What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault Read Free Book Online Page A

I somehow knew it wouldn’t.
    What sort of punk was Kim, lying to my brother like that and leaving her fat, special-needs dog with a near stranger? I liked Wayne okay, but I didn’t want to do Kim any favors. I wanted to know where the hell she went and who exactly she thought she was. The longer she stayed away, the more she pissed me off. It was time to go looking for her.

Monday, October 14
    K im’s apartment was in Barton Village, which was populated mostly by university grad students. I’d heard it was clean but had thin walls and dicey plumbing. I found Apartment B8, where Jeff had told me Kim lived with her roommate, Brittany—a grad student in sociology.
    A young woman answered—overweight, but in a pink-cheeked, healthy-looking way.
    “Hi there,” I said. “I’m looking for Kim.”
    “She’s not here. I don’t know where she is.”
    “Are you her roommate? Are you Brittany?”
    The young woman shifted slightly and stuck out her lower lip. Her lipstick was a candy red that looked similar to Kim’s shade—only more skillfully applied. Her hair was pulled into a high, slick ponytail that dipped up cheerfully at the top and flipped at the end. It was the sort of ponytail I’d wasted many hours in high school trying to achieve, usually without success.
    “Yeah,” she said.
    Of course someone named Brittany would get that ponytail exactly right.
    “Have you heard from her recently?” I asked.
    Brittany sucked in her lower lip again. I wondered how she managed to do it without messing up the lipstick. “Are you a friend of hers?” she asked.
    “Sort of.” I tried to sound casual. “A friend of a friend. She left her dog with me. And now I’m wondering where she is and when she’s going to pick him up.”
    Brittany’s eyebrows did a little jump. “She left Wayne with you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh. Are you Missy, then?”
    “No,” I said. “My name’s Theresa.”
    “I assumed she’d left the dog with that boyfriend of hers. Or with Missy.”
    “No . . . uh . . . I’ve got Wayne.”
    “Oh, poor you,” said Brittany, cocking her head. I wasn’t sure if this was imitative of Wayne or simply her natural mannerism. “Wayne can be challenging.”
    “So Kim didn’t say when she’d be back?”
    “She said she’d be back Monday. I haven’t heard from her.”
    “Are you worried about her? ’Cuz I’m starting to worry.”
    Brittany looked at her feet for a moment, then opened the door a bit wider. “Do you . . . uh, want to come in for a second?”
    “Sure. Thanks.”
    I stepped into the living room, which resembled an IKEA showroom—all aqua and white furniture and carpet with brittle black end tables. Throwing off the freshness of the room was a ketchup-colored beanbag chair covered in dog hair.
    “How’s it going with old Wayne, then?” Brittany asked.
    She perched on the very edge of the sofa and motioned for me to do the same.
    “He’s okay. He barks a lot when I’m not there, I’m told.”
    I sniffed at the air of the apartment. It smelled like Whitlock’s Lemon Curd candle. Lemon Curd was another one of those candles I was responsible for naming. I’d convinced the fragrance team to change it from Lemon Zest, which I felt was too pedestrian. Curd was more British, and the older ladies love that.
    “Yup. That sounds like Wayne. That’s why I never let Kim leave him with me. One time, and never again.”
    “What happened?”
    “He ate my favorite jacket.”
    “Leather?”
    “No. Leather I could understand. Black denim. From J.Crew. What kind of dog eats denim?”
    “Maybe there’s something missing in his diet,” I suggested.
    Brittany scoffed. “That dog’s not missing anything in the food department. What he needs is an obedience class. I’ve been telling Kim that for a long time now.”
    “So you and Kim are friends? Not just roommates.”
    Brittany rolled her shoulders, looking thoughtful. “Not really,” she admitted. “I’ve told her that as