Page 29 of Code 6
“At the Mandarin?”
“Next door. I’m told it’s the safest apartment building in the city.”
“Who told you that?”
“I won’t name drop. Let’s just say there are several residents who are entitled to Secret Service protection, and I know one—actually I know all of them.”
“I’m happy with my little place. It’s closer to the law school.”
“You’re graduating in December. It’s time to think ahead. I’ve already sold the unit I was holding for you at Tysons Tower.”
Kate wasn’t surprised. Her father had yet to set foot in the building since her mother’s death. “Have you decided what to do with the penthouse?”
“The real estate broker advised me to hold it for a while. Sometimes it improves marketability to have a story attached to a property, but this is not that kind of story. We need to give it time. Then sell it.”
“That’s probably good advice.”
“But let’s not lose focus. What about the building next door?”
Kate glanced at the man dressed in a black suit two tables away, her father’s bodyguard. “Can we slow down a little? It’s going to takeme some time to warm up to the idea of returning to a world where everything is about security. And secrets.”
He seemed to pick up on the way she’d pivoted from security to secrets. “Did something happen today?”
“Patrick Battle came by my office today to say hello,” she said, and then quickly got to the nub of it. “He slipped.”
“Slipped how?”
“He said something he shouldn’t have about a project he’s working on.”
“Very unlike him. He’s one of our rising stars. Which project?”
“Project Naïveté.”
Her father didn’t appear angry, but he definitely looked concerned. She waited for him to say something, but he was silent.
“I told him I would speak to you about it.”
Her father seemed caught off guard, at a loss for words. Then he burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked Kate.
“My apologies to Patrick, but I can’t keep up the ruse any longer. He got you. That’s the oldest joke in the company. Pretend that you spilled the recipe for the secret sauce and act like you’re both going to get fired over it.”
Kate’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“There is no Project Naïveté. But I give the boy points for coming up with the perfect code name. Naïveté. He was seeing how naïve you are.”
“That stinker. He said it was like my play.”
He smiled, then turned serious. “You mean the play you’ve been hiding from me?”
Now Kate was caught off guard. “I wasn’t hiding anything. It just never came up.”
“You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
The conversation was taking a turn, and it was making Kate nervous. “Forgiven you for what?”
“That play you wrote your senior year of high school. What was it called?”