Chapter 3

Jonathan looked at the name on the scrap of paper that his mum had reluctantly given him. It wasn't easy persuading Joyce to let him and Nancy follow up Bauman's lead, but he knew Nancy had developed a caustic side from working alongside a group of contemptuous misogynists and she knew how to get her way. She was on a mission to expose everything that had taken place since the discovery of the Upside Down and if Murray Bauman said the cassette was authentic and that Hopper was alive, she believed him and meant to find out where he was being kept.

"Are you ready?" Jonathan looked at her and smiled.

Nancy took a deep breath and nodded. "I think so" she replied. She let Jonathan take her hand and squeeze it. Since they had been together, he had changed her life, made her feel as if she could do anything. She checked her reflection in the rear- view mirror. He believed in her and now she believed too.

"Let's do it" she said and got out of car.

Nancy and Jonathan looked up at the white building and tried not to feel intimidated by the rows of glossy windows that watched them. They walked through the double doors and Nancy casually strolled to the elevator; a quick glance at a floor plan told them that 'Henley and Stratford' was on the top floor.

They knew they wouldn't get far.

"Can I help you?" The security guard had watched them walk past his desk without a second glance. The woman had dark glasses on and the guy trailed behind her like a long suffering boyfriend. "I'm not expecting visitors today."

"And why on earth would I report myself as a visitor?" Nancy said glaring at him. She walked over to his desk and slowly removed her sun- glasses. The guard sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Are we really doing this?" she said and cocked her mouth in an arrogant smile. Jonathan watched on with a mixture of pride and disbelief.

Nancy stared at the guard and the guard, flustered now, look down for inspiration. His clipboard had the list of names of everyone coming and going and the times they came and went. Nancy sighed in irritation.

"Give it to me" she said holding out her hand. Jonathan was beginning to feel sorry for the guard. The guard handed the clipboard to Nancy and passed a pen over the counter and Nancy, without taking her eyes from the guard, placed a large 'X' on the sheet. She pushed the clipboard back to him.

"There" she said smugly. "I've signed my name and just so you know, if you ever stop me from walking in and seeing my father again, I'll have him sack you in a heartbeat." She put her glasses back on and walked back to the lift. Jonathan jabbed his finger on the 'up' button and the doors opened smoothly. The guard watched them disappear with an uneasy feeling in his stomach and wondered if he might have been more suited to security in the newly opened mall.

"You are awesome" Jonathan whispered.

"I know" Nancy said in reply. She looked at him and grinned.

Nancy rapped on the door and walked straight into the opulent office of 'David Henley'.

The tall thin man looked up from his mahogany desk and frowned.

"Hello" he said. "Who might you be?"

Uninvited Nancy and Jonathan sat down on the chairs that faced him. He watched them cautiously then smiled. "Well you've somehow managed to get past the security guard so I imagine you have something quite pressing to talk to me about, but I have a meeting in ten minutes so please, don't waste my time." He leant back and smiled.

"Hopper" Jonathan said.

Something flickered across the man's face and then disappeared. He sat up and glanced quickly around the room.

"Pardon?" he said, but the confidence had gone from his voice.

"Tell us where he is" Nancy said. She smiled. "We know you know, and we have money…"

The man laughed, cutting her off. "Do I look like I need your money?"

Nancy laughed too. "I wasn't offering a bribe" she said. "I was pointing out that I have money to pay someone to persuade you to tell us where he is."

The man swallowed and his smile dissolved.

"Please leave" he said.

Jonathan leant over the desk. "Give us what we want" he said. "Or we'll go to the press and tell them all about your weekends away." He leered at him. "What do you think your wife would say?"

The man clasped his hands together and appraised them both in silence, but then he laughed scornfully.

"What you want is impossible" he said. "I don't have the information and I couldn't give it to you even if I did." He paused and sat back watching them, then he shook his head. "You're just kids aren't you? And you have absolutely no idea who you are dealing with."

"You're wrong" Nancy said feeling a stab of irritation.

He cocked his eyebrow at her. "It's bigger than Goliath" he said pointedly. "Do yourself a favour, go home and go back to playing mummies and daddies." Then he smiled with derision. "And furthermore, my wife doesn't care what I get up to at the weekends, as long as I pay for her private tennis lessons with Sebastian."

Nancy stood up ready to fight, but something in the way the man looked at her stopped her. He turned to Jonathan.

"Persuade your girlfriend to drop this or it will get personal, do you understand?" He leant over his desk and almost imperceptibly, pushed a newspaper across the desk towards them. Then he leant back again.

"Goodbye" he said. He glanced at the paper. "And I'll have to fire the security guard now so you might want to apologise on the way out."

Jonathan frowned and stood up. He picked the paper up slowly, expecting something else, but the man had turned himself around so that he was now looking out from one of the many windows that peered down over the city.

"Why are you mad?" Dustin aimed a pea shooter at Lucas.

"I'm not mad, but I will be if you fire that at me."

Dustin looked around the basement. "Hands up everyone who thinks Lucas is mad?"

Mike and El both put up their hands and Dustin aimed the pea shooter at Will, but there was something in his expression that stopped him in his tracks.

"You okay Will?" Dustin looked at Mike in mild panic. If Will looked worried, it quite often meant there was something to be worried about. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but if Will was uneasy, Dustin was scared.

Will tried smiling, but it didn't work very well.

"It's never going to be over is it?" He looked around at his friends; he eyes settled on El. "I'm glad Hopper's alive" he said. "I really am, but it just means it's not over." He picked at a thread on the arm of the battered old armchair, then he sighed. "It feels like it will never be over." He blinked furiously, hating the hot tears that stung his eyes, but he wouldn't cry; he wouldn't let them see how weak he was, how afraid he felt. "I think I can hear my brother" he said quietly. "I'm gonna go." He walked up the stairs leaving the basement heavy with an uneasy silence.

"So, what are you mad about Lucas?" Dustin said, expunging the silence. "Is it girlfriend trouble? Where is Max anyway?"

"Yeah, where is Max?" Lucas looked at El quickly as if she had no right to care. El shrugged. "She's my friend."

"I did send a code red" Dustin said disapprovingly.

"Her brother died Dustin, if you remember!"

"Her douche bag of a brother, sure I remember." Dustin blew into his pea shooter and it ricocheted off a beam and landed on Lucas's head. Lucas plucked it from his hair, glaring at Dustin.

"He saved my life Dustin" El said quietly.

"And that was great and noble an' all" Dustin continued. "But, you know, he was a hose-head and he treated Max like really, really badly in case you've all forgotten."

There was noise from upstairs. They all looked up.

Mike stood up and held his hand out to El.

"Come on" he said. "Let's go and find out where Hopper is."