Page 36 of The Bodyguard

“Angela, I’ve known you long enough to believe in your gut instincts.”

Uncertainty crawled down her neck. If he only understood how awful her instincts were. “Honestly, if I tell you the details, you’ll think it’s ridiculous.”

“Life’s ridiculous.”

Wasn’t that the truth? She couldn’t help but laugh. Still, if Jared thought she was a moron also, that would significantly decrease her chance of helping investigate and find Tran Pham’s remaining hostage. “All the investigators thought I was a moron when I brought her up. They thought I had…” She twirled her finger by her head and whispered, “...a few loose screws.”

“If you close your eyes, can you envision what they said you made up?”

Without a doubt. Angela could still see the woman’s face in her mind as clearly as if she had seen her in person that morning.

Jared leaned in to Angela. “I have trusted you with my teams. They have trusted you with their lives. My life. It might not be the same way they rely on one another to stay alive, but it’s just as important.”

“Jared—”

He held up his hand. “Like I said, the past few years have taught me that you have a hell of a good instinct.” Jared settled back into the chair. “If you want to wait to rope in Parker, just tell me what you told them. No matter how ridiculous and wrong they said you were. And if what you said is some crackpot bullshit, I’ll tell you.”

She could agree with that. “And we won’t waste Parker’s time?”

“And we won’t waste Parker’s time,” he confirmed, “but I’m willing to bet Parker will be very interested in what you say.”

Angela trusted Boss Man’s instinct and ability to cut through the bullshit. She trusted him enough to risk another day’s embarrassment. “I saw a woman before I was taken,” Angela admitted. “I saw her often.”

Jared’s expression remained scarily focused.

She continued, “Federal agents said they’d checked surveillance footage from when and where I reported seeing her. They’d worked the streets, asked questions, and even brought in people for interrogations. But for all their work, they’d turned up absolutely nothing.” She bit her bottom lip. “They think she didn’t exist.”

He kept quiet.

“Pham didn’t always keep me in the type of place you found me. He would bring me on these family vacations.” Her voice had lowered. “He’d pretend I was his daughter, though he never called me her name. But it was like… like he wanted to spoil me—her, the daughter—but I was the stand-in. We’d go scuba diving and stay at these opulent resorts, relaxing at isolated beachside cabanas where no one else was on the island except for his entourage and resort staff. Mostly butlers.” No one could understand the two sides of Tran Pham. “It’s strange to explain how I could have been both a captive and a sunbather at a high-roller resort. The kind of place where billionaires vacationed andno one ever asked questions—where no one would ever talk to a federal agent about who or what they saw.” Again, she bit her bottom lip, uncertain that Jared’s lack of reaction weighed in her favor. “This is when you start asking why I didn’t ask for help or run away.”

He barely shook his head.

“Or maybe tell me that my years with Pham weren’t so bad.”

Once more, his expression tightened. “You know better than that, Angela. No one in Titan would do that.”

“Sometimes I don’t hate Pham.” Her gaze dropped. “Even when he kept me at the warehouse like a pet in a cage, he ensured I was provided for.” Then her chin jerked up. “But just because that’s true doesn’t mean I don’t want him to stay in prison.”

“I know.” Jared’s jaw worked while the wheels in his head turned. “Bring me back to the woman. Give me more.”

Angela took a deep breath. “The same woman was always in the background, almost as if forced to watch us. I saw her on vacation, set to the side, positioned toward us. She wasn’t security. She wasn’t acknowledged. I don’t know how she arrived or when she left. But she was there.” Angela searched his eyes for a reaction and, finding none, continued, “I can’t tell you why. We didn’t interact with her, and I never saw her at home—I mean, where he kept me,” she amended. “She wasn’t one of the employees who delivered food or magazines. She didn’t wait on Pham like his other employees had. She was simply, sometimes, justthere. Watching.”

“Did Pham ever interact with her?”

Angela shook her head. “Never.”

“Never,” he muttered under his breath. “Like I said, that bastard plays some serious 3-D mind-fuck chess.” After amoment, Jared rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, this is the kind of yarn ball Parker can dig into.”

She slumped in her chair, relieved to have been believed and unsettled at the thought of going through the search for her again. “Nothing will come out of it.”

“So you’ve been told.”

“So I’ve been told,” she agreed.

“Do you believe there’s nothing to her?” he asked.

“Boss Man, I don’t know—”

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