Miles thought about the manifesto found with Elena's body.The careful description of molecular corruption.The precise application of fluorine gas.It hadn't been the work of a single madman, but part of a larger curriculum of murder.
“Where is he?”Miles demanded.“Where do we find The Elementalist?”
Crawford's eyes were starting to close.“He finds us.When we're ready to serve, when we've proven our understanding of chemical truth, he reaches out.I never met him in person.Never spoke to him directly.But his teachings, his vision...it changed everything I thought I knew about the world.”
Distant sirens were becoming audible now, growing stronger as backup units approached Crawford's property.Red and blue lights began flickering through the front windows, casting shifting patterns across the living room walls.
“How does he communicate with his disciples?”This was Vic’s voice, coming from beside Miles.He hadn’t even realized she’d gotten off the phone.
“Encrypted channels.Secure networks.Anonymous file sharing.”Crawford's speech was becoming slurred.“But it doesn't matter.You can't stop an idea whose time has come.And you willneverfind him.”
Miles turned and started walking for the door.The full weight of what they'd discovered was hitting him all at once.Elena's death had destroyed him.Her death wasn't just a personal tragedy.It was part of something vast and coordinated.Somewhere out there, other killers were preparing other murders using other elements.The scope of it was overwhelming.
“Miles?”Vic's voice seemed to come from far away.“You okay?”
He wasn't okay.Nothing would ever be okay again.Elena was dead because some faceless figure had decided she represented molecular corruption.And her death was just one note in a symphony of elemental murder that spanned the entire periodic table.She was just one of many—perhapshundredsand right now, they had no way of finding the mastermind.
The sirens were loud now, pulling into the driveway outside.Car doors slamming.Voices calling instructions.The cavalry had arrived, but Miles wasn’t even sure it would matter.
He made it out to the front porch, standing in the morning sunlight, before his knees buckled.The adrenaline and rage that had carried him through the fight in the basement was gone, replaced by bone-deep exhaustion and the crushing weight of grief.Elena's face flashed through his thoughts.Her laugh.Her smile.The way she'd looked the last time he'd seen her alive.
She was gone because of this madness.This twisted philosophy that viewed human life as molecular corruption to be cleansed.Because of the man behind all of that damned research in his home office.Research Elena had tolerated and even, at times, encouraged.
Miles reached for the porch railing to steady himself, but his legs gave out completely.As he fell, he could hear engines shutting off outside.Heavy boots on gravel.Voices coordinating the response to their call for backup.
But the sounds grew distant and muffled as darkness closed in around him.The last thing Miles heard before losing consciousness was Crawford's voice droning on about the Elementalist’s great work, weak but still filled with reverence.
Then silence.
Miles collapsed onto Crawford's porch as the first FBI agents burst through the front door, their weapons drawn and tactical lights cutting through the morning.But for Miles, his body and his mind were finally demanding rest.His last conscious thought was of Elena, and how her death had confirmed his worst fears about the scope of elemental murder spreading across the country.
Despite the many deaths and the devastation left behind, they were still at the very start of this nightmare.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Miles woke to sunlight streaming through curtains Elena had picked out six months ago.The digital clock beside the bed read 10:47 AM.He'd slept for nearly eleven hours, the first real sleep he'd gotten in nearly five days.He knew he needed more, but for now he couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping his day away.
Six days had passed since Elena had been taken from him.The house felt wrong without Elena.Too quiet.Too empty.Her coffee mug still sat in the sink where she'd left it that last morning.Her book lay open on the nightstand, a bookmark saving her place in a story she'd never finish.
Miles rolled over and buried his face in her pillow.It still smelled of her shampoo.
Two days ago, they'd lowered Elena's casket into the ground at Arlington Cemetery.Miles remembered fragments of the service: the priest's words about eternal rest, Elena's sister sobbing into her husband's shoulder.He recalled his mother standing beside him, her hands on his back as he stared at the polished wooded casket that contained everything he'd loved most in the world.
He hadn't cried during the funeral, and he hadn't spoken to anyone afterward.He had just stood there, feeling hollow while people offered condolences he couldn't process.
Now, alone in their bedroom, the tears came.Miles pulled Elena's pillow against his chest and let himself break down completely.Great heaving sobs that shook his entire body.All the grief he'd held back during the investigation, during the arrest, during the funeral, poured out in broken gasps.
She was really gone.Elena, who'd made him laugh when he took himself too seriously.Who'd supported his work even when it consumed their evenings and weekends.Who'd been planning their wedding with excited phone calls to caterers and florists just days before Crawford murdered her.But the worst part was knowingwhyshe'd died.Not random violence or tragic accident, but calculated murder by someone who'd decided her pharmaceutical research made her molecularly corrupt.Elena had spent her career trying to help people with Alzheimer's disease, and it had gotten her killed by a madman following the twisted teachings of someone called The Elementalist.
Miles's phone buzzed on the nightstand.Groggily, he sat up and reached for it.It was a text from Vic: How are you holding up?Call me if you need anything.
She'd been checking on him constantly since Crawford’s arrest.Yesterday she'd even brought Chinese takeout, joking that he needed real food and she was a wretched cook anyway.They'd eaten in silence, both lost in their own thoughts about the case and what it meant.She’d said very little, and that was fine with Miles.
He set the phone aside without responding.He appreciated Vic's concern, but he wasn't ready to talk yet.Hell, he wasn’t sure he was even ready to function.
He shuffled to the kitchen and made coffee with Elena's machine.French roast, the way she'd taught him to like it.As he waited for it to brew, his eyes fell on the refrigerator covered with wedding planning notes in Elena's neat handwriting.Venue confirmations.Menu tastings.A list of invitees that they'd never get to mail.For just a heartbeat, he thought of tearing it all off with one anguished swipe of his arm.
The coffee finished brewing.Miles poured a cup and sat at the kitchen table where Elena had died.
