CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Miles sat on the edge of the hotel bed, staring at the wall without really seeing it.
The image of James Clancy ascending into the Los Angeles sky played on repeat in his thoughts.
The way the balloons had surged upward with such violent force.
The way Clancy had looked down at him with that expression of relief.
The final words thanking Miles for helping him do what he could not do alone.
Sixteen hours had passed since then.
In that time, several things had happened—bits of news that had come to him as his body had finally started to demand rest. First of all, Vic had been cleared to leave the hospital, but her doctors had advised against flying back to DC for at least three more days.
The concussion was healing well but air travel could complicate things.
She had taken a room down the same hall he was on, with Kim sharing Vic’s adjoining room.
Vic was insisting she was fine despite the nasty bruising that still colored her forehead.
Miles had booked the hotel rooms immediately after returning from the parking lot where Clancy had launched.
He had barely made it to his room before exhaustion overtook him.
Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep had followed; it was the deepest rest he had gotten in weeks.
He woke feeling refreshed in a physical sense, though the mental weight of the case still pressed down on him.
He felt like he had failed. In the end, it wasn’t his investigative prowess that had won the day…
it was the determination of Lisa Anderson and the incompetence of James Clancy.
The Coast Guard had located Clancy and the balloons within an hour of the launch.
Their tracking systems had picked up the cluster of helium-filled spheres rising through controlled airspace, drifting out toward the sea.
But by the time they scrambled a helicopter, there was nothing they could do.
Clancy was already too high, ascending through altitudes where rescue was impossible.
Five hours after launch, while Miles and the team were finally getting some rest at the hotel, the balloons had reached approximately one hundred thousand feet.
At that altitude, the atmospheric pressure was so low that the balloons could no longer maintain their integrity.
They burst one after another in rapid succession.
Clancy's body had plummeted into the Pacific Ocean miles offshore.
The Coast Guard had immediately initiated search and recovery operations, deploying boats and aircraft to comb the area where they calculated he would have landed.
Despite extensive efforts over the following days, Clancy's body had not been found.
The search was still ongoing but the chances of recovery diminished with each passing hour.
Detective Morales had called Miles five minutes ago with the latest update.
Her voice had been weary, drained from coordinating the multi-agency response.
She’d said the Coast Guard would continue searching for another forty-eight hours before officially suspending operations… but she hadn’t seemed very optimistic.
Miles stood and walked to the window. The Los Angeles skyline was visible in the distance, the buildings catching the early morning light.
It was just after six in the morning and the city was beginning to wake up.
Here and now, before the traffic and the noise of the day truly kicked in, it was quite beautiful.
This case felt different from the previous ones.
Clancy had technically gotten away, escaping in the most final way possible.
He had chosen death over capture, had turned his own methodology against himself in a twisted act of devotion.
There would be no interrogation, no trial, no answers about how many other disciples might be operating or what Kane had told him in their communications.
A knock at the door pulled Miles from his thoughts. He crossed the room and opened it to find Sarah Kim standing in the hallway. She wore jeans and a light sweater, looking tired but alert.
"Hey," she said. "Just wanted to check in to see how you're doing."
"I’m good. Come on in." Miles stepped aside and Kim entered the room. She glanced around at the generic hotel furnishings before settling into the chair by the small desk.
"I keep thinking about yesterday," Kim said. "About Clancy going up like that. It's hard to process. This case…I mean, the ruined state of the first two victims and then the way Clancy decided to go out. God…Miles, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready for this sort of thing.
I think maybe I belong always behind a computer, at a desk. "
“Nonsense. You have a nose for investigation. And you’re an awesome lock-picker.”
She smiled and then, after some thought, asked: "Do you think it will affect the other disciples? Knowing one of them chose that kind of end after their leader was captured and put away?"
"I don't know. My fear is that it will inspire them somehow...that they’ll see Clancy as a sort of martyr. And they’ll want to prove their devotion or whatever twisted logic they're following.
" Miles rubbed his face with both hands.
"Or maybe it won't matter at all. Each one operates independently.
What Clancy did might not even register with the others. "
Kim was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried a softness that had not been there before. "You did everything you could. You got there as fast as possible. You tried to stop him."
"I know."
"But you don't feel like that's enough."
Miles looked at her and saw genuine concern in her expression.
There was a caring quality to her tone, an understanding that went beyond professional courtesy.
For a moment, he felt the weight of the past five months without Elena settle over him like a physical thing.
The loneliness that came with sleeping alone, waking alone, existing in a space that felt empty no matter how many people surrounded him during the day.
He wondered what it would be like to ask Kim to stay. Not for anything romantic or sexual, but just to have someone there. To have another person in the room, another presence to push back against the isolation. To maybe even hold someone and be held in return, even if just for comfort.
But the thought passed through him and faded, leaving behind only the familiar emptiness.
"It's six in the morning," Miles said instead. "We should probably get some breakfast. All of us. Vic included if she's feeling up to it."
"That sounds nice." Kim stood and moved toward the door, apparently taking the hint. "Just let me know where and I'll meet you there."
"Will do."
She left and Miles heard her footsteps recede down the hallway.
He returned to the window and thought about watching Clancy's final flight into the sky.
It started to send his thoughts in the direction of being there in the oxygen chamber during the Seattle case, trapped and running out of air while Mario Stevens died beside him.
The two experiences felt connected somehow, linked by the terrible intimacy of watching someone suffocate while being unable to help.
How many more disciples could he face before these cases broke him completely? How many more deaths could he witness, how many more failures could he carry, before the weight became too much to bear?
Miles didn’t have an answer. He only knew that there were more disciples out there, more people following Gabriel Kane's twisted philosophy. And as long as they continued their work, he would continue hunting them.
Even if it cost him everything he had left.