disappeared through a doorway. He returned a few minutes later with a thumb drive. “Here.”
“Thanks.” Bree took the thumb drive.
If Owen had an alibi, then her job just got harder. Who else had wanted to murder his wife?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Shading her eyes from the afternoon sun, Cady pushed the hand truck across the parking lot and into the pet supply store. She’d spent the morning on her hands and knees, trying to lure a pit bull and her three puppies out of the crawl space of an abandoned house. Mud caked her sneakers. Sweat stained her ADOPT DON’T SHOP T-shirt, and dirt streaked her jeans—at least she hoped it was dirt. She desperately needed a shower, but she also needed a couple hundred pounds of dog food.
“Hey, Cady!” Russell called from the register as he scanned a leash for an elderly woman. A black French bulldog sat in her shopping cart. From its cloudy eyes and white muzzle, Cady assumed the dog was also a senior citizen.
“Hi, Russell.” Cady waved on her way to the large cardboard box in the front of the store.
Russell handed the old woman her change and closed the register. “The box is full this week.”
“That’s great. We really appreciate the donations.” Cady wheeled the cart to the front corner of the store. Inside, she found old towels, toys, and dog food. “Good score.”
“Let me help you.” Russell hurried over.
With his help, Cady maneuvered the hand truck under the edge of the box and tilted it backward. Then she wheeled it toward the door, which Russell held open. After she loaded the week’s haul into the back of her van, she took a quick mental inventory. She needed additional dry dog food and some chew bones. She put the hand truck in the van and went back into the store.
Grabbing a cart, she hurried into the dog food aisle. She picked up a fifty-pound bag for her own four dogs. Then she selected additional bags for the dogs from Furever Friends that were boarding in Matt’s kennel. Cady hefted a case of cans into the cart. The piled-high cart was heavy, and she had to lean into it to move it, so she left it at the end of the row to grab treats and chews. She rounded the end of the aisle and ran smack into a large male body.
She stumbled backward. “Excuse me.” Recovering her balance, she looked up.
Shit.
Greg.
Her ex-husband stared at her. “Cady.”
He was pale and his cheeks more pronounced than usual, but he was still the best-looking man she’d ever seen. His hair was jet black and wavy, and his eyes were bluer than a winter sky. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans that showed off the many hours he spent at the gym. She knew his abs were as sculpted as his cheekbones. He’d modeled underwear, among other things. The guy was built like a Greek statue.
Of course she would run into him today, when he looked like that, and she looked like . . . Why couldn’t she have run into him last week, when she’d had a really good hair day? But then, the whole time they’d been together, she’d felt out of her league.
His looks were the reason she’d been enamored with him, but she’d learned her lesson. She’d paid a high price for being superficial, and she’d never be taken in by a pretty face again. Greg’s head-to-toe handsomeness covered an ugly personality.
Memories flooded her, and her eyes turned misty. Her tears had nothing to do with Greg.
He coughed hard, the sound as deep and harsh as a seal’s bark.
Despite the fact that she hadn’t seen him in six years, and he seemed ill, she didn’t inquire about his health. Instead, she remembered the bullshit he’d put her through, and she turned to get the hell away from him.
He shifted the bag of dog food he held under his arm. “You don’t have to run away.”
“I’m not running, but I have nothing to say to you.” She grabbed her cart and spun it toward the front of the store. The weight nearly toppled it, and she rammed into a cardboard display of dog biscuits. Boxes tumbled to the floor.
Damn it.
More tears welled in her eyes as she remembered everything: the pain of her far-too-early labor, the doll-size baby wrapped in a hospital blanket, leaving the hospital with empty arms. She would always carry that hollow ache in her heart.