Saint took the call.
A streetwalker in St. Louis, sounded young, but Saint kept her guard in place. She did not give a name, only said that there was a new girl being pushed, couldn’t have been more than sixteen and maybe looked a little like a faded drawing she’d seen on a poster as she passed through Alice Springs. She gave a street she’d work that night, in itself not usual though Saint checked the clock, thought of Jimmy and his mother waiting so they could have dinner together. She grabbed her keys and headed out.
An hour till she saw the high-rises, the Gateway Arch and the white lanterns along Herald Street. People emptied from bars, loud and raucous.
The lights were out on North Street. Cars lined up facing the road, the white buildings behind so run-down. Electrical cables fell from the roof like bowels tied off. A group of guys stood together, watching her pass, each of them locking eyes on her as she pulled over beneath a busted streetlight.
She checked her gun, always, saw the guys lose interest and go back to their game as a girl moved from the shadows. Late teens, despite the heavy makeup. A skirt skimmed her ass; her eyes were young though Saint could only imagine what they had seen.
Saint rolled down her window, and the girl tossed a piece of paper into the car. She carried on walking past before disappearing behind a steel door, so bent out of shape it did not close behind her.
Saint found the address on the paper, a mile out of town.
Right then, as she watched the old house on the corner of Fairshaw and Brooklyn, she got a feeling so strong it shook her knees as she climbed out.
She called it in and gave enough details for a dispatch.
Saint did not want to notice the upstairs light cut out, or see the shape of a young girl pass by the window, the big man following.
The music was loud.
Behind the street lit blue.
Local cops took control as Saint sank low in her seat while the arrest was made.
They led the girl out.
Saint followed to the St. Louis PD.
The girl, Mia, was sixteen years old and had fallen in with a group she could not break from.
Saint sat in the lot till dawn, when the girl’s fraught parents arrived, took her in their arms and sobbed.
She drove home in sunlight.
It would be the first time Patch saved a missing girl.