Chapter 16 Keller
SIXTEEN
Keller
The Role of the Captain: The captain serves as the chief executive of a krewe, overseeing membership decisions, parade themes, float design, and the execution of the annual ball.
Often operating with broad discretion, the captain’s authority shapes both the public spectacle and the private culture of the organization.
I'm pulling off my jacket when Marcus pulls the hotel records up on the center monitor. I'm suddenly hot under the collar knowing he is about to show me where he connected the dots and the man in the middle of the shit storm that led to my mother's death might have a name.
The room smells faintly of burnt coffee and warm electronics, the hum of processors filling the space between us.
“What you asked for wasn’t simple,” he says without looking away from the screen. “The Asbury doesn’t make backend access easy. I had to pull the logs in controlled batches so it wouldn’t trigger a security audit.”
“I figured it wouldn't be easy. That's why I called you. What did you get?” I ask.
He zooms in on a date range. “Guest registry for that week. I narrowed it down to male guests between thirty-five and forty-five at the time. That’s the age band your photo suggests.”
I lean in slightly. A column of names scrolls past. Some familiar, most not. Check-in dates. Check-out times. Payment types. Besides a bunch of information that doesn't mean much to me to look at, but I stare anyway.
Marcus continues, “Then I filtered for solo reservations, multi-night stays, and anyone with ties to New Orleans.”
He clicks again and isolates one name.
“I cross-referenced alumni databases based on the crest on the signet ring you showed me,” he says. “It isn’t a family seal. It belongs to Hawthorne Academy.”
"Hawthorne Academy?"
"It's an elite boys boarding school in North Georgia.
"So you think since he's wearing that ring, then he went there?"
"Bingo. That ring isn't just a ring. It's a badge of honor. Most of the men who went there wear that until it's pried off of their cold, dead fingers. He definitely went there, which significantly reduces the names we have to choose from."
"Damn. You're good."
He smiles at me, and looks back at the screen. "I know."
"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?”
“Minimal,” Marcus says.
I hold his gaze, considering doing that myself. I want to put my own eyes on him. I want to see if he was cheating on his wife like my mom was on my dad.
“We don’t know who he is to you,” Marcus adds more quietly. “Or how he might react if he feels cornered.”
He’s thinking physical threat. I’m not.
“I’ll handle it,” I say.
Marcus studies me for a moment. “You want to go to Savannah yourself?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t even know what you’re walking into. While it all lines up on paper, it might not even be your guy.”
I give him a faint smile that doesn’t reach anything deeper. “I’ve walked into worse.”
That part is true. What I don’t say is that this isn’t about danger. Not the kind he’s imagining.
If this man confirms what I’ve believed for seventeen years, I lose whatever fragile version of her I’ve managed to keep intact. I'll have to quit denying that my mother was a cheater and she crushed my father, as hard as he was, twice. The moment he found out and the moment she died.
“I don’t want a third party misreading him,” I say instead. “I need to see him myself.”
Marcus nods once, accepting that tone. “Then at least let me run a deeper background first. Property filings, client history, litigation records. Make sure there aren’t surprises.”
“Do it, then. But I've made up my mind. No matter what you come back with, I'm going to Savannah to see Charlton Grant myself,” I say.
“I'll see what I can find. When?”
"I don't know. But soon."
I check my watch again. Six eighteen.
“I have to go, Marcus.” I tell him before taking a deep breath. "I really appreciate this."
He swivels back toward the monitors. “I’ll call if anything flags.”
I head for the door, the glow of the screens fading behind me. In the hallway, the fluorescent light feels sterile after the blue cast of his office.
Savannah. Preservation architect. Three nights at The Asbury.
It would make sense, I think. She would have met someone like that through the thing she loved most. That thought is a punch in the gut, leaving behind a knot.
By the time I reach the parking garage, I’ve already calculated the flight time. I'll tell Ridge I need the jet to vet someone for the tables. He won't think twice. I can get in and out of there in a day.
