CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Any chance you can wait for me for about twenty minutes?” Miles asked the driver. “It would reflect in your tip.”
The driver, an older Hispanic man with a dark pair of shades covering his eyes, thought about it for just a moment before nodding. “Aye. Twenty minutes, but no longer.”
Miles got out of the car and walked up the front path to the porch.
The man on the porch looked to be in his mid-forties with salt and pepper hair cut short—pretty much an exact match to the photo Kim had shown them at the diner.
He wore moisture-wicking shorts and a technical running shirt that was soaked through with sweat.
He had one leg propped up on the railing and was leaning into the stretch.
"Terry Sullivan?" Miles asked as he approached.
The man straightened up and turned to face him. "That's me. Can I help you?"
Miles flashed his badge and ID. "I'm Special Agent Miles Sterling with the FBI. I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”
“Um…okay. But what’s this about?
“For starters, I’d like to know about your work with hot air balloons."
Sullivan's expression shifted from casual curiosity to something more guarded. "Sorry, but I’m still very confused.”
"There have been some recent deaths in the Los Angeles area that we're investigating,” Miles said as he stepped up onto the first of the porch steps. “Some very weird murders. I'd appreciate a few minutes of your time if you can spare it."
Sullivan studied Miles for a moment, then gestured to a pair of wicker chairs positioned near the front door. "I just got back from my run. I'm pretty sweaty, but if you don't mind talking out here, we can sit."
"That's fine."
They settled into the two old chairs. Years of sunlight had robbed them of most of their color.
The morning air was already warm, promising another hot Los Angeles day.
Miles could hear birds chirping in the trees that lined the street and the distant sound of traffic from the main road a few blocks away.
Sullivan grabbed a water bottle that had been sitting beside his chair and took a long drink. "So, what kind of deaths are we talking about?"
"Two people have been killed in the past week.
They worked jobs that had them encountering heights.
A skydiver and a window washer. A third attempt was made on a rock-climbing enthusiast who survived the attack.
So right now, we're looking into anyone in the area who works with aerial equipment or has expertise in sending people into the air. "
Sullivan set down his water bottle. The color had drained from his face but he seemed to understand. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense…but you think someone who works with balloons is actually killing people?"
"We're exploring all possibilities. Your name came up in our initial search of professionals in the field. Particularly when we started looking into trauma angles…accidents and things like that."
"Jesus." Sullivan leaned back in his chair. "That's awful. How were they killed?"
"They were sent into the air using weather balloons and helium. The victims were sedated, attached to harnesses, and released at altitude. When they woke up, they had no way to get down safely." He watched Sullivan’s face closely, looking for any tells or signs of fear.
Sullivan's hands gripped the armrests of his chair, his knuckles going white. "That's sick. That's absolutely sick."
"I know this is difficult, but I need to ask you some questions about your background and your current work."
"Why would I be a suspect?" Sullivan's voice had an edge to it now. "I only ever operated hot air balloon tours.”
Miles kept his tone neutral and professional. "I understand that. But we're aware of the accident you were involved in three years ago. The one where two passengers died when your balloon caught on fire and crashed."
Sullivan closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, they were wet. "That was the worst day of my life."
"Can you tell me what happened?"
Sullivan took another drink of water, his hand shaking slightly as he raised the bottle to his lips.
"We were coming in for a landing in a field outside Temecula.
Everything was fine until a sudden wind gust hit us from the side.
It was one of those freak accidents, really.
The gas…I still don't quite know what happened.
But before I knew it, the balloon had caught on fire.
The basket tipped a bit as the balloon tore.
We were going down very fast and two of the passengers freaked out…
not that I blame them. But they…they jumped right out.
Don't know what the hell they were thinking.
They hit the ground from about thirty feet up. "
"I'm sorry."
"The investigation cleared me of any wrongdoing.
It was ruled an accident caused by unpredictable weather conditions.
" Sullivan's voice was steady but Miles could hear the strain underneath.
"But that doesn't change the fact that two people died while they were in my care. A husband and wife. They were celebrating their anniversary...and it’s something I think of at least two or three times every day, even now. "
Miles watched Sullivan's body language as he spoke. The man was visibly distressed by the memory. His breathing had quickened and a muscle in his jaw twitched. His hands were still shaking, his fingers twitching and fidgety.
"How has that experience affected your work?" Miles asked.
"I still work on adventure tour stuff…balloons, even. But just maintenance and planning the excursions." Sullivan stared out at the street, not really seeing it. "I have nightmares about that day. About watching them fall. About hearing the impact when they hit the ground."
"That must be difficult to deal with."
"You have no idea." Sullivan turned to look at Miles directly. "Do you want to know the really messed up part? I can't go up in a balloon anymore. Not even ten feet off the ground. The moment the basket starts to lift, I have a full panic attack. Heart pounding, can't breathe, the whole thing."
Miles felt something shift in his understanding of Sullivan as a suspect. "Give me specifics about the sort of work you’re doing now.”
