‘I’ve had enough, thanks.’ I stood up. The fact that I was meeting the boss face to face did not bode wel for what they had planned for me. I tried to think up a scenario where they didn’t kil me to protect their identities at the end of this and couldn’t imagine one.

‘OK, let’s go.’ He took a firm grip of my upper arm and marched me out into the hal way. We turned left, walked past the elevator and on into a waiting area.

Through the frosted windows, I could see people sitting around a boardroom table. Gator knocked once, waited for the green light, then entered with me in tow.

Fear made the images sharp. I tried to absorb as much information as I could just in case by some miracle I did get free. Three people sat at the table.

My eyes were drawn to the oldest: a man with dyed black hair and dodgy tan, punching away at his BlackBerry. His suit screamed designer, though his choice in ties did not: today’s a tangerine shade that clashed with his skin. He had the seat at the head.

On either side sat a younger man and a woman. The family resemblance was strong enough for me to hazard a guess that these were his children or close relatives.

‘Here she is, Mr Kel y. I’l wait outside.’ Gator gave me a little push towards the table and walked out.

Mr Kel y sat looking at me without speaking for a while, his fingers touching in an arch. The others were clearly waiting for him to make the first move, which left me stranded. I knew only that the Benedicts had helped in the conviction of two of the Kel y family. From the way he sat so confidently in the head chair, I guessed I was looking at the famous Daniel Kel y himself, head of the Kel y business empire, the man whose face appeared more regularly in the business pages than Donald Trump and Richard Branson combined.

‘Come here.’ Kel y beckoned me closer.

Reluctantly, I walked round the table.

‘O’Hal oran said you are a savant?’

‘I don’t know.’ I tucked my hands in my pockets to disguise the fact that they were trembling.

‘You are. I can tel . It’s a shame real y that you’ve been caught up in this.’ He flashed me an unapologetic grin, displaying improbably even teeth.

The man on his right stirred. ‘Dad, are you sure the Benedicts wil trade themselves for her?’

‘Yes, they wil try. They won’t be able to stop themselves trying to protect an innocent like her.’

The younger Kel y poured a cup of coffee. ‘And the police? They must be involved by now.’

‘They wil never be able to trace it back to us. And she wil tel them exactly what I tel her to say.’ Mr Kel y leaned back in his chair. ‘Fascinating. There are such dark spaces in her mind.’

I stepped back in alarm. He was reading my mind somehow. Zed had said I always gave too much away to another savant. I threw up wal s as fast as I could.

He drummed his fingers lazily on the table.

‘Turquoise. Such a girlish colour, don’t you think?’

‘Not very strong though,’ commented the younger woman; she had the sleek looks of a wild cat, groomed but deadly. ‘I could break them for you, Daddy.’

‘Oh no, I don’t want her broken just yet.’

The bottom fel out of my world. The Benedicts had thought there was only one savant involved; what they had failed to anticipate was that the Kel ys had powers like theirs. This had suddenly got a whole lot more complicated.

‘You’re wondering what we’re going to do with you, aren’t you, Sky?’ Kel y held out a hand to me, his face lined with dissatisfaction. He looked as if he was suffering from deep disappointment and wanted others to suffer with him.

I’d prefer to touch a snake so I kept my hands in my pockets.

‘We’re not going to kil you, if that is what you are thinking. You are not our enemy.’ He let his hand drop. ‘I’m a businessman, not a murderer.’

‘So what are you going to do with me?’

He stood up, tugging his jacket straight.

Approaching me, he walked round, assessing me like an art critic at a showing of a new work. His presence grated on my nerves like a piece of discordant music.

‘You are going to become my very good friend, Sky. You are going to tel the policemen that neither I nor my family had anything to do with your kidnapping, that it was two of the Benedict boys who took you for their own disgusting and evil purposes.’

He smiled with evil relish. ‘You know how savants can so easily go wrong—too much power, too little to hold them sane. The fact that they died trying to stop you escaping is no tragedy but saves the American taxpayer the money for housing them for the rest of their natural life in jail.’

‘I like that,’ commented the young man. ‘I think disgracing them is better than just kil ing them.’

‘I thought you would, Sean. I told you that you could trust me to think up a suitable payback for your uncles.’

I gaped at them. ‘You’re mad! There’s nothing you can do or say to make me tel the police such a lie, even if you threaten me! And I won’t let you kil Zed or

… or his brothers! I won’t!’

Kel y found my anger funny. ‘Such an amusing little foreigner, isn’t she? Al hissing and spitting like a furious kitten and about as threatening.’ He laughed.

‘Of course you wil say what I tel you, Sky. You see, it is my gift. You wil remember what I want you to remember. People do, you know, like the prison guards who wil very soon be letting my brothers out of prison, thinking they received word from the governor to release them. There’s no point resisting.

Bending people to my wil is what I am good at. I’ve built my fortune on it and you’l be no different.’

Oh my God, he was like Victor. But could he real y make me say and do something so out of character?

I could see that making a couple of guards misinterpret their duty might be possible, but to fabricate a whole complicated lie that flew in the face of the evidence, surely I wouldn’t go along with that?

Could I forget myself so far as to betray Zed? Betray my soulfinder?

I slammed that thought deep behind al my barriers. Kel y must not learn what Zed was to me—

he’d exploit that weakness without mercy, knowing what savants would do for their other half.

Absolutely brilliant, Sky. I kicked myself. What a time to accept Zed is your soulfinder.

I’d been scared before; now I was terrified.

‘I see you are beginning to believe that I can do it.’

Kel y tucked his BlackBerry away in his breast pocket. ‘Don’t worry: you won’t suffer. You’l think you’re tel ing the truth. I’l have to keep you close by, of course, to make sure you carry on singing the same tune for a year or so until everyone forgets, but we can see to that can’t we, Maria?’

The younger woman nodded. ‘Yes, Daddy. I think we can make a place for her in housekeeping in one of the hotels when she drops out of high school to live in Vegas. Tragical y, the memories of Wrickenridge wil be too painful for her to return.’

‘But my parents …’ This was worse than a nightmare.

Kel y gave an insincere sigh. ‘They’l feel they failed to protect you and I’l persuade them that they want to give you the space our doctors say you need after your trauma. We know al about them and your adoption—how fragile your mental condition is. I’m sure they’l be too busy with their careers to worry too much as long as you tel them you’re happy—and you wil tel them so.’

How did he know so much? ‘You’re taking my life away from me.’

‘Better than kil ing you, and that’s the only other option.’

Sean came to join his father. He was a good head tal er, but much fatter, his bel y rol ing over the top of his thin leather belt that kept up his sagging trousers.

He had a Zorro-style moustache arching over his lip which looked ridiculous on someone who had only a few years on me, like someone had drawn it on him for a joke while he slept and he hadn’t yet noticed.