The coffee at "The Wired Bean" was lukewarm, but Elias didn’t mind. His focus was entirely on the laptop screen, where a progress bar flickered: Processing Public Records... 88% .
The charismatic partner sitting across from him at the office tomorrow wasn't a visionary—he was a professional ghost.
There was no Marcus Thorne in Chicago during that summer. But there was a Julian Vane who matched Marcus’s social security number perfectly. Vane hadn't been building a tech empire; he had been involved in a high-profile series of civil lawsuits involving "negligent failure to disclose".
Elias clicked the file. He expected to see standard verification: employment history, a clean driving record, perhaps a mortgage in a nice suburb. Instead, the report from TruthFinder flagged a "High Priority" alert.