Page 19 of Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbi 3)

The young man that had been helping me earlier set me up with everything I could possibly need. So much stuff that he even offered to carry it out to my car for me, which I accepted. I wasn't sure how else to balance everything in my arms while still holding on to Blue's leash.

As we made our way out of the pet store, I stopped. "Wait, don't I need that?" I asked and pointed to a litter box.

"That's for cats." He started walking again.

"Wait." I had an idea. It would be so much easier to scoop up clumps of cat litter than spilled urine. I shifted the dog bed under my arm as Blue sat there sadly. "How absorbent is your cat litter?"

"Uh..." the guy paused. "Pretty absorbent."

"I have a lot of cats," I lied. "And it seems like they always like to pee at the same time. Like their bladders have all synced up. My current litter box isn't doing the job. At all. I need something that can really take a lot. Like...the biggest load you can think of."

The guy gave me a strange look but then grabbed a brand of cat litter off the shelf. "This should do the trick. How many cats do you have?"

How much did cats pee compared to humans? They were physically probably like a tenth of the size. "Ten." Then I realized how crazy that sounded. I basically just told him I was a crazy cat lady. And I was trying my best to not let anyone think I was crazy. I was about to change it to two cats when he started talking again.

"Then you're going to need more than one thing of litter. And you'll probably want another litter box. I'm going to go ring this up and get a cart to take all this stuff to your car."

"Can you add a new scoop too? My cats like to hide it. They like things dirty I guess," I said with a laugh.

He laughed too, grabbed a scoop, and then headed back toward the cash register.

That was easier than I thought it would be. I’d made up a perfect story about why I needed a litter box. He didn't even ask me about my ten cats. The only bad thing was that I didn't have enough cash left to pay for all this crap. And I couldn't withdraw any from my bank because all my accounts were empty. So I had to leave another credit card trail.

But Detective Torres wouldn't think anything of this charge. He knew I had a puppy in the house. And he was a terrible detective. He was all the way in Canada, far far away from my basement.

Blue sighed. "It's okay, Mr. Snuggle..." What had I told Detective Torres the puppy's name was? Pancakes? Dumplings? A woman with a pair of too-tight pants walked past me in the pet store. The pants shoved the fat on her hips up like...oh, right. Muffin. "Let's go home, Mr. Snuggle Muffins."

Chapter 9

Saturday

I set up all the dog stuff I'd just bought in the garage. A bed, food and water dishes, and tons of toys littered the cement floor. I lifted up one of the toys, squeezed it to make the squawking noise that the pet store employee had shown me, and threw it at Snuggle Muffins.

Instead of trying to catch it, or moving at all for that matter, he let the toy bounce off his body. He sighed.

"Okay," I said. "Well, have fun out here." I started to walk away.

Snuggle Muffins followed me to the door. When I opened it and stepped inside he tried to squeeze past my legs, but I successfully blocked his path.

"No. Stay." I pointed my finger at him.

He looked up at me with his big blue eyes and whimpered in the most pathetic way.

The sound went straight to my heart. I guess it was a little cold out. Even though he was basically wearing a fur coat. "Fine. Just this once." I opened the door farther so he could follow me into the kitchen.

The nails on his paws clattered across the tiled floor. I tried not to cringe thinking about how he'd tear up my hardwood floors throughout the rest of the house.

"Only in this room," I said firmly.

He stopped right by my feet and looked up at me expectantly.

"I don't know what you want."

He sighed and lay down at my feet.

Okay, then. I grabbed a Pop-Tart from the pantry. My husband was always very conscious of his sugar intake. He used to make fun of me for starting my day with worthless calories. The idea of torture by sugar sounded fun to me. Maybe I'd just force him to only eat Pop-Tarts for the next few days. I pulled one Pop-Tart from its silver packaging before putting my wig and mask back on.

Snuggle Muffins blinked up at me.

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