9. Cat
9
CAT
It was a fourteen-hour trip from our apartment in Iowa to Vince’s place in Georgia . We drove most of the trip the first day but stopped just outside of Nashville . We stayed the night at a hotel – Vince in one room and Val and me in the one next door. It was a really nice hotel room, which Vince paid for, and he wouldn’t even hear of taking my credit card or me trying to Venmo him our share. I was kind of irked but also utterly exhausted, so I chose not to fight him on it.
We got up early the next day, ate our free continental breakfast, and got back on the road. Vince said he hoped to get to his place before lunch time so he could bribe his buddies with a free meal if they helped us lug all our stuff into Vince’s storage unit. He didn’t know it yet, but I intended to pay for lunch. Vince had already done way too much for us. I wasn’t going to be a charity case.
As we neared Atlanta , the traffic certainly started to pick up. Most people hated traffic, and I understood because it meant adding more time to your day that you’d rather spend doing something else, but I looked at traffic in a different way. Traffic meant lots of people, and lots of people meant security.
One of the things the Marshals taught us when we went into hiding was that bigger cities meant more places to hide. You could walk twenty city blocks in New York , Chicago , and even Cleveland , and no one would even look at you. You walk a few blocks in a small town, and everyone stares at you because you aren’t from there. Then they start asking questions about you, and word spreads quickly. When you want to hide, you don’t want people to spread info regarding your whereabouts. And if the bad guys have a lot of money and resources, they can even tap into social media accounts, city traffic cams, and more.
Val and I had lived in more than a dozen locations in the last seven years. All of them were medium to big cities, such as Phoenix , then Raleigh , over to San Antonio . Next was Minneapolis , back out west to San Diego , then Denver , and several more. We ended up in Boston when we were finally told we would be safe and no longer in need of government protection. A suburb of Des Moines , Iowa , had been my test. It was not a big city at all. In fact, it was the smallest place we’d ever lived, but Val wanted to try something different, and I figured we could see how it was in a location that didn’t have as many people.
“Alright, ladies, this is our exit,” Vince said, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I was surprised as close as we were to the city that there were so many trees, and I told Vince as much.
“Atlanta is called a city in a forest,” he explained. “ Beautiful to look at, but kind of a pain in the ass every time it storms because those trees come down and either land on someone’s house, or power lines, or cars.”
Ahh, I hadn’t thought of that, but I remembered some of the dangerous Santa Ana winds that came through while we were in San Diego , and those were fierce.
We pulled down a street that had several mixed-use buildings with shops and restaurants on the ground level and apartments or condos above them. Some of them appeared to be older but renovated. Others were brand-new and modern-looking, but they all seemed to blend in cohesively.
“The security business and restaurant are coming up on your left,” Vince said, pointing to an older brick building. It looked like it was kept up very nicely and modernized. It had two rows of parking in the front and more parking around the right side and back, likely for the restaurant.
“And here’s my place on the right,” he said, shaking me out of my focus and turning my head in the other direction.
“Helluva commute,” Val joked from the back seat.
“Most days, I walk if I can,” Vince said. “ Plus , there’s a great bakery below my place, so it makes me feel better about eating that junk if I can walk it off on my way to work.”
Vince did not have an ounce of fat on his body, so I highly doubted he was worried about his physique at all.
“Are they hiring?” Val probed from the back seat. “ I need a job and could get you the family and friends discount.”
I knew Val was being funny, but I didn’t like the idea of her rushing into a job before we’d had a chance to check everything out.
Vince laughed and then told her he could find out.
We pulled into a back lot with an overhang, and Vince told us this was where we would unload. He hopped out of the car right away as Val put Harry in his crate and I cleaned up our trash from the front. I looked up to see a man walking up to Vince and chatting with him. He looked about Vince’s age, maybe slightly older, and they obviously knew each other.
As I got out of the vehicle, they both walked toward me, and the other man smiled big when he saw me. He looked as though he knew me and was happy to see me again, even though I knew for a fact I had never seen this man before. He was very handsome—tall, with olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. He looked Italian .
“Cat, this is my cousin, Archer ,” Vince announced. “ Archer , this is Cat and Val .”
“Archer Papadopoulos . Nice to meet you,” he said, sticking out his hand.
Papadopoulos… So he was Greek , not Italian . Got it.
I gave him my hand and shook his in return, and Val did the same when she got out of the back seat.
“Makes sense,” my sister chimed in. “ You two look like Greek Gods , so of course you would have Greek blood in you.”
“He’s the only one,” Vince replied with a smile on his face. “ His mom was my dad’s sister. The Greek is from his dad. Our side of the family is English , and my mom’s side is Irish .”
That would explain why they didn’t look alike, despite being cousins.
“I was going to ask why you’ve been ignoring my texts, but it appears you’ve been a little busy,” Parker said coming up behind me.
