Death of the Family Recipe (A Scotti Fitzgerald Murder Mystery Book 3) Read Online Free

over." Just thinking about it made me weepy. "Do you have any idea how heartbroken I was?"
     
    She stared at me for a moment, then slid off her stool and fetched a wooden spoon. She handed me the spoon and bent over. "You’re right, I deserve a serious spanking. Go for it."
     
    I gripped the spoon and raised my arm and Zelda jumped back and gasped. Wide eyed, she said. "You’re really going to do it?"
     
    I pitched the spoon across the kitchen into the sink and laughed. "No, you big idiot." I cackled and pointed at her. "You should see the look on your face." She stuck out her tongue and sat on her stool. "Lucky for you I hate Henry so much." I shrugged. "It worked, so I guess, good for you."
     
    "What worked?" Eric asked. He and Ted stood in the kitchen doorway, arms loaded with takeout bags.
     
    "Did you get the cannoli?" Zelda asked.
     
    <<>>
     
    As we lay in bed, I studied Ted’s profile, frowning. He turned to me. "What’s with the face?"
     
    "Did you put a tracking app on my phone?"
     
    Ted chuckled like he’d been goosed. "Ah, yeah I did."
     
    I bolted up and stared at him. "Why? Don’t you trust me?" He reached for me, but I scooted away. "Oh no mister, you answer the question."
     
    He puckered his lips. "It’s not about trust. It’s about your talent for getting jammed up."
     
    I frowned. "Why didn’t you tell me then?"
     
    Ted propped against the headboard and sighed. "Because I knew you’d get up in arms about it." He smirked. "Like you are now."
     
    I cocked my head. "So you lied to me, so I wouldn’t get upset? Is that your story?"
     
    He puckered his lips. "I’ll take the app off your phone. Okay?" He threw back the covers and his big feet hit the floor with a thud. "I’ll do it now."
     
    There was a certain wisdom to having the app on my phone because I did tend to attract trouble sometimes. I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Wait. Do you track me every minute of the day?"
     
    He glanced at me over his shoulder. "No. Just when you’re running late. Things like that." He got back under the covers and stroked my arm with his finger. "You have the same app for my phone on yours. So it’s an equal opportunity tracking thing."
     
    That information had a certain appeal. I tilted my head and smiled. "Really?"
     
    He laughed and pinched my butt. "Oh, you like that?"
     
    I straddled him and held down his arms. "First thing tomorrow, you’re showing me how to use it."
     
    "I can show you now."
     
    I switched off the light. "It can wait. Right now, I have other plans for you, mister."

Chapter Four
     
    The next morning, I was too preoccupied with pie day to remember about the phone app. We sent Eric and Ted away and baked our little hearts out. We finished by mid-afternoon, stocked the food truck for Monday morning and had the rest of the day free. Zelda showered, then went off to meet up with Eric. I put six blueberry muffins in a container and paid a visit to Joe Enders.
     
    Joe is a former homicide cop who retired from Mississippi to California and hung out his shingle as a private investigator. In addition to our food truck business, Zelda and I were working under Joe’s tutelage to get our own P.I. licenses.
     
    Joe runs his business out of the lower unit of a three-plex he owns. A little unorthodox, I guess, but in L.A., people work in their pajamas, so maybe not so much. He sat at his big desk muttering, as he read through a document. His reading glasses were perched on his generous nose, and his belly butted up against the desk.
     
    From the front door I said, "What are you doing, trying to figure out the solution to world peace?"
     
    Joe looked up from his paperwork and peered over his reading glasses. "Well howdy, Miss Scotti. What brings you here on a fine Sunday afternoon?"
     
    I took my usual chair in front of his desk and offered the container of muffins. "We just finished pie day, and I thought I’d bring you these. Blueberry, your favorite."
     
    Joe