Page 35 of Keller

Marcus is quiet for a second. Then he speaks.

"I'll see what I can find out for you. Why not use your brother's systems? Wells has access to more databases than I do."

"This stays off family networks. I don't want any internal chatter or digital trail tied to us."

Another pause that's longer this time. Marcus knows better than to ask why.

"Understood. Starting points will be archived guest lists and corporate registries from that period. Hotel changed ownership twice since then, but records exist if you know where to look. Let's just hope seventeen years isn't too much."

"How long do you think it will take?"

"Give me a few days."

"Thanks, man. I appreciate you."

I end the call and set the phone down. I flatten my hand against the counter and hold it there until the cool stone steadies me. This is simple. Facts. Names. Dates. Whatever happened that night didn’t end with the fight. It didn't end with a semi on a dark stretch of highway.

If there’s more to it, I’ll be the one to see it.

I breathe in through my nose and let it out slowly.

The loft is too quiet now. There's no hum of conversation or background noise to fill the space, so I grab the remote to my Sonos and turn on my Florence and the Machine playlist. "Cosmic Love" cuts through the air. The slow build of it steadies something in my chest.

I turn back to the box and slide the lid off. The photographs have shifted from the drive over. Some of them are turned slightly, faces half-covered.

I straighten them carefully.

My mother looks back at me from seventeen years ago, caught mid-laugh in a moment I wasn’t there to see.

I lift the clearest photograph and carry it toward the window. The city light catches the gloss, sharpening what the box had dulled.

He’s clean-shaven. Strong nose, slightly crooked. The scar near his brow is thin and pale, not fresh. Years old by the time this was taken.

The ring is harder to make out. I study it. The design is too small to make out clearly, but the shape is distinct. It's a crest of some kind. Family, maybe, or institution.

I pick up another photograph. Same man, same ring. His hand rests against my mother's back. The angle of her body leans toward him.

I set both photographs side by side on the counter.

Who were you?

The question sits in my mind, clear and cold. Not angry. Not bitter. Just there.

If my father confronted him, I never saw it. If he buried this instead, it wasn’t by accident.

I step back and cross my arms. The city spreads beyond the glass, lights flickering in high-rises and hotels, and street corners below. Somewhere out there, this man could still exist. Older now, undoubtedly, and completely unaware that his face sits on my counter.

Marcus will find him. And when he does, I'll have a name, somewhere to start to piece together the pivotal event that changed the course of my life.

My phone screen lights up on the counter. I glance at it, thinking it could be a message. But it isn't. It's just the motion sensor registering my proximity. The screen glows white and then dims again.

I pick it up anyway. Quinn's thread sits at the top. Her last message stares back at me.

sorry—can't tonight

I lock the screen and set the phone down beside the photographs.

I let the screen go dark again. One of the questions on this counter can be solved with money and patience. The other would require me to ask for something.