The Mask: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel by Taylor Stevens

wouldn’t try to follow her home, either.

Bradford had been married and divorced twice, though he claimed the second marriage, for only eight months, didn’t count. Munroe followed the digital trail of that short-lived marriage through public records. She filled out online forms for a certified copy of his marriage certificate and hunted through searches until she found a specimen of what the real thing would look like, courtesy of an abandoned blog.
    She tracked down a custom office-supply business in Thailand, her way to a forged county seal, and, on the chance that she’d be running multiple identities on multiple passports, included a scan of her passport’s entry stamp so that she would have the means to create her own. The manga café became her residence for express shipping, her credit cards an unfortunate trail for expedited processing.
    Five hours of hyperfocus and untold broken laws had laid down those first steps, and now with nothing but time and questions, she straightened out body kinks and turned to the external drive Bradford had left in the drawer.
    The café’s computers had allowed her anonymity; her laptop, disconnected from the Internet, gave her privacy. Munroe rolled up the futon and stretched out on the floor. Head propped up on the cushion, she plugged in the drive and, with the computer balanced on her stomach, began the slow quest of perusing folders: personnel files, financial records—documents that Bradford likely had legitimate access to but didn’t want anyone knowing he was scrutinizing, nothing personal or illegal.
    Three sets of folders, titled 1one, 2two, and 3three stood out from the rest. Each contained five to twenty subfolders beneath, and each of those bore a name, two of which Munroe recognized from promotional material as C-level employees. The subfolders themselves contained material that had been downloaded and assembled from company files, presumably by Okada.
    She sat up and scooted across the tatami for the desk. With her laptop on one side, and the café’s computer on the other, she cross-referenced the folders’ names with public information. Extrapolating from those that turned up hits, as best as she could tell, one set of the folders was comprised of members of upper-level management, the second most of the members of the security departments, and the third a selection of employees who worked in the lower-level labs.
    By the time midnight rolled around and the subdued noises of the café had grown slightly louder, Munroe had found nothing to explain those nights when Bradford’s words had said he was at the office and his calendar notes said he wasn’t. She lay down and draped an arm over her eyes to block the room’s low light.
    The lies returned, and the months of conversations and interactions, prodding and searing like hot branding irons, casting doubt on every kiss and every promise. She knocked her head back against the futon in a physical attempt to make the roller coaster stop, yet couldn’t sever the personal obsession from cold investigation.
    Munroe pulled out the calendar sheets and went over them again, measuring every entry, every day, against the days she’d lived, the experiences they’d shared, the stories he’d told, the touches, the words of affection; judging and questioning, attempting to divine truth from obfuscation and growing angry in the process. Wary and guarded was who she was to the world, but not with him, and she hated him for having stolen from her that one small shred of trust.

With a list of phone numbers in hand, Munroe left her temporary haven for the outside, where the day had already long begun and the remnants of rain that had fallen in the night had thickened into weighted humidity.
    Here, the streets were wider than where the apartment stood, and the sidewalks were actual sidewalks. Tucked out of the way of foot traffic, she dialed the first of the numbers that, for the sake of privacy and her desire to be able to