First, dinner. Then, the rest of it. I call the restaurant and order two of what Quinn sent me. I don't have time to look at a menu. If she loves it, it will work for me.
My phone buzzes in my hand just as I reach my car. Quinn's name pops up, so I click through to see her text.
Running a few minutes behind. Just got out of the shower. Door's unlocked.
My mind goes to a place it shouldn't be, imagining her just getting out of the shower. I push it away and type back quickly.
No problem. On my way to pick up the food, and then I'll be there.
I turn onto the highway and head toward Elephant Thai. I don't turn on the radio, driving in silence, with the window down.
The restaurant sits behind a laundromat, half-hidden by a flickering fluorescent sign and a row of humming dryers visible through the front windows. The smell of detergent hits first, then basil and fish sauce and something caramelizing in a wok.
I leave the engine running and step inside.
Through a curtain of wooden beads is a narrow dining room with four tables and a counter that doubles as a host stand. A woman with silver threaded through her dark hair looks up at me over a pair of reading glasses.
“For pickup?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Name?”
“Keller.”
She turns to a tablet propped beside the register and scrolls once. “Pad Thai, green curry, extra rice. One spring roll. No peanuts on the Pad Thai.” She looks up. “Two of the same. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Sixty-two fifty.”
I hand her my card. While she runs it, she studies me in that unapologetic way older women sometimes do when they don't feel the need to fill the space. I appreciate it.
“You new,” she says matter-of-factly, not a question.
“Yes, first time. You guys come highly recommended.”
She nods like that confirms something. “You order careful.”
“Careful?”
She gestures toward the screen. “No peanuts. Some people forget. Then woman get sick. Then I hear about it.”
I don’t correct her assumption.
“She allergic?” she asks.
“No. She just doesn't like peanuts.”
“Good you remember.” She hands the receipt back to me for a signature. “Men forget small things.”
I sign. “Noted.”
She disappears through the beads and returns with two neatly stapled brown bags. She sets it on the counter but keeps her hand on it a second longer than necessary.
“First time you come in,” she says. “I like to see customer. Don't send driver.”
I nod awkwardly, not exactly sure what to say to that. I do usually send an Uber Eats driver, but no need to burst her bubble.
“I was nearby.”
She tilts her head slightly, unconvinced. “Bring food yourself, better. Show face.”
I take the bag from her. It’s warm through the paper.
“You cook for her next time,” she adds. “Then she know you serious.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She gives a short, satisfied nod, like she’s just issued instruction rather than advice.
“Drive safe,” she says, already turning back to the tablet. “Food good when hot.”
I step back through the beads into the sharp scent of detergent and night air.
In the car, the bag rests on the passenger seat. I didn't think I would be able to eat after that intense meeting with Marcus, but the smell is making my mouth water.
The windows are down. Humid air moves through the car as I merge onto St. Charles. Oak branches reach overhead and block the last of the evening light in patches.
Marcus's voice replays in my head. I grip the steering wheel with one hand. The other rests near the console. My thumb taps against the leather without rhythm.
He emailed me a spreadsheet I want to study more closely at some point. If I hadn't made plans, I'd be buried in it now.
Red is his hotel stays. Blue is documented travel dates for your father.
I think about the photos Cain found. My mother's face, the way her eyes looked at Charlton Grant. Neither of them were posed or formal in any of them. They couldn't have been more comfortable with each other if they'd tried.
Warm.
How far do I want to push this? Far enough to know without needing to make up a narrative. I'm old enough now to be able to process the truth.
I will likely still never tell any of my brothers, but something about it, about finding the photos, the receipt, the hotel key, feels like a sign. It's time to know what was going on before my mother's death.
I already can't let myself close to anyone. I already don't believe in love. Because it has shaped who I am so definitively, knowing the truth of it won't hurt me anymore. Nothing could hurt me more than what I heard that night, and the news I woke up to the next morning.