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

Green to become friends.”
    “They lived next door to each other during the summer,” David said. “Carlisle was about three years younger than Ashton. But, emotionally, she was years older.”
    “Why wasn’t she at the ball the night of the incident?” Mac asked.
    “Most likely, she turned down the invitation,” David said. “The Diablo Ball was definitely not her bag. It was too tame for her tastes.”
    The Piedmont estate had remained empty for five years. Even though the family lawyer had the grounds kept up in order to not let the property become overgrown, the mansion was eerily still and quiet.
    Slowing down so that Mac could scope out the home of the subject of their cold case, David eased the cruiser past it on the way to the mansion around the bend in the lake shore road. Between the Piedmont and Green estate, there was a grove of trees and a stream that flowed into the lake.
    “Carlisle Green makes Lindsey York look like a nun,” David told Mac out of the side of his mouth. “Every summer she’d come out here and raise Cain. Her neighbors would call the police almost every night because she’d have the music blasting and she and her friends would be skinny dipping off the dock.”
    David turned the wheel to ease the cruiser between two stone pillars. They noticed piles of chopped brush, and a wheelbarrow next to the sidewalk that wrapped around to the lake side of the luxurious two-story stone house.
    “I’ve always loved this house.” David shot Mac a wide grin.
    When the cruiser rounded the curve of the heavily wooded drive, Mac could see why. The Green home was not your average mansion. One would expect a billionaire to have a massive mansion, or at least the biggest house on Deep Creek Lake. Such was not so with Ellery Green’s home.
    While the lake house was large, it was not massive. From the exterior, Mac estimated it to be the same square footage as Spencer Manor. It was a guess, which was rough, considering that the two-story stone house was round with windows on every wall from floor to ceiling. Like Spencer Manor, it had decking all around from the front to the back. The sloping roof contained close to a dozen sky-lights.
    Off to one side of the drive was a four-car garage with what appeared to be an apartment on the second floor.
    “Very interesting,” Mac said.
    “Wait until you see the inside,” David said.
    “Is this Carlisle Green, witness-slash-suspect, still around?” Mac asked.
    “I don’t know what happened to her,” David answered. “I know she hasn’t been to Spencer since Ashton disappeared. Probably hiding out in a country that doesn’t have extradition.” He brought the cruiser to a stop and turned off the engine.
    They heard a chainsaw running when they climbed out of the cruiser. “Must be the yard man keeping the place cleaned up,” David said in reference to the sounds of outdoor work.
    As soon as Mac opened the rear door, Gnarly leapt out and galloped around to the back of the house.
    “Could Carlisle have killed Ashton?” Mac fell in behind David to follow him up onto the walkway leading to the dock and lake where Ashton had last been seen.
    “Witnesses said they were having a cat fight.”
    “Over what?”
    The sound of the chain saw grew louder. Determining that the sound was from overhead, they shaded their eyes with their hands to look up into the trees lining the walkway.
    “No one knows and Carlisle claimed she couldn’t remember,” David said.
    The chainsaw cut off. “Look out below!” a woman yelled from up in the branches.
    Leaves and twigs rained down on them. A thick branch crashed inches from Mac, who grabbed David by the arm and yanked him back toward the house. The heavy branch barely missed them.
    “Are you okay, Chief O’Callaghan?” the woman’s voice called down to them. Camouflaged by the leaves and branches, they couldn’t see her.
    “Yes!” David continued to peer up the tree to find the culprit with the chainsaw