Free Trapped (Here Trilogy) by Ella James Page B

source of the almond smell: a hooded buffet counter, near where the first woman’s supposed daughter was flipping through a Redbook .
    “Oh, wow. I need some of the cinnamon stuff,” I said with my brightest smile.
    Yeah, it would cost me a few minutes, but Nick had said to act natural, and I hearted sugared almonds hard.
    The brunette’s smile looked like her mother’s. “Anything else?”
    “Umm...I need a lot of food,” I said, and she laughed, probably because I didn't look like I'd eat a lot. “I'm here with friends,” I explained, slipping into chatty mode. “A girls' trip. We're all really hungry.”
    She got off her stool and stood to scoop and bag the almonds. “How many bags?”
    “Um, maybe six or seven,” I said.
    “Anything else?”
    “Mac and cheese and some of the potato soup.” I pretended to count on my fingers, revising my order. “Five bowls of soup and five of the mac and cheese.” She nodded, and I turned away to grab a basket and raid the canned food shelves. “Are you here for the park?” she asked, and I turned around with my mouth hanging open. “Yes— no . I mean, we're not sure yet.” I laughed away the awkwardness. “My friends can't decide on anything. We're really on a road trip.”
    I turned back to the shelves and grabbed a small shopping basket before I could sound any more suspicious. I tossed in several cans of miniature hot dogs, about a dozen peanut butter cracker packs, two jugs of water, two water purifying water bottles, a jumbo bag of peanut M&Ms, and some tuna.
    Then the door chimed, and I looked up and nearly died. It was a cop. A female cop. And as my gaze hit hers, her eyebrows shot up into her bangs.
    She looked over at the gray-haired woman, and my fingers trembled around the handle of the basket.
    “Is this her?” she asked casually.
    I glanced at the back of the store, already prepared to run; the brunette had stopped packaging my food and was leaning into the TV now, peering at something. The cop had stepped closer, and was waiting for the gray-haired woman to answer.
    I sat the basket on the floor and took two steps toward the end of the aisle, seconds from lunging into a sprint. But then the gray-haired lady's gentle laughter warmed the room.
    “I’m afraid not. Just passing through with some friends.”
    I had a moment’s relief—the cop thought I was that niece. Whatever her name was. The next moment, I almost jumped out of my skin when the brunette at the TV gasped. “Mama. Sara!” Her tone was that of someone just discovering something. I stopped, noticing for the first time the officer’s resemblance to both women. “Doesn’t Deb Crenshaw live in Golden, Colorado?”
    The officer nodded, and so did her mother.
    THANK YOU GOD. This was just a benign family drop-by! I laughed, high pitched and slightly maniacal. I turned around to get my basket, then I remembered that the brunette had been talking about Golden !
    “I think so.”
    Her daughter pointed to the TV. “They’ve got some kind of outbreak.”
    “Outbreak?” the other daughter, the police officer, asked.
    “It’s a virus.”
    Heart pounding, I stepped to the counter as the first daughter turned up the volume on the TV.
    I heard a female voice saying, “...new strain of zoonotic swine flu, which originated here, and so far has infected all four hog farms in this foothills town directly west of Denver.Can you tell us what's going on right now, Dr. Barnett?”
    I strained to get a better look at the TV, which was slanted toward the brunette, as she bagged my stuff and asked me how I wanted to pay.
    I handed her the card, and she pointed to my basket. “Do you want all this stuff, too?”
    I nodded, hoisting it onto the counter. “Sorry.”
    “You're fine,” she said, glancing again at the TV, which had clearly captured all our attention. “I hope that doesn’t make it anywhere up here,” she mused.
    “...at least four people in quarantine. We'll do everything we can