“No.” Her eyes were the size of saucers. “I don’t remember anything about that at all.”
Chapter 26
“Have you been able to determine what the notifications led to?” Anita Mehdi was on the speakerphone in Katherine and Baxter’s dining room.
Katherine had been granted permission by Kaylee to fill Anita Mehdi in on her experience with the app since her phone was the only proof they had that someone was using the reporting app to manipulate students.
“No. I am not an app designer, but the size of the app was way too big for what it was supposed to do, even if Kaylee got a version intended for grad students. Plus there were data mining programs integrated into it.”
“So the app was spying on the students and gathering data it shouldn’t?”
“Yes. But whatever message or task it directed Kaylee toward on Thursday, I can’t tell you.” Katherine rubbed her temple. “I clicked on the notifications again, but they just led to the app’s home screen.”
“So someone is covering their tracks,” Baxter said. “Trying to hide what they did to Kaylee.”
“What kind of data was it gathering? Like… social security numbers?”
Baxter continued. “Nothing that simple. It gathered all sorts of things about students. Locations of where they were, their internet search history, their personal financial information, all of it.”
“Well, where did it go? I haven’t seen any data like that.”
“I imagine it went to a different server than the one dealing with the biofeedback study.”
This was all getting to be so sordid. Students committing violent acts, an app that looked like it was solely created to spy on users, an affair between a professor and a student.
“Everyone who has the app needs to delete it,” Katherine said. “But that would also destroy evidence, so I don’t know what to do.”
“They’re probably already deleting it. I spoke to Alice about it this morning.”
Katherine covered her face and tried not to scream. Baxter put a hand on her shoulder and said, “I’m afraid that wasn’t a good idea, Anita. See, Alice Kraft is the one who designed the app. Which means she may be the one gathering data on the students, which is in violation of the IRB guidelines, which means that she has a vested interest in making sure any evidence of that disappears.”
“What?” Anita sighed. “Well, I just don’t know what to do at this point. Nothing seems right.”
“No.” Katherine opened her eyes. “No. You did the right thing. The safety of the students is the most important thing. We have to make sure none of them can be influenced in this way again.”
“What should we do now?”
Baxter said, “Why don’t we meet at school? I’ll help you put together a report for the IRB to submit Monday.”
Katherine rose. “While you do that, I’m going to contact Justin and Abby’s families and see if they still have their phones. And I’ll try to contact Detective Bisset and tell him what we know so far about the app and the study.”
Baxter said, “Tell him we can email him a copy of the report tomorrow. The university will have to work with the police on this. I don’t know what crimes have been committed, but I imagine there is more than one. Plus they may have a forensic computing team that can take a look at the program that was on Kaylee’s phone. They might have run into something like this before.”
* * *
“Thank you for driving.” Katherine glanced at Megan from the corner of her eye.
“No problem. I don’t think Justin’s parents or lawyer would talk to you without me anyway.”
It was Sunday morning, and Megan’s face was pale. The armor of makeup and accessories she normally donned was absent, and she was wearing a tracksuit. It was color-coordinated with her shoes and nail polish though, so Katherine had no doubt her vibrant friend was still there.
“How are you doing?”
“Well,” she began, “neither me nor any of my three children have heard from the cheating bastard in three days. I have transferred fifty percent of all our accounts into a separate one in my name only, so that’s taken care of for a little while.”
“Do you have savings?”
“I have all my business accounts that were always my own, which he hated, but I am so grateful to have that now.”
“Good.” Katherine’s heart ached more than a little.
They were driving down to Santa Maria because that’s where the McCabe family made their home. Megan had offered to drive when Katherine told her she wanted to look at Justin McCabe’s phone if it was available. Megan called the lawyer and arranged a meeting with Justin’s parents, who would hand over his phone.
“So you don’t think your marriage with Rodney is salvable?”
Megan took a deep breath before she spoke again. “This isn’t the first time, Katherine. When the kids were little, Rodney had an affair. I found out, kicked him out, he groveled, we did counseling and managed to put things back together. I thought it was a one-off. He claimed it was. Now I’m wondering just how much a fool I was.”
“You’re not a fool. Don’t say that.”
“Doesn’t matter either way. I told him years ago if he ever did that to me and the kids again, he was gone. So I’m done. I uprooted my entire life to support him and he does this to me? That’s not a slipup. We started living completely separate lives once we moved out here, and I’m starting to think that was his intention.”
“How are the kids?”
“Upset, Adam and Cami especially. Trina remembers the first time, so she gets it. I don’t even think she’s that surprised.”
“And how are you?”
“Hell, Katherine, I don’t
