Theodore (Xavier's Hatchlings #2) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,6

idea where his daughter had even been living. She’d left his home when she was a teenager. Not that she’d moved all that far away. His mom and dad had taken her in for a little while. At least he thought so. It seemed that every time he went over there, she’d be right up his ass again. It was his dad who had kept him from hitting her.

They more than likely had thrown her to the side of the road too. He’d had enough of her wanting to get into his business. Maggie, her mom, she’d been sick back then too, if he remembered right. All Pem wanted her mom to do was to leave him, and then they’d be all right. How all right did she think they was going to be when Maggie was dying? Whatever the reason, Pem had left home, leaving him to care for her mother. Pem should have been doing right by her mom.

Patrick had spent just one day with his sickly wife before he’d had enough of her whining and wanting him to get her up and around to the bathroom. He called her an ambulance that night after knocking her around a little to shut her up. When they had taken her away, he’d never slept so well as he did that first night. He’d not seen hide nor hair of Maggie or Pem since, except for at Maggie’s funeral some weeks later.

He’d only been notified that she’d finally passed on when the funeral place wanted him to pay the bill. Fuck that shit. He had more important matters to attend to than paying for a funeral that he knew damn good and well the state had money for.

Once he was in his jail cell, he was left alone. Patrick liked himself as company. He was the only one that gave himself the answers he wanted to hear. Laughing a little at that, he did wonder when supper would be served. If he remembered rightly, as it hadn’t been that long since he’d been locked up, they had a pretty good meal plan going on.

Patrick had been told some days ago that he’d been mentioned in his dad’s will. What he could have left him after Patrick had gotten everything out of the house that was worth anything, Patrick didn’t know. He’d been taking things from the house since Maggie had died. If not for taking the shit, he’d have had nothing. No food. No house. Nothing but the shirt on his back.

He did think on what the cop had told him about his daughter, Pem. Could she really be twenty-seven? And what was that bullshit about her being in the war? There hadn’t been any wars that he’d heard of since his dad had been in one. Thinking of that, Patrick did wonder if Pem had any money. She’d be ripe for picking if she did.

When she’d been no more than about five or so, the doctors wanted her tested. He thought for sure that they were going to see if she was retarded or something. But it turned out they thought she was some kind of gifted kid. Maggie had wanted to put her into some program or another. The only program that Patrick was aware of was one that drunks went to. So, he put his foot down and said to make her go where the rest of them kids went. He didn’t know what had happened after that, now that he thought on it. For all he knew and cared about, Pem had disappeared off the face of the earth.

She’d been all right as someone to knock around a little. About the time he’d been told she was gifted, she got right smarter at not being anywhere close enough to him to hit. And that little shit had started carrying a shiv with her—a shiv, of all things. Pem had gotten him good with it a few times too. Not that he wasn’t able to get a few licks in himself, but she wasn’t any fun after that. Her being smarter than him didn’t help either. Patrick thought for sure that she’d be egging him on when it came to him using words wrong.

“If I say them, then that’s the way she should have said them. Kids don’t have any respect for their parents anymore.” The voice from down the hall had him realizing he wasn’t the only one in the jail this time. She told him