Free SLEEPING DOGS (Animal Instincts Book 6) by Chloe Kendrick Page A

worst parts of town in a dump with my dog. I had a nice house and a nice life. Even I knew that I had it good. Why would I give that up?”
    “Do your projects sell?” I wanted to know more about what he did and how he paid any bills. Maybe he’d made some money and decided to be rid of his wife, but I couldn’t see what he’d replaced her with. Few women would want to live in this manner.
    “Yeah, sometimes. It’s just that they don’t pay often enough or exactly when you finish. Everything has a waiting period before you get paid. The bill collectors don’t want to hear that you have the money in your accounts receivable, but you can’t get others to pay you so that you can pay them. There’s a certain irony in that.”
    I nodded. “Thanks. Did you know the Gillespies’ dog?”
    The man laughed. “You jump around more than anyone I ever met. Yeah, I knew the dog. Name was Rex, or Rexy or something like that. Nice dog.”
    “Did it ever bark at you?” I was still trying to get to the bottom of that idea. Gwen had shot it down, but I wanted to hear more from other witnesses before I crossed it off the list.
    “Not that I remember. It was pretty laid back. He never gave Belinda any trouble that I knew of, and she would sometimes let herself into the house and work. A lot of times the entire family would be out of the house. She actually liked it better that way.” He petted his own dog who was now laying with its legs up in the air and getting belly rubs. He knew what laid back was.
    I got up to leave, and he followed me to the door. “For what it’s worth, and I know it’s not much, I always thought that the Gillespies had something to do with it. They were way too nervous afterwards, and then they up and leave the country. Seems very odd indeed.”
    I nodded and headed back to my car. I’d gotten about as much from him as I hoped I could. He didn’t have an alibi, but he didn’t have a motive either. All in all, not much help.
    Sheila was waiting for me when I got home again. She looked much better than she had when I’d seen her last. She was wearing a pants suit, which meant that she was either going to or coming from work. She wore nothing but pants suits for her role as detective. I wasn’t sure if someone had told her that it looked professional, but I imagined that she had an entire closet of these things at home. I didn’t know what home looked like, because as of yet, I had never seen the inside of her place, at least not with her in it. My only entrance had been when she’d been attacked, and at that point, I’d been more interested in finding the missing police report than looking around to learn more about her wardrobe. That would have to wait for another time.
    She greeted me with a hug and a smile. “How goes the investigation?” she asked.
    I rolled my eyes. “First things first,” I said as I kissed her. My lips grazed hers, and I slipped my arms around her. I felt a bit more proprietary about her since she’d been attacked. I knew that she took it with a grain of salt. It was part of her job, but I had never even dated anyone before, so this was all new.
    She pulled away after a minute. “Don’t get all mushy on me, Griff. I need you to stay focused on what’s important. You need to get this matter wrapped up. I’d like to see all of this behind you.”
    I thought that she was important. However, I didn’t seem to get that feeling from her. Not for the first time since we’d started dating, I wished that I had someone to talk to about women. In my teen years, when most people learn about these things, my sister had disappeared. No one had stopped to discuss dating or crushes or first kisses. We’d talked about BOLOs, the FBI and possible sex offenders in the area. I’d grown up with a police investigation, so it really made sense that I could look into a murder or a missing person case.
    Instead of dating and kissing and wondering about girls during school, I’d