“Hey, Parker . What are you doing here?” I asked. “ Been outta town the last few days, otherwise I would have responded, sorry.”
“No worries,” he responded. “ I was on patrol, so I thought I’d stop by. You moving out?”
“I’m not moving out. I’m helping these ladies move in. Ladies this is my friend Quincy Parker . He’s the lucky cop who gets to deal with all the pain in the ass bounties I bring in. This is Cat and Val .”
I trusted Parker , but I also wasn’t sure how much the ladies felt comfortable sharing so I kept it simple. They all nodded and shook hands with each other before Archer spoke. “ Got the rest of the guys coming from the security company, but you’re welcome to help out if you want to.”
Parker gave a short laugh and shook his head. “ As much fun as that sounds, I’m on the clock, so just give me a call tomorrow and we can set something up.”
I told him I’d text him in the morning. He walked back to his patrol car and I walked over to the trailer to start grabbing some items.
“Jack and Wade are walking over now,” Archer said to Vince .
“Good. There’s not a lot of stuff, but it will go faster with more people,” Vince responded.
We each grabbed a few things and started our way into his building. We headed through a set of double doors at the back of the building down the hall to a freight elevator. We went to the fourth floor, which was the top floor, according to the elevator.
The elevator doors opened and dumped us into a hallway with a door to the right and a door to the left. We made our way to the left, and Vince opened the door.
“The first bedroom is on the right, along with a bathroom,” Vince said, leaning his head around the boxes he was carrying. “ Let’s set everything in that bedroom for now and we can figure out what stuff you need, and then we’ll take whatever you don’t need down to storage later.”
We followed him to the bedroom, which had a queen bed, a nightstand on each side, and a dresser off to the side. The bed was up against a brick wall. The other two walls were drywall, painted a deep-gray color with a few pieces of artwork on them. The final wall had big metal windows with huge gray curtains, matching the walls.
“Wow,” Val whispered behind me.
After dropping our first few items off in the bedroom, Val and I headed to check out the rest of the place while Vince and Archer headed back down to get more items.
“This place is really cool,” Val said.
Going back down toward the entry door, we passed the guest bath and a small laundry room. It was standard size, with everything we needed. From there, we turned the corner, and the space opened up. It was huge. The ceilings were easily fourteen feet high, and the living room, dining room, and kitchen all flowed into each other. The main back wall was all old brick, while the wall for the dining room was white. The kitchen had one wall of brick and another white wall, forming an L -shaped space with dark gray cabinets and what looked like white quartz or granite countertops. There were four bar stools against the massive kitchen island. Vince walked into the space behind us carrying his own bags.
“You’ve got good style, Vince ,” Val said to the room.
“My sister did it all,” he replied. “ Gave her a budget, told her it had to fit the space, and look like a man lived here, and she took care of everything but the TV . That I bought myself.”
Ah, yes, the interior designer. That made sense. She was also really good.
“My room, bathroom, and office are behind that wall over there. Let me show you,” Vince said, still carrying his bags.
We followed him to the hall and headed to what I assumed was his bedroom first. It was huge. He had a massive bed with dark sheets, the same brick wall behind the bed, and gray walls elsewhere. He had a chair and a small table off to the side with a large dresser and TV across from the bed. He set his bags on the floor and turned to face us.
“My bathroom is right there,” he said, pointing to a door next to what looked like a walk-in closet. “ Down here is the office.”
We followed him out and headed down a small hallway to a room that had a small desk, a set of weights, and a futon which would be the other bed one of us slept on. It wasn’t much, but it was a relaxing space.
After seeing the whole place, we headed back to get more bags but were met with several new people in the kitchen space. Two new men were standing there with boxes in their hands.
“The rest are busy, but they’ll meet us over at The Watering Hole for lunch in a bit,” the tall, burly, bearded one said. “ I’m Wade . Nice to meet you.”
We shook hands, and the other guy walked forward.
“I’m Jack . Good to finally meet you,” he said. He was nearly as tall as Wade but with no beard, and more of a lean, muscular frame rather than Wade’s burly, wrestler build.
“Sure, I’ll carry everything in while you chat in there like a bunch of old ladies,” Archer yelled from the hallway with two boxes in his hands.
The other guys gave him crap, but we all headed back out to grab the remainder of the things. After we had everything out of the truck, Val and I headed back up to get Harry settled into his new space.
Vince came back in and let us know that Archer and Jack had taken the U - Haul back and would return my car in a bit, and then we could go grab some lunch at the pub.
Val and I chatted back and forth about who would sleep where, and we decided I would take the futon and Val would take the bedroom. But since there was no dresser in the office, she and I would share the guest bedroom space for clothes.
I found myself looking around Vince’s loft, impressed by the character it had but also how warm and safe this space felt. I found myself thinking I could get used to it here, and that both excited and scared me at the same time.