Page 9 of Lone Wolf

Joey’s brow was intensely furrowed. Her expressions were rarely subtle, but her current display was silent-movie worthy.

Evan turned away from her and thumbed the phone off speaker. “I’m not a dogcatcher.”

“But Dad said you help people.”

“I help people who really need help. Not kids with missing pets.”

“He’s not a pet,” Sofia said. “He’s … he’s my best friend.”

And then she was crying. Evan pressed the RoamZone tighter to his cheek in hopes of muffling the speaker, but when he risked a glance over his shoulder, Joey was standing with her arms crossed, her face brimming with disappointment.

“Look,” Evan said. “I’m sorry. It’s not what I do.”

But if Sofia heard him, she gave no sign, only sobbing broken by great shuddering breaths.

Evan stood a long time with the phone cool against his cheek and the sounds of Sofia. He clenched his eyes shut, bit his lip to trap the incipient profanity before it left his mouth. When he opened his eyes, his head was throbbing anew, the girl was still sniveling, and Joey was staring at him expectantly.

Joey threw her hands wide, fingers spread, and mouthed, Start small.

He mouthed back, No fucking way.

Joey grinned big, mouthed, Language.

Even in photographs, Loco was the ugliest dog Evan had ever seen. A trembling skeletal miniature pinscher–Chihuahua mix, he sported wiry thrusts of uneven hair, bat ears, and a psychotic snaggletoothed scowl. A bulging carbuncle riding the top of his tiny snout looked to be on the verge of explosion. Scrolling through digital pictures and videos with expert flicks of her thumb, Sofia charted the love story of girl and dog. Loco curled in her lap while she studied. Loco eating a French fry straight out of her lips. Loco dressed as a ladybug for Halloween, his terror-rictus undiminished beneath spring-mounted red poof antennae.

The dog loved her, that much was clear. He wobbled in her orbit in a fit of perennial anxiety, only calming when she picked him up and held him. His tiny misshapen head jerked around in constant rotation, bulging eyes on the lookout for imagined threats, and he made a guttural noise that sounded like a phlegm-intensive growl.

When Sofia blew gently into the mutt’s face, which seemed a common ritual, he calmed and closed his eyes, basking in the faint breeze. The only other time he appeared to be in a nonagitated state was when he was sleeping atop her head on the pillow, scraggly hind and front legs framing either side of her face, an occurrence memorialized in myriad bedtime selfies.

For the past twenty minutes, Evan and Sofia had been sitting on the couch in the tidy apartment while Brianna bustled to and fro in the background, washing dishes, vacuuming, loading Sofia’s lunch box for the next day, and then paying bills at the rickety desk in the corner. The amount of labor a single mother had waiting at the end of a workday seemed insurmountable, and yet Brianna kept at it, knocking down one task after another with a bowler’s efficiency.

“Okay,” Evan told Sofia and her endlessly active iPhone finger. “I think you’ve provided sufficient documentation to identify the dog.”

“Hang on.” Sofia’s thumbs tapped expertly, bringing up another video. “I gotta show you this time I snuck him inta the pool at the Y and he swam in circles ’cuz of his bum leg.”

The treasure trove of Loco’s digital imagery was clearly inexhaustible. Sofia had had him for less than a year, and yet his personal archive seemed to exceed that of most United States presidents.

“The man said he’s got it,” Brianna called over her shoulder from the desk. “Don’t everyone need to see endless footage of that crazy dog.”

A knock on the door and Sofia flew up from the couch. “Dad!”

Brianna’s head snapped up, reading glasses low on her nose. “You invited your father here?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sofia said, gesturing back at Evan. “He’s Dad’s friend.”

Evan cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t say we’re exactly—”

Sofia pulled the door open and jumped up onto her father, who play-groaned, stumbling in under her weight. He collapsed onto the carpet with her.

“Don’t play,” Brianna said. “Someone’s gonna get a tooth knocked out and you know who’ll have to front the dentist bill.”

“Okay, okay.” Andre rose, straightened his clothes. A bit skinnier than Evan, he wore an oil-stained mechanic’s shirt, and blue-white jeans low on his hips—not quite the sag he favored back in the day but enough to show off a band of underwear. “How’s my little girl?”

“I’ll be better once Evan finds Loco.”

Evan stood. He and Andre faced each other awkwardly across the living room. “’Tsup,” Andre said.

“Sup.” The reply slipped out of Evan’s mouth before he could catch it.