Page 5 of Hidden Rocco
Suddenly the bus lurched forward and the driver said, “They’re waving us through.”
Again it was like he was blessed. His life was not normally this good. They neared the police officers and the bus driver slowed and opened the door to call out, “What happened?”
Rocco expected to be arrested or shot at. The officer stared right at him.
The second officer gestured them forward. “We’ve found the escapees.”
Bear. They must have caught his roommate, not that he knew for sure. Escapees was plural and Bear and he separated.
Rocco had only involved him in the escape because it had been impossible to plan and dig without his cellmate seeing.
Rocco took his seat as they passed into Colorado.
Hours later, dawn broke out on the range. From his window he saw small purple and white flowers that bloomed from the sun.
Nothing was more beautiful. The air had a sweet smell that must be freedom.
The bus veered off the road to a gas station in front of a mountain pass with snow on the peaks though not on the fields around them. The driver announced, “We’re stopping here for gas. Feel free to get out and stretch your legs. We have fifteen minutes.”
Rocco kept his head down, drawing no attention to himself. He neared the driver and pointed toward a back road. “What’s up that way?”
“Nothing but mountain,” the driver said. “And then another behind it.”
The best place to lie low was where no one expected to find him. He was from Miami. He had to speak with his mother and find out if she was surrounded or had her phone tapped, not that he quite knew how to tell that.
He would call from a number no one would be able to trace.
Once upon a time he’d been trained to hide his tracks and go behind enemy lines.
Now that enemy was the country he loved.
He picked up a free bottle of water the bus offered and pocketed it as he got off to stretch his legs.
Fifteen minutes later,the driver called to everyone at the station, “All aboard.”
Rocco stepped behind the old cement building with four gas pumps and waited.
No witnesses to see him.
Only once the bus was long gone did he head into the mountains.
Safety didn’t come from continually being lucky, not like today. And from this moment on, he’d be better prepared to avoid being taken back into custody.
Chapter 2
Perhaps buying and remodeling this winter chalet but not renting it outwasa waste of money—Michaela Murphy’s investors would certainly think so, if they knew it was ready, which is why she’d kept it under wraps.
She listened to her brother ask about the upcoming snow storm on the phone. The green trees and white snow were an escape for her and her infant son. She’d come here to heal from her close encounter with death a few months ago, when she’d been poisoned. She’d almost lost her unborn baby. She’d almost lost her life.
But she’d survived.
“Raphael, we’re fine.” Her brother, two years older than her, was thousands of miles away.
Her son slept peacefully as the sun set outside her huge windows on the second floor. The cold from the mountain’s chill prompted her to get a sweater, even inside. It also meant she was still here, still walking, still breathing, and almost ready to be herself. She’d promised her board next year. She would be ready to take on her fulltime role as billionaire CEO, running her family’s hotel chains.
Since arriving at the chalet with her infant a few weeks ago, she’d learned to breathe again.
No more fantasies where she married a foreign prince and lived happily-ever-after. That life was for the naïve, and she wasn’t that.
