Forget Me Never

his jacket pocket that looked very like a gun. ‘Stop playing dumb and tell me how much you know. This is your last chance.’
    ‘You said Mr McIntyre sent you,’ Reece broke in, colour flaring on his cheeks. Alarmed he was going to lose his temper, I laid a hand on his arm. ‘Is he in on this?’
    ‘Hardly.’ The man made a contemptuous noise. ‘I overheard you on the phone to him. Seemed like the best way of getting you into the car without a fuss.’ He nodded at the driver. ‘Move.’
    The driver turned the key in the ignition. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Put your seat belts on.’
    It was such an absurd thing to say under the circumstances that I almost laughed. As if they cared about our safety!
    We drove for about half an hour before the driver pulled in at a large, mostly deserted service-station car park. The man in the passenger seat hadn’t left anything to chance; he’d made us hand over our mobiles and he’d even taken Reece’s cricket bat, though there was hardly room for him to do any damage with it in the car. The only thing that kept me from absolutely panicking was that we were in a built-up area in broad daylight. The driver – I’d picked up that his name was Kyle – turned the radio on; I’d desperately hoped that something of what was going on would have made it on to the news, but the main item was just some scandal about a football player. But why would it have been us? Sure, Reece had alerted McIntyre, but he might not have taken his call seriously. For all we knew, something nasty might have happened to McIntyre by now. And it would be a long time before Julie or Effie would worry. By then we might not even be alive.
    The men got out of the car. ‘Don’t try anything,’ the man who’d taken the memory stick said. ‘We’ll be right outside, and we’ll be disposing of this too.’ He picked up Reece’s cricket bag and got out, slamming the door. I heard a click as the doors locked.
    ‘On any other day I’d hit the roof about that,’ Reece said in a small voice. ‘But right now I’m more concerned about whether they’ll be disposing of us .’
    ‘We’ve got to think. There must be a way to escape.’ I could see through the window that the men were standing just a few paces away, presumably discussing what to do next. Kyle had a blank expression on his face – I hadn’t got the measure of him yet – but the other guy was waving his hands about, evidently worked up. I wondered who he was. He seemed to be in charge. Even given how close they were, it might have been worth trying to do a runner – but we were locked in, and Kyle had the key. And the other man had a gun . . .
    ‘D’you think they’re going to kill us?’ Reece’s question hung in the air.
    I swallowed. ‘They tried to kill Cherie.’
    It was the same car – it was so obvious now that I wondered how I hadn’t noticed the moment it had appeared. But everything had happened so quickly – I hadn’t had a chance to think, let alone make connections. What really worried me was that the men had what they wanted – the USB. If they were going to let us go, surely they would have by now . . .
    ‘Oh God!’ Reece’s voice wobbled. ‘What the hell have we got ourselves into?’
    ‘I should have listened to you,’ I said in a small voice. ‘I should have gone to the police.’
    ‘Fat lot of good saying that now! It’s my fault too. I could’ve thought, “Screw Sophie!” and gone myself.’
    I unclicked my seat belt and shuffled along the seat and reached out to Reece. He shifted so he could put his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned against him, pressing my hand to his chest. It flitted through my mind that under any other circumstances this would have felt weird. This was very definitely a cuddle and not a hug. But that didn’t seem to matter – anything that made me feel even slightly comforted was a good thing right now, and being close to Reece did that.
    Reece gave me a squeeze. ‘Maybe Mr McIntyre will be on the case – assuming they were telling the truth and he isn’t in on this.’
    ‘On a scale of one to ten, how convinced do you think he was by your story?’
    ‘About a five?’ Reece pulled a face. ‘You know how I moan about Mum being clingy? Well, right now I’d be quite happy if she was the most paranoid mother under the sun, cos at least that would mean someone would be freaking about where I was!’
    I ran my tongue over my lips. My throat felt dry – but