Page 71 of Code 6

“As imagined byme, which you are feeding to Claude, throughmyscript.”

“No. This story is based on actual historical figures and events, which Claude is reimagining throughhisscript.”

Technically, he was right—the law doesn’t prevent multiple dramatic interpretations of the Kennedy assassination—but that didn’t make it okay for another writer to use her script as a blueprint, and it didn’t lessen Kate’s feeling of betrayal.

The chime sounded, calling all patrons to return to the concert hall. The crowd migration began, but Kate didn’t move.

“I’m leaving,” she said.

“Come on, Kate. Don’t be like this.”

“You are a fucking snake.”

Kate placed her wineglass on the table, but Sean stopped her before she could step away.

“Kate, I’m sure they did have the Golden Rule in Germany. But in this business, we live by the Crypto Rule. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Ask your old man. He’ll know.”

Sean returned to the concert hall. Kate headed for the exit.

A stiff autumn breeze met her outside the door, and by the time she reached the taxi stand, her hair was a hopeless mess. She climbed into the backseat, gave the driver the address to her father’s house in Georgetown, and did her best to brush out the windblown look on the ride there.

The point of her visit had nothing to do with Sean. Kate had been avoiding her father’s calls, worried about how he might react to her having visited Sandra Levy without telling him. His relationship with Sandra was still confusing to her, and Kate wasn’t convinced that sharing secrets, if not a bed, wasn’t some form of infidelity. Maybe all that was none of a daughter’s business. But she had every right to understand her own mother’s suicide note. A straight talk with her father was overdue.

The taxi dropped her at the curb, the guard let her inside, and Kate found her father in his study. Work was what he did every Friday night for as long as Kate could remember. He took one night off a week, Saturday, if he had a free night at all.

“Wow, don’t you look pretty,” he said. “Date night?”

“Disaster night.”

“What happened?”

“That’s not what I came to talk about. This is important.”

“Okay,” he said, leading her to the club chairs, where they each took a seat. “What’s up?”

“Did you know Mom went to see Sandra Levy in prison?”

The question seemed to catch him off guard, but he didn’t dodge it. “Yes. Did your mother tell you about it?”

“No. Sandra did. I went to see her yesterday.”

His face went ashen. “Why on earth would you do that?”

For Patrick, she reminded herself. But all that, coupled with her conversation with Noah, was way too much to explain.

“Let’s put a pin in the ‘why’ question for now. I want to talk about the things she told me.”

He seemed curious, perhaps in the way that anyone would be curious to know what his de facto psychiatrist had to say about him. Perhaps it was more than that.

“All right,” he said. “I’m not at all happy you did this without telling me, but let’s hear what Sandra had to say for herself.”

Kate skimmed over most of it and went straight to her final exchange with Sandra—the words that had been playing over and over in her head.

“Her daughter’s name is Megan,” Kate said.

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