Runaway Fate: Moonstone Cove Book One

by Hunter, Elizabeth

  “I get what you’re saying.” She took a drink of coffee. “But don’t idealize all fatherhood. I would probably be a healthier person if my father hadn’t been a part of my life. My parents never divorced, but he was largely absent and when he was there, he was critical.”

  Megan shook her head. “That just boggles my mind. Why on earth would any parent poison a relationship with their kid like that? I know Rodney. He’s gonna regret all this as soon as he realizes what he’s lost, but I’m done. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  “No shame.” Katherine felt a little awkward, but she reached over and gave Megan a one-armed hug. “You trusted someone who was supposed to love you. There’s no shame in that.”

  “I’m done with him,” Megan said. “But I also don’t want to cut him off from his kids if he decides to make amends.”

  “So you’re staying?”

  “For now? Yeah.” Megan looked out over the ocean. “I’m selling that house though. As soon as it’s mine.”

  “Maybe you can get him to buy you out of that one and you can find a fixer-upper somewhere else that you can really make your own. Probably won’t have that view though.”

  Megan smiled. “I can live without the view now that I have your back porch.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m gonna have to start working again though. For sure.”

  “I don’t know why you weren’t before.” Katherine turned to look at the rows of multimillion-dollar homes in the neighborhood they were walking through. “All these people have gobs of money and probably half your taste. Think about how many weddings you see on the beach and at the point every weekend. It’ll take some time, but it sounds like you were really good at your job. You should definitely start another business here.”

  “Alston Event Planning.” She sipped her macchiato and nodded slowly. “I like the sound of it. My daddy’d be proud.” She made a face. “He never really liked Rodney all that much. Put up with him for my sake.”

  Katherine didn’t have anything to say to that. Her father didn’t have an opinion about Baxter when they’d gotten married, other than to say that she’d never reach her potential as a physicist if she was a wife and mother.

  “It’ll be good to be working again,” Megan said. “I think it’ll keep me—”

  The sound of a car screeching on the street behind them caused both Katherine and Megan to turn. People shouted as a grey sedan jumped the curb and roared along the boardwalk, chewing up the old boards that protected the dunes.

  “Is that car—?”

  Megan grabbed her arm. “Run!”

  They dashed across the street, only to have the car tearing up the boardwalk turn again and head for them.

  “It’s trying to run us down!” Megan screamed.

  “What is happening right now?”

  “Run back and forth,” Megan shouted. “Maybe it’ll bust a tire!”

  They ran back toward the boardwalk and jumped across the old railroad ties that bordered the walkway. The car turned to follow them and revved the engine as it careened in their direction.

  “Tree!” Katherine pointed to a large and tangled cypress that arched over the boardwalk. “We can cut though there and run down the dunes!”

  “Go!” Megan pushed her toward the overhanging limbs.

  The sound of the engine was deafening. Katherine could hear onlookers screaming in the background, and a siren wailed nearby.

  Katherine ran across the boardwalk and under the cypress tree, but she twisted her ankle on a jutting root and fell to the dirt.

  “Megan!” Katherine was helpless on the ground.

  Megan spotted her, turned and faced the car, and stood between the oncoming vehicle and Katherine. She held up both hands and, as the sedan approached, seemed to throw it into the twisted trunk of the cypress where it impacted with an anticlimactic crunch and a series of loud pops.

  She ran to Katherine. “So glad I’ve been practicing.”

  “Did you just throw an entire car into a tree?”

  “I more redirected it, but I was real pissed off. It’s a lot easier to use the psychic stuff when I’m angry.” She helped Katherine off the ground. “Maybe I owe Rodney a thank-you after all.”

  “Are you okay?” Her ankle was so painful she’d forgotten to ask about Megan.

  “I’m fine! Got my heart pumping, that’s for sure.” Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was flying around in the breeze. “Dropped my coffee though. Asshole.” She scowled at the busted sedan.

  A small crowd had gathered around the driver’s side, and more people were running toward them. Dozens of bystanders were on the phone and at least three people had their phones up, recording the incident.

  “Are you okay?” A man ran over. “I think that car was trying to run you two down.”

  “Katherine?”

  She spotted one of her neighbors waved a limp hand. “Hi, Ron.”

  “My God, are you okay?” He held her other arm as Megan helped her to a bench. “That man was headed straight for you. I was walking Trudie and saw the whole thing.”

  Ron’s golden doodle, Trudie, was wagging her tail with such vigor Katherine couldn’t resist the comfort of petting her fluffy blond head. “I really want a dog. I’m just going to get a dog and bring it home, and Bax will have to manage.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.”

  Sirens were wailing on the highway.

  Katherine gripped Megan’s arm. “Did you see who it was? Who’s the driver? Let me see.” She was betting it was another unsuspecting student from Central Coast State. She saw an ambulance racing up North Beach Drive. It was already near the coffee shop. “Megan, help me over there.”

  “I think he’s out cold,” Ron said. “He’s stuck in the car, and all the air bags deployed.”

