Free What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault Page B

found. Thankfully, a guy I knew from high school was there, and he agreed to check out the men’s room for me. Jeff came out looking sickly but relatively steady.
    “Hey, Theresa,” he said when he saw me. “Did I tell you I’m thinking of cutting the crew necks off all my T-shirts?”
    I decided it best to drive him home, and he didn’t protest. On our way to his neighborhood, he told me more about his police visit.
    “So you never called the police yourself. They came to you?” I asked.
    “Right,” he said. “I mean, I did call her family. And they didn’t seem all that concerned. If they had been, I might’ve done things differently.”
    I turned onto Amber Street, where Jeff lives in one of four apartment houses that the Whitlocks owned in town. They usually rented the apartments to older undergrads at the university. Likely Jeff was behind on his rent, but the Whitlocks probably were glad to have him around to keep his eye on things. He mowed the lawns for them and reported to them if any tenants were doing anything unsavory. At least they probably assumed that he did.
    “So they told you she checked in to a hotel where ?”
    “In Rowington.”
    Rowington was all the way on the eastern side of the state.
    “What was she doing there?”
    “I don’t know. They thought I might know. But she never checked out. She left all her stuff. Her clothes and everything. And they found her car a block or two down the road at a Denny’s.”
    “Oh my God.”
    I glanced over at Jeff, who closed his eyes.
    “Is that where her sister lives?” I asked, unnerved by his quiet. “Rowington?”
    “No. New Jersey, remember? They grew up in Fairchester. But her sister lives in New Jersey now.”
    “Where’s Fairchester?”
    “East. But not as east as Rowington. About an hour from here.”
    I parked the car. “So she’d definitely lied to you about where she was going.”
    Jeff stared at the front porch of the house. “I guess so.”
    “So she left her car . . .”
    “Her car and almost everything, she left. Her makeup case open on the bathroom counter at the hotel.”
    “What about her purse and stuff?”
    Jeff shook his head. “Well, I’ve got her phone. But it looks like she had her purse with her, wherever she went. I think she’d probably have had her laptop with her, too. ’Cuz she was always watching viral videos. That wasn’t in her room either. There wasn’t any sign of violence, though, they said. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to skip out on your hotel bill and then leave your car. That’s not cost-effective. And the issue isn’t the bill. If it was only about the bill, the management just would’ve charged her credit card. When they found her room like that and no one came back, they were concerned that there might be some trouble. And then, when the police came, they made the connection with the abandoned car. The police down here are also investigating, since Kim’s from here. They talked to her roommate this morning, and she gave them my name.”
    I wondered if Brittany used the word “alcoholic” when she spoke to the police.
    “You’re quiet,” Jeff said.
    “Let’s talk about it more upstairs,” I replied.
    Jeff collapsed into a kitchen chair while I rummaged in his fridge for the makings of a halfway decent meal. To my surprise I found two packages of those nifty little crescent rolls that come in a can—a childhood favorite of Jeff’s. Plus there was some cheese and a few apples. I decided to make tea and lay all this stuff out on a plate for picking.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling the seal on the crescents and popping them open. “I’m sorry this is happening. I don’t know what else to say. Kim’s a sweet girl. And I hope she’s okay.”
    Jeff and I were silent for a minute or two. I turned on his oven, found a cookie sheet, and started laying out the crescents.
    “Remember . . .,” I began, thinking about how Jeff had loved these canned Pillsbury