Drowning in Christmas (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) by Judith Ivie

the same age. Her hair was my precise shade of ash blonde, though she wore hers long and loose. Her light brown eyes, flecked with green, were mine exactly, but her other features and smile were all Michael.
    Joey, on the other hand, was divided neatly in two, wearing my face on his father's torso. For a year now, he had been living in Massachusetts with his girlfriend Justine. I was happy for them, but I missed seeing him as often as I had been accustomed to doing.
    There had been some stormy years, but I was happy to be able to say now that I not only loved my children, I liked them.
    Emma and I finished our wine and chatted companionably while Jasmine dozed on her pillow before the fireplace. When her cell phone rang, Emma leaped to retrieve it from her purse in the kitchen. Two minutes later, she was out the door.
    “He's a jerk,” said Joey later that evening. He had telephoned as I was trying to decide which of the unappealing leftovers in the refrigerator would constitute my dinner. “He teaches math at some expensive sports academy in Bangor. He won some minor medal in a regional competition a few years back, so the New England Sports Institute hired him.” Joey's disgust was evident, but I wasn't getting any information from Emma, so I pressed on.
    “The New England Sports Institute is …?” I opened the lid of a plastic container and sniffed cautiously. Beef stew, I was pretty sure. How had I so completely lost the knack of cooking for just one person?
    “It's a private school for the sons of the ridiculously rich and once famous. If your kid can't get out of the tenth grade, and you can afford the outrageous tuition, the Institute will grease his way through the academics and teach him more than anybody needs to know about Foosball.”
    “Now you're really lost me. What's that?” I replaced the lid on the container and put it back in the refrigerator.
Chinese take-out it is. Again.
    “I don't know either. I just like the word. Bogey, get off the counter!”
    I smiled as I imagined Joey's big, amiable tabby cat oozing guiltily off the forbidden surface.
    “So Jared is in Maine most of the time, but Emma is so smitten that she hangs around waiting for his nightly telephone call. Is that what you're telling me?”
    “Yep, except I doubt that it's nightly.”
    “This doesn't sound at all like your sister. Emma has burned through a couple of dozen boyfriends since high school, but I can't remember her playing this part. Oh, there were one or two who got to her when she was a teenager, but since then, she's always been the one who plays hard to get. If Mr. Wonderful of the Moment doesn't make the grade, he's shown the door. What's the major attraction, do you suppose?”
    A rumbling purr reached my ear while Joey thought about it. I assumed that Bogey had been forgiven and was now in Joey's lap.
    “Beats me, Ma. He's really good looking, for one thing.”
    “
Really
good looking,” put in Justine from the background. Joey snorted.
    “See what I mean? And he's got the sports star thing going for him.”
    “How did they even meet?”
    “His parents live in West Hartford. They met when he was in Connecticut visiting them a couple of months ago. He looked up Emma the next time he was down there for the weekend, and she visited him in Maine once. I think she fell in love with the whole New England prep school mystique. She sees herself living on this picture-perfect campus surrounded by a bunch of rowdy kids who adore her and call her ma'am or something.”
    I could see how that might appeal to Emma. Her heart had always gone out to kids.
    “Or maybe it's just sex,” Joey mused.
    “Joey!” Justine and I protested simultaneously. “Please remember you're talking to your mother here,” I begged. “Well, this promises to be an interesting Christmas Eve. I don't even know if Armando will make it home in time. How do you and Justine feel about roast goose?”
    “Yuck.”
    Perfect
.
    Late Sunday morning,