Page 66 of Keller

"The suspense is killing me. So you narrowed it down? Did you find a name on the hotel registry that is also on the list of students from Hawthorne Academy?"

"Charlton Grant."

"Charlton Grant," I repeat, as if I'm testing the name on my tongue. All this time he didn't have a name. He was the man that tore my family apart.

"He graduated from there in the mid nineties," Marcus continues. "That lines up with my assumption of the man in the photo being in his late thirties at the time it was taken. Add seventeen years and he’s forty-seven now. Just like Charlton Grant.”

The numbers align too neatly to ignore.

"You're sure?"

“This is the only name that checks every box,” he says. “Age range, hotel stay that week, and the school registry match.”

I study the screen. The name sits there in plain text, almost offensively ordinary. No aliases. No shell entities. He paid personally. Three-night stay.

“Do you know what he does? For a living, I mean,” I ask.

Marcus pulls up another window. “He's a Savannah-based preservation architect. He specializes in historic residential restoration and structural rehabilitation. According to what I could find, he only works for private clients and entities. He doesn't market at all. Most of his work is referral-based.”

Preservation. Of course.

I straighten slowly. My mother loved historic structures the way some people love animals. She saw stories in walls. She believed you could give a building a second life if you respected its bones.

She fell in love with someone she worked with.

“I can see his family has a connection with Argentum, and I know your family does, too. I don't see him listed as a Krewe member, but there is a strong line between the two.” Marcus says, not speculating, just observing, showing one more possible connections between my mother and fucking Charlton Grant.

What a fucking pretentious name.

“Maybe.”

Marcus clicks through. Savannah appears on the screen next, showing a current address, property ownership records and professional licensing registry.

“He’s still practicing,” Marcus continues. “He owns a small firm with an uncharacteristically low digital footprint beyond that. Hard to do that in this day and age and still have a successful business."

"Anything else about him besides his name, where he lives and what he does?"

"Not much. No scandal or obvious financial irregularities. He is essentially a ghost.”

“Do you think you can find out more? Like, is he married, does he have kids, where he goes on fucking vacation?”

I can hear my own voice getting louder as my agitation grows. My head is pounding suddenly, so I crack my neck from side-to-side, trying to calm myself. Marcus is the messenger.

“It's all I've got for now, but I have some ideas on how to gather more intel.”

I look at the date again on the screenshot of the receipt on one of his screens.

"What kind of ideas?"

Marcus leans back slightly. “I can put someone in Savannah. Quietly. I know you don't want anyone to know we are digging, but I have some discreet investigators I can use to put a tail on him for a few days. That way we can see more of the stuff that isn't coming up online and confirm it’s the same guy from the photos.”

I glance at my watch. Six twelve. I told Quinn I’d bring dinner at seven.

“What would that look like?” I ask.

“Local PI, nothing flashy. We can see who he’s meeting, what his routines are.”

“And risk?”