Read The Lady Who Cried Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery) for Free Online Page A

to her mistress’s side and go out the door with her. It was only because David quickly closed the door that Gnarly didn’t follow them. Unable to accompany the white German shepherd, Gnarly ran to the window and jumped up to place his front paws on the sill and watch them leave in David’s cruiser.
    “Don’t you feel ashamed, lying here warming yourself by the fire while your girlfriend goes off to work?” Mac joked.
    As if to respond to him, Gnarly turned his head to look back at Mac from over his shoulder.
    “No more than you do when your girlfriend stays up working until after midnight while you’re sawing logs in a nice warm bed,” a feminine voice replied from the stairs behind him.
    Mac sat up to respond only to be pulled back by two soft hands on his shoulders. Once he had fallen back, she further restrained him by wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her rosy scent surrounded him before she laid a kiss on his cheek next to his ear. “Good morning, handsome.”
    He took her hands into his. “Good morning, my love. Did you make headway on that book before you came to bed?”
    “Some. This one is brutal. Talk about butchering the English language.”
    “Why did the publisher accept it if it’s so bad?”
    Archie smiled. “Because she’s a has-been teenybopper singer. The publisher is betting that her fans read and will buy the book even if it is trash.” She sighed. “Publishing isn’t like it was back when your mother started out. Then publishers cared about great literature. Now it’s only a business focused on the bottom line.”
    Keeping his hand in hers, she came around the sofa to sit next to his legs. He saw that she was naked under her bathrobe. “Speaking of butchers…I was really out of it last night, so I didn’t catch everything you were telling me about Khloe Everest getting murdered. Her body was dismembered?”
    Mac nodded his head. “And I’ve got to go shower and leave. Doc Washington finished the autopsy.” He swung his legs off the sofa and put on his slippers.
    “Do you think Khloe knew her killer?”
    “Hard to say right now,” Mac said. “No sign of a break in. But then, people like Khloe…”
    “I did a look at her social media sites before I went to bed last night,” she said. “Khloe was making a big deal that she had some big news that she was going to drop in her interview with E-Entertainment. She referred to it as a ‘bomb.’”
    “Did she drop any hints about what made up this bomb?”
    Archie shook her head. “Not a clue. All she said was that it was going to make a big blast.”
    Mac gazed at her. “Almost sounds like keeping her from making that announcement could be the motive for her murder.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    He leaned over to press his forehead against her. “How about doing me a favor?”
    “You want me to dig deeper into Khloe’s social media sites and the media to see if I can figure out what her news could have been.”
    He kissed her. “You’re my girl.”
    “I know.” She grinned.
    Mac stood up, only to have her pull him back down onto the sofa. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She pressed her lips against his mouth. “You know you’re going to owe me for this.”
    He stroked her cheek and drew his fingertip down her throat to her chest. “Have you ever known me not to pay up?”
    Their lips were barely touching. “Never.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    She brushed her fingers down his chest to his stomach. “I think this time I want you to pay up front.” Grasping the belt of his bathrobe, she pulled him in closer.
    Taking in a deep breath, Mac murmured, “I guess I can be a little late.”

    “You don’t have to walk me in,” Chelsea told David while he walked her into the county prosecutor’s office in Oakland.
    “I don’t have to, but I want to.” David held the door open for her and Molly. Once inside the office, Chelsea took off Molly’s leash. The white German shepherd curled