
    He didn’t sound very assertive.
    ‘Just hand it over,’ the man said. He paused. ‘Believe me . . . it is really not in your best interests to piss me off.’
    There was something in the way he said it – slowly and deliberately – that told me I’d better do as he said. I took the memory stick out of my pocket and handed it to the man. So much for trying to play the heroine.
    ‘What were you doing at Heathrow?’ the man asked.
    ‘We live nearby.’ Reece gave him a blank stare. ‘We hang out and watch the planes sometimes.’
    ‘In your sports kit?’ He nodded at Reece. ‘Sure, I’ve heard of kids amusing themselves in odd ways, but that doesn’t gel. Does the name Aiden Anderson mean anything to you? What about Vaughan-Bayard? Cherie Tapper?’
    Neither of us said anything.
    ‘This is useless!’ the man said suddenly. ‘Waste of time!’ He leaned forward, and for the first time I saw beads of sweat on his forehead. Suddenly he didn’t seem so cool, and that was a lot more frightening – especially as I’d caught a glimpse of something under