Paper Trail
Seth
The contractor's name was Marcus Bell, and he did not exist.
That was the first thing Daniel told me when I walked into the security office at half past six the next morning, still wearing yesterday's shirt, my eyes gritty from a night spent staring at the ceiling of a house that suddenly felt too full and too empty at the same time.
"The employee file checks out on paper." Daniel spun a laptop toward me. "Social security number, address history, even a reference letter from a previous employer. All clean."
"But?"
"But the previous employer went out of business four years ago. The address history is a storage unit facility. And the photo on his ID badge doesn't match any face in the DMV database under that name." He leaned back. "Somebody built him from scratch, Seth
