Angela shrugged, her demeanor reserved and guarded. “Just usually when there’s a big party going on. Like tonight.”
Nicole tipped her head, trying her best to engage her. “Do you like the big parties?”
“They’re okay,” she said quietly.
“Almost everyone seems excited about tonight,” Nicole went on. “A masquerade party sounds like fun.”
Angela didn’t reply. Instead, she stared blankly at the other girls taking advantage of the limo’s many luxurious amenities. Nicole didn’t believe Angela was being deliberately rude; it truly appeared that she had a lot on her mind, and an afternoon of indulging in a facial or pedicure wasn’t on her radar.
Hopefully, longing for her family was.
Still, Nicole persisted. “So, how did you get to The Sanctuary?”
Her inquiry startled Angela out of her thoughts. The other girl met her gaze and was painfully honest with her answer. “Gwen brought me here.”
The girl was opening up, just as Nicole had hoped, and she steered the conversation accordingly. “From where?”
Angela wrung her hands anxiously in her lap and glanced back out the window. “I don’t know where from. I came here from Arizona, so I’m not real familiar with places. It was by some big hotel with a volcano outside.”
The Mirage Hotel and Casino, which was located on the Las Vegas Strip. As Sloane’s assistant, Gwen appeared to be in charge of recruiting girls. She’d most likely recognized that scared, out-of-place look on Angela’s face and had plucked her off the streets and offered her a safe place to stay. Except Angela couldn’t have imagined the strings attached to Gwen’s offer until it was too late, or that accepting would change the course of her future, and not in a good way.
“Did you run away from home?” she asked, her voice just high enough for Angela to hear over the other girls’ talking and laughter.
Angela glanced back at her, the question triggering a wealth of emotion in her soft blue gaze. “Yes,” she whispered, the one word filled with so much loneliness and pain. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I miss my mom and dad. I miss my cat and friends.”
Nicole’s heart hurt for the young girl. “Do you want to go back home?”
She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “I do. But I can’t. Not now. Not after everything I’ve done.” She ducked her head and wiped away the tears that had spilled over her lashes, not wanting anyone else to see her crying. “I’m so ashamed.”
Seeing a part of herself in Angela, and recognizing those feelings of guilt and blame, Nicole took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “You made a mistake,” she said adamantly. “You still have the chance to make things right and change your life back around.”
Angela shook her head. “I don’t know how.”
“I do.”
The young girl stared at her with wide eyes filled with a mixture of hope and skepticism.
Without a doubt, Nicole knew that Angela was ready to embrace the opportunity she was about to hand her, which would make Nathan’s job of getting her out of the estate so much easier. After casting a quick glance at the other girls to make sure she and Angela weren’t being overheard, she leaned even closer and lowered her voice just to be on the safe side.
“Remember Alex from last night?”
“Yeah,” Angela said with a nod. “He was very nice.”
Nicole hesitated a second, then revealed the truth. “Your parents asked him to find you and bring you home. They love and miss you very much and want you back with them.”
Shock transformed Angela’s features, then panic set in. “But I can’t leave,” she whispered frantically. “Sloane won’t let me.”
So he was holding Angela against her will? Sounded like grounds for kidnapping charges to Nicole. “Have you told him you want to go home?”
“He told me that my parents don’t want me,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “That they don’t love me or else they would have come for me by now.”
“Why would they?” Angela’s bottom lip quivered. “I was so horrible to them. I said such ugly things that hurt them both.”
“They love you no matter what. A parent’s love is unconditional and isn’t based on your actions or what you say or do,” she said, not sure that someone of Angela’s age could grasp the concept. “They know that being a teenager isn’t easy, but it’s also their job to be tough on you, to make sure you turn out to be a good person.”
“I want to go home.” Angela’s voice was hoarse, but the look of despair in her eyes said it all. She missed her family terribly.
Nicole couldn’t have been more relieved to have Angela’s cooperation. “You need to listen to me,” she said, making sure she had the girl’s full attention before continuing. “As soon as you get to the playroom tonight, go to the women’s lounge. I’ll meet you there.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll let you know when the time comes.” For Angela’s own safety, the less she knew up front, the better. “Just be there, and we’ll get you out. And don’t tell anyone what we talked about.”
“I won’t. I promise,” Angela said, just as the limo pulled into a driveway leading to a small, private resort, then parked near a villa that housed the spa facilities.
The girls piled out of the limousine, with Security Guy watching their progress from the vehicle into the spa. Nicole followed behind with Angela, and once inside the exclusive facility, she looked for Holly so she could talk to the other girl next and get into her head a bit.
She caught up to Holly just as she reached the front desk and asked one of the technicians for a private massage and waxing. She was immediately whisked away, leaving Nicole on her own for the next few hours.
Disappointed that she’d lost the chance to bond with Holly, Nicole chose a manicure and pedicure for her spa treatments. She was assigned two young girls-one to polish her fingernails, and the other to tend to her feet.
Settled into a chair that massaged her back, she closed her eyes and relaxed, absently listening to the conversation between the two girls working on her hands and feet. Between envious comments and snide remarks beneath their breaths that they assumed she couldn’t hear, Nicole came to the conclusion these girls had once been part of Sloane’s harem. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he owned the spa and used it to farm out the girls once they got too old for his tastes.
What those girls didn’t realize was that they were the lucky ones, if there was such a thing under these circumstances. They were the few who might have been cast aside by Sloane once he’d grown bored of them, but they’d been spared from the hellish life of the white slave trade.
Nearly two hours later, her manicure and pedicure were done, complete with massages, sugar scrub, and paraffin wax dips. With her nails freshly painted, she was told to sit for another fifteen minutes before leaving. So she continued to relax, and when she finally opened her eyes it was to see Gwen strolling casually through the spa, checking on the girls.
For the most part, Nicole had managed to avoid up-close-and-personal contact with Gwen, but there was no escaping the woman now, since she was heading her way and Nicole still had foam separators between her toes. She waited for Gwen to pass by, but the other woman stopped in front of her instead.
Gwen studied her face for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then a slight smile touched her lips. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Yes, thank you,” Nicole replied, praying that the woman didn’t make the connection between her and the reporter at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Good.” Her expression gave nothing away. “I’ll see you at tonight’s party.”
Gwen moved on, and Nicole exhaled a deep breath.
Before long, it was time to return to the house, and Security Guy was standing on duty again to make sure that all the girls got back into the limousine. Nicole tried to get a seat next to Holly, but ended up sitting across from her. She wasn’t able to talk to the other girl, but she could
