Levi pulled up in front of the house where Cheney had told him to pick up Patrick and turned off the bike. The house was in one of the worst neighborhoods in Memphis…almost as bad as the one the crack house was in. The front porch looked like it was rotting in places and the screens were either missing or hanging off the windows. The weeds in the yard were knee high and looked like they had choked the grass out years earlier. What paint was left on the house was an ugly teal green and underneath that, it was yellow.

Levi left his skullcap on, covering most of his hair, and his sunglasses. He had his leather kutte on and a pair of black leather chaps over his jeans. He didn’t think Patrick would recognize him from the diner…at least he hoped that he wouldn’t…he planned on having some fun with him first. He got off the bike and started toward the front door. He saw the sheet covering the inside of the window move slightly…someone was watching him. He put his hand on the small of his back, covering where he kept his gun as he got closer to the door. He raised his other hand to knock and it was cracked open. “Hello?” Levi didn’t see anyone at the door, but the screen was closed and it was filthy.

“Hi.” The little voice took him by surprise. He looked down and a tiny little girl with bright red hair was looking up at him. She couldn’t have been over five or six years old.

“Hey, is your daddy here?”

“My mommy is here, but she’s sleeping.”

Fuck. Levi’s stomach rolled at the thought of a child living in this dump, much less with a junkie mother and someone like Patrick coming in and out. He wondered if the little girl had gotten all that red hair from her “daddy.”

“Is anyone else here, honey? I’m looking for a man named Patrick. I’m Levi.”

“He’s sleeping too, with Mommy.”

The rolling stomach was joined by bile rising up in the back of his throat. “Can I come in?”

He expected her to say no. When she didn’t, he was even more pissed off. He couldn’t even imagine the things this little baby girl had seen in a place like this. She reached up and unlocked the screen door and pushed it open. Levi stepped inside. The living room had a couch that may have been beige at one time. It was filthy, stained with God only knew what and covered in bits of trash. The coffee table in front of it had old food containers on top of it, but that wasn’t the worst thing. There was what Levi knew that junkies called their “kit.” It was a Hello Kitty make-up bag in this case, unzipped and showing a burned silver spoon, several insulin needles, and a few cotton balls. A tourniquet, lighter, and used needle lay next to it. He had plans for Patrick, but following through with those plans would require walking away from that house and leaving the little girl alone there with her junkie mother. He looked down into her big green eyes and her dirty face, thin arms, and stained and dirty clothes. She didn’t have on any shoes and her feet were filthy.

“When was the last time you had something to eat, honey?”

“I had some French fries a minute ago,” she said, pointing at a cardboard container on the table. It was dirty and there was no telling how old the fries she’d just eaten were. He couldn’t do it…no matter how badly he wanted a piece of Patrick. He took out his phone and looked up the number for Memphis P.D. The little girl watched him curiously for the next fifteen minutes or so while he was passed from one person to the next before he finally reached the person he was looking for.

“Is this about Zoe?”

“Mr. Bennett, thank you for taking my call.”

“You can stop kissing my ass, boy, and just tell me what you want. I have work to do.”

Levi smiled. “I found Patrick.” There was a long pause and then:

“Where?”

Levi gave him the address and told him the situation in the house. As he talked, he made his way through the house. The little girl had grown tired of watching him and was now sitting on the dirty floor, playing with a dirty little stuffed animal. Levi checked the first room. It had a small mattress on the floor and piles of dirty little-girl clothes all over. A blanket covered that window. There was a bathroom across from that and it looked like someone was growing bacteria, fungus, and mold in the tub, sink, and toilet for a science experiment. The door to the last room in the hallway was propped open slightly. Levi used the tips of his fingers to push it open. A woman with stringy blonde hair lay face down on top of the covers. She was dressed in a bra and underpants and she was so thin that he could almost count her vertebrae. The man next to her was underneath the covers and his dirty red hair lay almost glued to his face with sweat. They both looked like they were sleeping and both of them also looked like they were breathing. He went back down the hall to the living room. The little girl was still in the same spot.

“He’s in the bedroom with the girl’s mother. Please tell whoever comes that there is a child in the house.”

“Will she leave with you?”

“Probably, sadly,” Levi said.

“I’m sending a couple of black and whites now and I’m already in my car. Can you take her somewhere away from there, get her something to eat or whatever?”

“Sure, I saw a little drive-in down the street.”

“Good, wait there with her. I’ll text you when we have him and we’ll get her over to DCFS.”

Levi really wanted to be there when they busted in and put that asshole Patrick in cuffs. But Bennett was right. Levi had seen more than one raid in his lifetime and it was going to be nothing the little girl needed to see. “Okay.” He gave the older man his cell phone number and then Bennett said:

“I don’t know how you found this asshole and honestly, I don’t care. I’m glad you did. Thanks for calling me.”

“Sure.” Levi was going to pay a heavy price for what he was about to do whenever Cheney found out…but fuck ’em. There was no way he could live with himself if he walked away from that little girl. He finished up with the phone call and went over to the little girl. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

She looked up at him. “Susie.”

“Susie, how would you like to take a walk with me? I saw a little place down the street where we could get a hamburger…and maybe a milkshake?” Her dirty little face broke out in a wide smile.

“Chocolate?” she asked.

“Whatever you want, honey.” She got up on her feet and reached for his hand. It was way too easy for him to lead her out of the house. Once they got outside, he picked her up and carried her since she wasn’t wearing any shoes. She was as light as a feather, obviously undernourished, and so lonely and starved for company and food that she was willing to leave her house with a complete stranger, triple her size. It made him furious. Patrick was probably a hell of a lot better off that the cops were going to get their hands on him before Levi did.