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“How long will it take to get a toxicology report?” she asked.

“A few weeks.”

“Will the media find out if my mother was intoxicated?”

“Virginia treats the records of the medical examiner like medical records. Without the consent of the next of kin, a toxicology report isn’t typically public information in cases where there are no legal proceedings.”

That was good news. Kate had felt due for some. She thanked the assistant and waited outside for a ride. She checked her Uber app to make sure her ride preferences were set to “no conversation.” The last thing she needed was a chatty driver all the way back to the city. The first two drivers canceled on her; apparently, the morgue came up on their phones as a haunted house. Finally, she snagged a willing soul. An hour-long car ride was more than enough time to be alone with her thoughts, and by the time she reached DuPont Circle, it was a relief not to have to go up to her apartment for still more time alone.Earlier, Kate had agreed to meet an old friend for coffee, and despite her initial reluctance, she was actually glad to have company.

It had been almost two years since Kate had seen Noah Dunn. They’d met at Georgetown when he was in law school and Kate was an undergraduate. That morning, he’d been one of the first to call and tell her how sorry he was to hear the horrible news about her mother, which Kate appreciated. She wasn’t sure which was the bigger surprise: that for some reason, she’d never removed him from her contacts, so that his name had popped up on her screen; or that they’d talked for another twenty minutes or so, without a moment of awkwardness. Until the end of the call, when things got a little strange. “I have something I want to give you,” he’d said, “something important.” The last time Noah had uttered words to that effect, Kate had assumed it was a ring and signed up for a semester-long study-abroad program. She really cared for Noah, but he moved fast—way too fast for Kate, who was well versed in the things a husband and wife should never say to one another.

She ordered a coffee at the counter and found him in a booth by the window.

“Good to see you,” she said, as she slid into the bench seat across from him.

“Likewise. And sorry for being so secretive about this. I was afraid you wouldn’t come if I told you what it was.”

“Now you’re freaking me out.”

“I won’t keep you in suspense.” He opened his backpack and laid the script on the table.

Kate did a double take. “My play? How did you get that?”

“I’m a federal prosecutor. I specialize in retrieving important documents out of Dumpsters and trash cans.”

Since their breakup, Noah had gone on to become the youngest “senior” prosecutor in the Cybercrimes Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. If cyberspace was the Wild West, Washington was Dodge City. Noah was right where he wanted to be,on the front line in the fight against cyber-enabled fraud, intrusions, hacks, scams, and anything else that the most brilliant criminal minds in the world could imagine.

“How did you even know I threw this away?” she asked. “Wait—did you follow me to Ford’s Theatre?”

“Not exactly.”

“Noah, this is getting weird.”

“I saw the announcement in the Georgetown alumni magazine that you were one of the winners of Irving Bass’s playwriting competition.”

“Oh, God. My mother put that in there.”

“The article said that the readings of all the winners were open to the public, so I went.”

She froze. “Then you saw what happened?”

“Yes.”

“Ouch.”

“My plan was to say hello and congratulations on the award. But I saw how upset you were and thought it probably wasn’t a great time to show my face and say, ‘Hi, remember me? I’m the guy who used to tell you how great your script was.’”

She smiled sadly. Noah had been one of her precious few beta readers. Her biggest fan.

“You should have said something.”

“I was torn. At first I thought,No, leave her be.Then I thought,For Pete’s sake, you came all the way over here, just say hello, and I started after you. That’s when I saw you pitch the script in the garbage. And I let you go.”

“But you took the script.”

He leaned closer, excitement in his eyes. “Kate, it’sfantastic.”

“Irving Bass didn’t think so.”

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