"I manage the ground crew. I prepare the equipment, I brief the passengers, I handle all the logistics.
But when it comes time to actually fly, someone else takes the controls.
" Sullivan's hands were shaking more noticeably now.
Just talking about it seemed to be triggering a physical response.
"My business partner does all the actual flights.
I stay on the ground and coordinate from there. "
Miles observed the tremor in Sullivan's hands again, the way his breathing had become shallow and rapid.
This was not the behavior of someone who could calmly sedate victims and send them floating into the sky.
This was someone genuinely traumatized by heights and the memory of people falling. Deep down, Miles could relate.
"Do you have an alibi for Sunday between six and midnight?" Miles asked, though he was already fairly certain Sullivan was not their killer.
"I was at my daughter's soccer game. It ran late because they went into overtime.
I didn't get home until almost eleven." Sullivan's breathing was starting to slow as he focused on the question.
"I can give you the names of about twenty other parents who saw me there. Her mom, too. We’re divorced, and she spends the weekdays there. "
“How about last night?”
“Last night, I’m embarrassed to say I was playing pickleball with some friends on the courts just down the street. Started at six and played until about 8:30. After that we grabbed a few beers at Otterman’s.”
“And how long were you there?” Miles asked.
“Until about nine or so. Hold on…” He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened up the Wallet app. He then found a receipt and showed it to Miles. “Sorry, it was closer to 9:30.”
“Do you mind giving me the names and numbers of the guys you were playing pickleball with?”
“Yeah, sure thing. Whatever you need.” He then recited three names and gave Miles their numbers. By the time he was inputting the last one, Miles was already pretty sure this was also a dead end…that Terry Sullivan was not their killer.
Then something occurred to Miles. Something that should have been obvious from the start but had been buried under his focus on the profile of someone working at heights. When Sullivan had mentioned the gas and the fire, it should have sealed the deal.
Hot air balloons did not use helium.
Miles felt a cold realization settle over him.
He had made another mistake in his reasoning, similar to the error with Dr. Linden in Seattle.
He had been so focused on finding someone who worked with aerial equipment and had trauma related to heights that he had overlooked a fundamental fact about the method of murder.
This killer was using helium specifically—that was their element of choice.
Weather balloons filled with helium gas, not hot air.
The choice of helium was not arbitrary. This was still an elemental murder, still connected to Gabriel Kane's philosophy about the periodic table, as they had suspected.
The killer had selected helium as his element, his tool of purification.
Hot air balloons operated on an entirely different principle.
They used propane burners to heat the air inside the envelope, creating lift through temperature differential rather than through lighter-than-air gas.
Sullivan's expertise was in thermal dynamics and atmospheric pressure, not in the properties and handling of helium.
The profile was wrong. Or at least, incomplete.
Miles looked at Sullivan, who was still visibly shaken just from discussing the accident and his fear of heights. The man's hands continued to tremble. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the relatively mild morning temperature.
"Mr. Sullivan, I appreciate your time and your honesty," Miles said, putting his phone away. "I don't think I need to take up any more of your morning."
Sullivan looked surprised. "That's it? You're done?"
"You're not the person we're looking for. I'm sorry to have brought up painful memories but as I said, I do appreciate your cooperation."
"No, I understand. You're just doing your job." Sullivan stood up, steadying himself with one hand on the armrest. "I hope you catch whoever is doing this. What you described, sending people up in the air like that and just leaving them there to fall…that's evil."
Miles stood as well. "I agree.”
Miles walked back to the Uber, noting that it had been only thirteen minutes rather than the twenty he’d asked for.
His thoughts were already shifting to what this new realization meant for the investigation.
The killer was not just someone who worked at heights or had trauma related to altitude.
The killer was someone who understood helium specifically—and though he and Vic had modestly suspected this from the start it was now blatant and in-your-face.
So now they knew that they were looking for someone who knew how to acquire it, how to handle it safely…and how to calculate the lift capacity needed to send a person into the air.
That narrowed the field considerably. Helium was a controlled substance in large quantities, tracked by suppliers and regulated for safety. People who worked regularly with compressed helium gas were a much smaller pool than the broader category of everyone who worked at heights.
He got into the car and pulled up his phone, typing a quick message to Vic about the interview and his realization about the helium angle before giving the driver a destination.
Miles thought about Terry Sullivan's panic attacks, about a man so traumatized by watching people fall that he could not even lift ten feet off the ground without his body revolting.
That kind of fear was not something someone could fake, not with the physical symptoms Miles had witnessed.
The killer they were looking for did not fear heights.
The killer sent victims into the sky and watched them drift away with cold calculation.
That required a different psychology entirely, one that Sullivan simply did not possess.
Miles needed to refocus the investigation on people who worked with helium specifically. Gas suppliers, industrial users, research facilities. Somewhere in that smaller pool of suspects was the person who had killed Amanda Parker and Michael Thompson and tried to kill Lisa Anderson.
He just had to find them before another victim went into the air.