  Megan and Ron helped her hobble over to see who was behind the wheel.

  “Back up!” Ron yelled as they tried to get through the crowd. “Leave him alone. The EMTs are almost here. Back up.”

  Trudie offered a few helpful barks in solidarity.

  The crowd parted, and Katherine saw the man who’d been trying to run them down.

  “Oh my God.” She didn’t think she could be any more shocked than she already was that day, but life was unexpected. “Megan, I know him.”

  “Is he one of your students?”

  “One of your students tried to kill you?” Ron was horrified. “That’s insane.”

  “He’s not one of my students.” She turned to Megan. “That’s Greg Hammond.”

  Chapter 29

  Detective Drew Bisset watched the EMTs load Greg Hammond in the back of an ambulance. “So that’s the guy who developed the app?”

  “With one of the professors, yes.” Katherine was parked on a bench.

  Ron had called Baxter, who’d already left work and was on his way. Megan was standing next to her, calling Toni as Detective Bisset and Katherine spoke.

  Katherine shifted her ankle, which was already swelling. “Tell me where you heard his name.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Is it part of an ongoing investigation?”

  “That’s possible.” He frowned. “You know, I took this job because I figured that detective work in a little college town was bound to be pretty boring. I’d be able to coach my girls’ soccer team. Make dinner for my wife every now and then. Things like that.”

  Katherine looked up and down the block. The crowds were now denser on North Beach Drive than she’d ever seen them. “Do you want me to apologize or something?”

  He sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Maybe just explain all this to me like I’m a freshman at your college who’s majoring in physics instead of philosophy.”

  She squinted. “Did you major in philosophy?”

  “I did.”

  “And you became a police detective?”

  “I guess I read too much Hobbes.”

  “T
he tiger?”

  Detective Bisset couldn’t stop the smile. “The philosopher. The tiger’s pretty good too.”

  “Agreed.” She scooted over and he sat next to her. “The principle of biofeedback is that you learn your body’s reaction to things in order to manage your stress responses. That part, the awareness, is done in a lab under the direction of a professional or, in this case, graduate students in psychology and behavioral sciences who were supervised by professors.”

  “And Greg Hammond was one of those students.”

  “Yes. He worked directly with Ansel Shaver, the lead on the study.”

  “But you mentioned another name too. Alice Kraft.”

  “Alice Kraft is another professor participating in the study. Her background is in computer science. She and Greg developed the app that sent notifications to the students who were affected by all this.”

  “Only them?”

  Katherine shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not privy to that information. But when I realized that this study was the tie that bound these cases together, I spoke to my husband, who spoke to Anita Mehta, another of the psychologists who was part of the study. Anita and her colleagues are now in the process of contacting all the study participants to delete the app off their phone before reporting all this to the review board at the university.”

  “If there was something rotten in that app, why would Greg have used it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Detective Bisset drew a clear plastic bag from his pocket. “Greg appears to have been under the same influence that Justin and Abby were.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  He handed her the bag. “Phone. Waterlogged, just like the others.”

  Katherine stared at the phone in confusion.

  But…?

  How…?

  “There must be some mistake. He was the administrator. It was a male voice reading the visualization exercises. Mario told us.”

  “Maybe this Professor Kraft is the one we need to be looking at,” Detective Bisset said. “Maybe Greg got caught in the middle of something.”

  She rubbed her eyes and suddenly realized how exhausted she was. The sun was starting to creep behind the horizon. Katherine stood and braced herself on the back of the bench. “I need to go home.”

  “Professor Bassi—”

  “No.” She held up a hand. “I need to go. If you want another round of questions, you can follow me…”

  She didn’t make it to the end of her thought before a vision hit her like a brick between the eyes.

  The interior of the ambulance was grey, like a black-and-white movie. One EMT sat on a bench beside the patient, shouting at the other, who was driving.

  “You planning on going to that movie with Kim?”

  “Not sure.”

  “I’m telling you man, she’s into you. She picks a romantic kind of movie, she’s into you.”

  Katherine didn’t know who or what she was seeing in the vision, but she resisted the urge to pull away.

  “It’s not a romance, man.”

  “It’s got a romance in it, right?”

  “I mean, there’s a hot girl, but I don’t think it’s a romance.”

  She felt the pull of consciousness, like the tug of a wave pulling sand from beneath her feet. She nearly fell off-balance, but she remained in the vision, knowing that there was more.

  “Just because there’s, like, a love interest in an action movie, that doesn’t make it a romance. By your definition, Die Hard is a romance then.”

  A subtle whisper of sound started in the background, like a radio left on in another room.

  “Die Hard was superromantic! He was fighting for his wife, man.”

  The sound grew and grew until the whisper was one long murmur of nonsense filling the truck.

  “You are such an idiot.”

  A hand shot up and grabbed the EMT by the throat, choking him.

  “Hey, Ernie?”

  The EMT flailed. He banged the flat of his hand on the wall of the van, and the ambulance lurched to the side.

  “Holy shit, Ernie!”

