“I believed her and I thought you did also,” Laurie says.
“I did, but then I started to think it seemed too convenient. And there was one other thing about her that bugged me. She talked like she and Kline couldn’t stand each other and had completely separate client lists. But their assistant told me that they never scheduled seminars at the same time, that they would alternate. It didn’t seem to fit.”
“So what pointed you toward Crystal?”
“I just realized that this operation had to have begun long before Mahler was hired to replace Crystal. They couldn’t take out life insurance policies and then cash them out a few months later; it would be too suspicious. I also didn’t buy that he would spend a year in his goddamn pajamas without looking for work.
“One other thing: The first time I met Crystal, he joked about my asking my former buddies in the department to give him a job. But I had never told him that I was an ex-cop. I realized that later.”
“And he and his pals were going to ride off into the sunset,” Andy says. “They would have had new identities, full new lives created in cyberspace. There would be no connection to their former selves. If the scam was ever discovered, Musgrove would go down for it. He wouldn’t even be able to turn on them because he would have no idea what their new identities were.”
“Brilliant,” Laurie says. “And scary. Nothing is as it seems; no way to tell what is real.”
Dani comes over and hears Laurie’s comment. “Friends are real. Look around.”
Laurie holds up her beer. “I’ll drink to that.”
Dani turns to me. “So now that you have no GPS bracelet and can go anywhere, what do you want to do tomorrow?”
“How about a barefoot walk in the dirt?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m too scared of the riptide. How about hanging out at home, just you, me, and Simon?”
Andy says, “Corey, I think she might be a keeper.”
“I actually figured that out a while ago.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I haven’t done an acknowledgment page for a long time. Basically that is because I live in the world of the famous, and when I mention my celebrated friends, uninformed, bitter people accuse me of being a name-dropper. Well, I’m here to tell you that I am not a name-dropper, and LeBron and Barack would be the first to tell you that.
In any event, that all ends now. I have received tremendous emotional support from many people as I have climbed to the peak of the literary world, and they deserve mention, whether the jealous among us like it or not. So a sincere thank-you to:
Beyoncé; Willie Mays; Willy Loman; Grace and Machine Gun Kelly; Tom Brady; Jan Brady; Marcia Marcia Marcia Brady; the Lee siblings, Bruce, Peggy and Robert E.; Leo DiCaprio; Leo Durocher; Kelley Ragland; Arthur and Sienna Miller; Richard Kimble; Cosmo Kramer; Cosmo Politan; Ben, Paul, and Colonel Hogan; Scott Ryder; Bruno Tattaglia; Vin Scully; My Cousin Vinny; Robin Rue; Bette, Sammy, and Jefferson Davis; Bradley Cooper; Bill Bradley; Bill Parcells; Elizabeth and Opie Taylor; Madeline Houpt; Jeff Bezos; Jeff Daniels; Stormy Daniels; Beth Miller; D. H. and Jennifer Lawrence; Marie Barone; Latka Gravas; Doug Burns; Ken Burns; Third Degree Burns; Rosalynn and Hurricane Carter; Hillary Strackbein; Alex Trebek; Sylvia Schnauser; Joan Crawford; Rita, Mookie, and Woodrow Wilson; Frank Pentangeli; Debbie Myers; Atticus Finch; Jim and Open Carrey; Eli Manning; and Tom and Tape Delay.
ALSO BY DAVID ROSENFELT
ANDY CARPENTER NOVELS
Silent Bite
Muzzled
Dachshund Through the Snow
Bark of Night
Deck the Hounds
Rescued
Collared
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas
Outfoxed
Who Let the Dog Out?
Hounded
Unleashed
Leader of the Pack
One Dog Night
Dog Tags
New Tricks
Play Dead
Dead Center
Sudden Death
Bury the Lead
First Degree
Open and Shut
K TEAM NOVELS
The K Team
THRILLERS
Black and Blue
Fade to Black
Blackout
Without Warning
Airtight
Heart of a Killer
On Borrowed Time
Down to the Wire
Don’t Tell a Soul
NONFICTION
Lessons from Tara: Life Advice from the World’s Most Brilliant Dog
Dogtripping: 25 Rescues, 11 Volunteers, and 3 RVs on Our Canine Cross-Country Adventure
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Rosenfelt is the Edgar Award–nominated and Shamus Award–winning author of twenty-two Andy Carpenter novels, most recently Silent Bite; nine stand-alone thrillers; two non-fiction titles; and The K Team, the first in a new series featuring some of the characters from the Andy Carpenter series. After years of living in California, he and his wife moved to Maine with twenty-five of the four thousand dogs they have rescued. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
Also by David Rosenfelt
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
ANIMAL INSTINCT. Copyright © 2021 by Tara Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by Rowen Davis and David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photographs: German shepherd © James Thomas/Alamy; bulldog © Eric Isselee/Shutterstock.com; man © Dean Drobot/Shutterstock.com; chair © Who is Danny/Shutterstock.com; lamp © Pormezz/Shutterstock.com; handcuffs © bestv/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Rosenfelt, David, author.
Title: Animal instinct / David Rosenfelt.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2021. | Series: K team novels; 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048550 | ISBN 9781250257208 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250257215 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3618.O838 A83 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048550
eISBN 9781250257215
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