I’m glad Smudge made it home. It sounds like someone may have tried to keep her.
She’s cute enough.
I'm not so sure that is the reason. A more likely scenario is that she got shut in somewhere. Like for instance, in our neighbor-across-the-street's garage. Except that he has never mentioned finding her shut in there. (He drives truck and sometimes is gone for a day or three. When he's home the garage door is typically open a crack, but he shuts it totally when he leaves. Except there was no correlation with Smudge-be-gone and neighbor's last trip..)