  Katherine snapped back into reality with a gasp. Her ears gave the telltale pop of awareness and she grabbed for Detective Bisset’s hand. “Send an officer after that ambulance.”

  “What?”

  “Send an officer after that ambulance, he’s going to get away!”

  * * *

  Katherine stood next to the crashed ambulance. Both doors were hanging open, and two EMTs were rubbing their heads and pacing by the side of the road.

  “Katherine?” Megan touched her shoulder. “I followed Detective Bisset’s car. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, that’s fine.” She’d practically forced Drew Bisset into his car and didn’t even ask if she could join him as she gave directions to where she knew the ambulance carrying Greg Hammond probably was.

  By the time they got to the junction of Valley Road and Highway 1, the man was already gone and a highway patrol cruiser was at the scene.

  “How did you know this was going to happen?” Drew Bisset marched over and he was glaring. “How did you—”

  “I often see connections other people don’t,” Katherine said calmly. “That’s what makes me so effective in my research. That’s what happened this time.”

  Where would he go? What was this about? Was it… an alibi? An accident? I can’t be the bad guy because see? It happened to me too. What was his next move?

  “Has anyone called Alice Kraft?” Katherine tried to change the subject. She didn’t need Drew Bisset asking a bunch of questions about her visions.

  “Why would we call her?” Megan asked.

  “If Greg wasn’t the one who sent the strange notifications, then it was Alice Kraft. So either she’s behind all this, or Greg could see her as a threat and a loose end to tie up. He’s already tried to kill us today.”

  Drew pulled out his phone and punched in a number. “Jackie, get me the number for Professor Alice Kraft.”

  * * *

  No one was lingering at Alice Craft’s neat bungalow near the edge of the village. Drew Bisset parked on the quiet street, and he didn’t object when Megan and Katherine pulled in behind him. In fact, he looked at Katherine first.

  “When I talked to her on the phone, she seemed calm. No signs of anyone influencing her; no sign of Greg Hammond in the neighborhood. She didn’t want to come to the station, but I’m not sure it’s safe for her to stay here.”

  Katherine looked at Megan, then at Detective Bisset. “You may be overestimating my influence with Professor Kraft. We both work at the university, but I don’t really know her.”

  “But you speak professor.” Drew unconsciously patted the gun strapped to his abdomen as he walked toward the house. “Maybe you can convince her to hang out at the precinct, at least until we bring Hammond in.”

  “I can try.”

  Megan was looking up and down the road. “I love this neighborhood.”

  “It’s cute, right?” Katherine nodded. “Walking distance to the village from here and an easy bike ride to the beach. You can take the Ferraro Ranch path.”

  “Nice.”

  “If you’re done talking about real estate…?” Drew motioned to the gate.

  “Oh right.”

  Megan and Katherine walked through the white picket fence and across the flagstone-paved garden. The house was simple and well kept, but there was an element of soullessness that Katherine sensed, as if it was empty even though she could see movement though the front windows.

  Before they could ring the bell, Alice Kraft opened the door.

  Out of her professional wardrobe, there was something forcefully sensual about Alice Kraft. Her hair fell around her shoulders in soft waves, and her eyes were wide but hardly innocent. She wore lounge clothes, as Katherine often did when she finished work for the day, but Alice Kraft’s clothes clung to her body.

  Detective Bisset paused, blinkin
g. Katherine didn’t blame him.

  “You must be Detective Bisset.” Professor Kraft frowned at Katherine. “Professor Bassi, why are you here? Are you limping again?”

  “Yes. Greg Hammond just tried to run me over. I tripped trying to get away.”

  Megan snorted.

  “I…” Alice Kraft was briefly at a loss for words. “The police said there’d been some kind of threat against me. Did you say Greg tried to run you over?”

  Detective Bisset stepped in front of them. “Professor Kraft, can you tell me about the computer program that you and Greg Hammond developed?”

  Alice Kraft looked at Katherine, who didn’t look away even for a second. Finally she turned back to Detective Bisset. “Since I’ve been informed that the study is being self-reported to the university review board, I suppose I can answer your questions.”

  “That’s very kind.” Katherine didn’t have to read people well to know that Drew Bisset was annoyed by Professor Kraft’s attitude.

  “We often sign very strict nondisclosure agreements,” Katherine said. “To protect privacy.”

  “This is a police investigation,” Detective Bisset said. “I don’t care about your nondisclosure agreements.”

  Alice Kraft cocked her head. “And university IRBs don’t generally care about your criminal investigations. What is this about?”

  Oh, Detective Bisset really didn’t like that answer. The corner of his mouth turned up. “Sarah Jordan was part of your study last year. She had a psychotic episode a few months ago. Killed her horse.”

  She raised a single sculpted eyebrow. “How awful.”

  “Greg Hammond once had a romantic relationship with Sarah Jordan—did you know that when he was assigned to be her supervising grad student in the study?”

  “It would have made no difference to him. Greg understands professionalism. We try to keep things as anonymous as possible, but in a school as small as Central Coast, some students knowing each other is inevitable.”