Verification is the one thing a liar cannot survive, and I had just told her, without quite knowing yet how completely I meant it, that verification was all I was interested in.

Chapter 4 — The Man She Thought She’d Read

My name is David Vance.

I am forty-one years old, and I run an aerospace components firm in Chicago.

My father started it with twelve employees in a rented hangar, working with his hands and his reputation, and over the years I built what he began into a company with clients across the country and into Canada, hundreds of people, the kind of enterprise that shows up in trade journals.

I say this not to boast but because it is the thing Vanessa saw when she looked at me, and, I came to realize, very nearly the only thing.