Miles looked at the screen and saw the call had ended.He tried calling back immediately.It rang four times and then it went straight to voicemail.
“No, no, no,” he whispered, trying the number again as he drove.“Please pick up.Please.”
Nothing.Elena's phone was off or dead, and Miles was still fifteen minutes from home even driving like a maniac.He pressed harder on the accelerator, running another red light and narrowly missing a delivery truck.
His mind kept replaying Elena's voice getting weaker and more distant.The sound of her falling.Her final “I love you” that now sounded like goodbye.He couldn't lose her.Not like this.Not because some psychopath had decided to target him through the person he loved most.How the hell was she part of this?How had this case reached into his life and punched him squarely in the heart?
Miles turned onto his street going fifty miles per hour in a residential zone.He slammed on the brakes in front of his house and jumped out of the car without bothering to turn off the engine or close the door.He ran up the front steps, fumbling with his house keys and nearly falling down twice.
The smell hit him as soon as he opened the front door.
Sweet and wrong, just like Elena had described.Chemical and unnatural.Miles recognized it immediately from the other crime scenes, but experiencing it in his own home was like a physical blow to his chest.
“Elena!”he screamed.
He then made a decision that he knew was absolutely reckless but in that moment, with Elena’s life on the line, it wasn’t hard to make—not even close.
He took in a deep breath and rushed into the house.
She was lying just inside the front door, as if she'd been trying to exit when she collapsed.Her laptop was on the floor nearby, still open, papers scattered around it.Elena lay on her side, her long black hair spread across the hardwood floor, her face pale and still.Her eyes were open, unblinking.
Miles dropped to his knees beside her and gathered her into his arms.Her body was limp and lifeless.No breath spilled from her lips, and there was no pulse when he pressed his fingers to her neck.Her dark eyes stared at nothing.
“No, no, no,” Miles sobbed, holding her against his chest.“Elena, please.Please wake up.”
But she was gone.The fluorine killer had reached into Miles's personal life and murdered the woman he was supposed to marry in five months.Had taken her away while Miles was sitting in an FBI break room, completely unaware that his world was being destroyed.The killer had made this personal in the most devastating way possible.
Miles held Elena's body and screamed until his throat was raw.And then, realizing he had expelled all the air he had saved up, inhaling in that one large breath, he knew he had to leave her.If he stayed in her with her, he'd be just as dead as she was within just a handful of seconds.He ran outside and collapsed into the yard.He sucked in huge lungfuls of fresh air and, with shaking hands, he pulled out his phone and called Vic.
She answered on the first ring.
“Miles?Where did you go?Hayes is looking for you.Someone saw you rushing through the—”
“Vic,” Miles choked out between sobs.“He killed her.He killed Elena…”
“What?Miles, where are you?”
“I'm at home.Elena called me and said she smelled something chemical.I tried to get her to leave but she collapsed and...”Miles couldn't finish the sentence.
He thought he heard a gasp, as Vic also understood just how impossible this sounded.Then, after a single beat, she said: “I'm sending a hazmat team and ambulance to your location right now.Miles, you need to get out of that house immediately.”
“I am.I’m outside.”Just admitting it made him feel like a coward—like he’d left her behind.
His saw that his neighbors were starting to emerge from their houses, drawn by the sound of his screaming and the sight of his car abandoned in the street with the engine still running, the door ajar.
“Vic… come quick please…”
“Already on the way.You stay put.”
He dropped his phone and started to cry.He screamed and he wept and the world seemed to quake around him.A neighbor came over and all Miles could do was tell them not to go into his house.And even through that, he screamed and cried.
And he continued to do so until the sound of fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars filled his street.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Forty minutes had passed since Miles first entered his house and found Elena's body.The street remained crowded with emergency vehicles, their red and blue lights painting the neighborhood in alternating colors.Fire trucks blocked both ends of the block while hazmat teams finished their work inside the house.The chemical smell had mostly dissipated, but technicians were still taking air quality readings to ensure the area was safe.
Miles sat on the tailgate of an ambulance, staring at his front door.EMTs had tried everything they could for Elena, but it was too late.She had been dead for at least ten minutes before he arrived home.The fluorine gas had done its work quickly and thoroughly, just like with the other victims.
