Sticky Fingers Read Online Free PDF

did?”
    I wouldn’t have gone after Gino Martinelli purely to regain Uncle Carmine’s investment. But when Sage told me her friend was sneaking away from basketball practice to hook up with an older guy, I’d done some snooping. I learned Gino kept an off-campus apartment where he and his jagoff sons regularly took very young girls for afternoons of marijuana-fueled corruption of minors. So I took it upon myself to bust the party.
    After I’d tossed Gino out of my truck, I’d gone back to rescue Kiley—only to find she really didn’t want rescuing. She was smoking and weeping because Gino had removed her belly button ring. With his tongue. She couldn’t figure out how to put it back in place.
    “Yeah, Gino and I had a meeting of the minds,” I said. “I think he’ll stay away from little girls for a while.”
    “Good heavens.”
    “There’s nothing heavenly about Gino.”
    Frowning, Loretta went back to tending the saucepan. “So are you going to the wedding?”
    “Hell, no!”
    “If you don’t go, everyone will assume you were the one in the wrong.”
    “It’ll just make Gino mad if I show up. Plus, all those Martinelli aunts will make comments about my hair.”
    “I can take care of that.” Loretta lifted her spoon and with a critical eye watched a long ribbon of wax dribble back into the saucepan. “I could use my influence and make you an appointment at Valentino’s for Friday.”
    “They hate me at Valentino’s!”
    “They hate your hair,” she corrected, sounding gentler. “Not you. Big difference.”
    I wasn’t so sure. The neighborhood beauty salon was the kind of place where I was talked about, not talked to. But complaining to Loretta was only going to result in me going to bed hungry. So I said, “I’ll check my schedule.”
    “If I make an appointment, you’ll rearrange your schedule. An hour at Valentino’s is hard to get on a Friday. I don’t want to waste my influence.”
    “I’ll think about it.” I opened the refrigerator. “Is there any real food for people to eat?”
    Loretta went back to the stove. “There’s egg salad on the middle shelf. I’ve been too busy to make anything else for dinner.”
    It took a big event for Loretta to skip making dinner.
    After my mother died, it was Loretta—my father’s cousin—who came to rescue me in Jersey. Loretta found me in foster care, packed my clothes into her car, buckled my seatbelt, and drove me three hundred miles across the Pennsylvania Turnpike to her home. I didn’t said a word on the trip, she told me later, but I remember that at the first meal she cooked for me—pasta shells stuffed with a savory mixture of ricotta, cream, and gently steamed spinach, unlike anything my own mother threw on the table—I cried like a baby. Since then, she’d raised me pretty much as her own daughter—or as close to it as I’d allow.
    The idea of egg salad wasn’t very satisfying, though, so I closed the refrigerator door.
    As I did so, the powder room door burst open, and Sister Bob bustled into the kitchen. She stood five feet tall and was shaped like a beer barrel. Since I’d seen her last, her gray hair had been poufed, her wardrobe primped. She was wearing a purple velour track suit with racing stripes down the outside of her chubby legs—an outfit I’m pretty sure even the most progressive convent would veto.
    “Roxana Marie! Where have you been keeping yourself?”
    “Hi, Sister Bob.”
    Sister Bob gave me an exuberant hug, squeezed my face, and planted noisy kisses on my cheeks. Her mustache prickled, but she gave me a sparkly-eyed smile. “I heard what you did to Gino Martinelli. Bless you, dear! That man is a weasel.”
    “How on earth do you know about Gino?” Loretta demanded.
    “What? You think the nuns can resist listening in on confession sometimes?” She had a raucous laugh. “Just kidding. That’s convent humor. I volunteer at the public library now. Kids talk there, and they say the most awful