Free Open Season for Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery Book 10) by Lauren Carr

side by side around the house and out to the rolling garden leading down to the boulder lined shore.
    “Congratulations.” Mac clasped his hand. “You’re a lucky man.”
    “Don’t I know it,” David replied. “I’ve been granted a second chance with Chelsea and this time I’m not going to screw up.”
    Mac said. “Hopefully, you’ve come a long way since you two were in high school.”
    “I’d like to think so,” David said. “Is your offer to buy my house still good?”
    “Sure. I’ll call my lawyer today to get started on the paperwork.” Mac clasped David’s hand. The handshake turned into a hug. “Have you set a date?”
    They strolled up the walk to the steps leading up to the front porch. “Sometime in mid-September, after the end of the season and my next reserve tour. Only it’s not going to be like your and Archie’s wedding.”
    “Why wouldn’t you want murder and mayhem at your wedding?”
    “It sets the wrong tone.”

Chapter Six
    During breakfast, Archie volunteered to drive Chelsea to Ben Flemings’ office, which allowed the two women more time to plan the wedding. This also let Mac and David scope out the scene of Ashton Piedmont’s disappearance sooner.
    By the time they had finished eating breakfast, it was decided that Molly and Gnarly would play the role of flower dog and ring bearer. While Mac was certain that Molly, whom he called “The Stepford Dog” in reference to the movie The Stepford Wives , would do well in her role, he was not so certain about Gnarly. It was not beyond the realm of possibilities that Gnarly would outright rebel at the notion of marching with decorum down the aisle. Somehow, Mac envisioned the roof caving in on the “devil dog.”
    The cove where Ashton Piedmont had disappeared was less than fifteen minutes from Spencer Point.
    “Where does this Carlisle Green, the woman who Ashton was last seen with, fit into all this?” Mac asked while referring to the notes he had made from Ashton Piedmont’s case file. “She wasn’t at the Diablo Ball. Or rather, she wasn’t in the group that got banned.”
    “The Greens go almost as far back in Spencer history as the Spencers and O’Callaghans,” David said. “They’re snowbirds from Arizona. I gave Carlisle swimming lessons when I was lifeguarding at the Spencer Inn back when she was a little girl.”
    Knowing the term, Mac nodded his head. Snowbirds was the term used to describe seasonal residents. Like birds, they wintered down south, where it was warm, and then migrated back north for the summer months.
    “Carlisle’s grandfather never went to college,” David said. “But Ellery was brilliant. Took what little money he had and made a fortune in the stock market. The Greens are billionaires. His son and daughter-in-law enjoyed the good life. Carlisle got tossed out of the best boarding schools in the world.”
    “Tossed out?” Mac asked.
    “Her parents finally decided they had had enough of her and shipped her off to Grandpa Green,” David said. “She was sixteen when they were killed in a hotel fire in Europe. Her grandfather was so broken-hearted, he died of heart failure nine months later. Carlisle Green was seventeen years old when she became a billionaire … and an emancipated minor.”
    “I can imagine what would have happened to my daughter, Jessica, if she came into that much money at such a young age and had no adult supervision,” Mac said. “My son has always had a good head on his shoulders. He’d have been able to handle it … but Jessica, back when she was that age …” He cringed at the thought.
    David was shaking his head. “I think that’s why she and Ashton connected. They both lost their parents and they were close to their grandfathers who they lost. Ellery Green and Ross Piedmont were both brilliant, down to earth men. Practically every morning, they’d be out on the lake fishing during the summer.”
    “Then it would be natural for Ashton and Carlisle