“The most intelligent dog I have ever met,” Baxter said. “Truly. They often use this breed for service animals because they’re so bright.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Since adopting Archie, Baxter had become an expert on the breed. As he extolled Archie’s virtues, Katherine got herself a cup of coffee. She was fairly sure Drew hadn’t come to the house to meet their dog.
“…so he’s protective but not aggressive.” Baxter finished the recitation of Archie’s merits, his hand scratching the sainted dog’s ears.
“You know, in my line of work, I see people get all these big dogs for protection. Unfortunately, a lot of those people don’t have any idea how to train a large, dominant kind of dog.” Drew stretched his legs out. “I tell people, the most protective dog you’ll ever have is a good, well-behaved family dog that’s devoted to its people. Can’t do better than that.”
Baxter might have adopted Archie for Katherine’s protection, but she had a hard time imagining him attacking anyone.
“So is there news?” Baxter asked. “About Abby?”
“The DA has decided not to press charges against Abby Chung,” Drew said. “Considering everything that’s come to light about Greg Hammond, Alice Kraft, and their plans, they decided that the psychiatric facility where she’s been staying should guide the case, and the doctors there have cleared her and told the DA that she is not a danger and the incident was isolated.”
“So basically the same outcome as Justin’s case.”
“Yes.” Drew nodded. “Thankfully. Now, the charges against Hammond and Kraft keep piling up, so I can’t tell you that you won’t have to testify in those cases.”
“They would be two separate trials?”
Drew shrugged. “I don’t think Kraft will go to trial. She’s got a real smart lawyer from San Francisco who’s already working the angles.”
Baxter asked, “Is she still claiming that Greg did everything on his own?”
“She’s admitted to the affair with Hammond and claims that they planned to basically steal the app after she screwed with the data to make the study unpublishable. But she says Hammond is the only one who used the app to hypnotize the students.”
The police had settled on the theory that Hammond had hypnotized students via remote voice recordings, and Katherine just hoped that they had an expert witness who could back that up.
“For me though?” Drew shook his head. “I’m not buying that she had no idea about what Hammond was doing at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because she formed that LLC right after Sarah’s horse died.”
Baxter nodded. “You think Greg told her.”
“I think he had to. It might have gone further than he intended. I don’t know. But she was the only one other than him who really understood what that app was capable of doing. I think he told the woman he thought was his girlfriend, and she realized it was the perfect pretense to sabotage the study, which would leave them free and clear to steal the app when the study went to hell.”
“And the other students?”
“I don’t think she planned that part,” Drew said. “Too much attention. I have a feeling Greg started going a little overboard. Or maybe he wanted to frame Kraft and take everything for himself. Either way, he doesn’t escape jail time. With his attack on Katherine? No way in hell. Kraft? Maybe.”
“She’s finished in academia,” Baxter said. “After the scandal with the study and admitting to an affair with a graduate student, she’ll never work at a reputable university again.”
“There’s always Silicon Valley,” Katherine said. “They don’t care much about morals there. Just money.”
Drew shrugged. “Sounds like a good fit then.”
Katherine knit her fingers through Baxter’s, and Archie took the opportunity to stick his furry head underneath their joined hands.
“Wherever they go from here,” Katherine said, “at least they’ll be leaving Moonstone Cove.”
Drew raised his mug of tea. “Good riddance.”
“Don’t worry, Detective.” Baxter rubbed Archie’s ears. “I foresee Moonstone Cove returning to normal very, very soon.”
“Do you?” Katherine reached for the pile of sea glass on the edge of the table and let the smooth weight of the stones grow warm in her palm. “I don’t know.” She watched the ocean rise and fall in the morning sunlight. “These days I think normal is a little harder to define.”
* * *
Thank you for reading Runaway Fate!
Continue reading for a preview of the next Moonstone Cove novel,
FATE ACTUALLY.
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First Look: Fate Actually
Antonia Dusi slicked a clay face mask over her olive-toned skin and set the timer for five minutes.
Five minutes.
She leaned on the edge of the counter and glanced to her right, drumming her fingers on the edge.
Four minutes, fifty seconds.
What was she supposed to do with four minutes and fifty seconds? Toni hated sitting still. She hated wasting time. She had too much going on in her life to waste time. It was Wednesday morning, she had a dozen things to do at her garage that day, and her dad was supposed to be coming in; she wanted to get her butt going out the door.
Four minutes, thirty seconds.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The rhythmic pat of a water drop at the bottom of her sink snagged her attention. She cocked her head and put her finger to the faucet. It was one of those little jobs she hadn’t quite gotten around to doing since she bought the old cottage at the bottom of the hill.
It was probably just a washer. She could fix that in five minutes.
She glanced at the counter and the numbers ticking by. Okay, four minutes, fifteen seconds.
Toni opened the bathroom door and walked through her bedroom and toward the kitchen where she kept her toolbox under the sink. Eventually, she’d keep the toolbox in the laundry room, but since the laundry room was torn up while she refinished the cabinets in there, she kept her tools in the kitchen.
Just as she grabbed her toolbox, she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket.
She slid it to answer. “Morning, Dad.”
“Toni,
