Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder Read Online Free PDF

remember giving you a key to my house.”
    Ellie took the key from Lori’s hand, dropped it in the handbag dangling from her shoulder. “The hardware store did a lousy copying job.” She picked up the pan with a loud moan and limped past Lori into the kitchen.
    Lori was well aware that her mother was not beyond faking things to divert attention from her misdeeds, a trait she shared with Rob. She didn’t want to ask, wasn’t going to ask, but when she saw Ellie grab the table with both hands to lower herself into a chair, she couldn’t stop herself. “Are you in pain?”
    “My sciatica is killing me. Where’s Jess?”
    “Upstairs, taking a shower.” Eating the rest of the fudge, more likely. “What are you taking for it?”
    “Aspirin colors me black and blue. Ibuprofen eats out my stomach. I take nothing. ‘Grin and bear it’ is my motto.”
    So it wasn’t too bad, Lori decided. “About the key?”
    Ellie waved at the tray. “Heat up the oven to four hundred degrees, wait ten minutes, pop this in, without the plastic, mind you, for twenty minutes.”
    “Look, Mom, I just got home from a nine-hour flight. In Italy’s it’s one o’clock in the morning and I’m beat.”
    “Lasagna direct from the Corvino kitchen. Delish. Figured you need some healthy cooking after all those restaurant meals. Which reminds me,” Ellie slapped her hand on the table. “I don’t know why I’m speaking to you, Loretta Corvino, going off to Italy without using the Bella Vista agency. What kind of daughter are you, you don’t support the family business?”
    Lori sat down with a defeated sigh. “I didn’t want you on my back.”
    Ellie shrugged her padded shoulders. “Suit yourself. I could have got you a big discount at the best hotels. I bet you stayed in rat holes.”
    “I was having a tough time. I wasn’t thinking clearly. What’s in the lasagna?”
    “You’re the caterer. You figure it out.”
    She didn’t want to figure it out, much less taste the stuff. Her mother had always been a bad cook, but since she’d gone vegan—“Pasta, tomatoes, and gobs of tofu.”
    “And broccoli rabe plus a secret ingredient. You’ll have to guess after you taste it.”
    “I love a mystery.” Lori got up to turn on the oven and set the table. “Now tell me how you got a key to my house.”
    Ellie looked over her shoulder at the back door, then at the stairs in the hall. “Is Jess going to be a while?”
    “She’ll come down when I call her.”
    “The wedding was lousy.”
    Lori’s throat tightened. “What wedding?”
    “Your husband’s.”
    “My ex, Mom. Ex! I can’t believe you went. Talk about family support!”
    “Who else is going to tell you what it was like? Jess wasn’t going to snitch on her dad. And don’t tell me you aren’t ready to eat all of my tofu lasagna, lousy as you think it is, to find out all about how Mr. Robert Staunton and Valerie Fenwick DDS got hitched. They made the Times today. I cut out the clipping. It’s here in my purse.” Ellie swung a large cotton satchel onto the table and started rummaging.
    “I don’t want to hear about it, Mom, and I don’t want to read anything. I can’t believe he invited you.” Rob had thought Ellie was fun the first years of their marriage. He couldn’t understand why Lori complained about her unwanted intrusions into their life. But once the law firm made him partner, he’d distanced himself, disappearing whenever she showed up, making sure they were never seen together. Lori guessed Ellie had become too low-class for Rob’s newly acquired status in a white-shoe firm. Maybe that’s what he’d ended up thinking about his wife—not polished enough. Valerie’s parents had both been surgeons; Valerie had gone to Harvard; Valerie was skinny and as smooth as a capped tooth. Rumor had it she was also very rich.
    “I crashed,” Ellie said. “Got a great kick out of the look on his face when I waltzed in. You’d have thought he was looking