CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
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 knowing why she'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.
Crawford's words echoed in his memory. Dozens of disciples all over the country. Each with their assigned element. The scope of it was staggering. Not just isolated killers, but a coordinated network of murder spanning the entire periodic table.
In San Francisco, Diana Hartwell had been gold.
Crawford, here in DC, was fluorine. But what about the others?
Not just the ones he had been looking into over the past three years, but all of those to come.
How many more would die while the FBI and several other federal agencies continued to scramble around for answers?
Now that his theory was very much being taken seriously, things at least had a clearer direction.
But that didn’t mean it would become easier.
Miles pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found Hayes's number. He punched it, but the call went straight to voicemail.
“Hayes, it's Sterling,” he said. “I know I'm supposed to be on leave, but we need to talk about Crawford's interrogation. About what he said regarding other disciples. This isn't over, and I think we all know it. Call me back.”
He hung up and immediately felt restless.
Sitting in this kitchen where Elena had died, surrounded by reminders of their lost future, was driving him slowly insane.
He walked through the house, trying to avoid looking at Elena's things but seeing them everywhere anyway.
Her yoga mat rolled up in the corner. Her medical journals stacked on the desk on her office.
The wedding dress hanging in the bedroom closet, still in its protective plastic.
His phone rang as he stared at it. He expected it to be Hayes, but it was Vic's name on the caller ID instead. He answered it, still staring at that damned dress.
“Yeah?”
“Hayes asked me to call you,” Vic's voice was gentle but professional. “He got your message and thought it would best if I reached out.”
“Why?”
“Miles, you need more time before jumping back in.”
“Time for what? To sit here and go crazy thinking about Elena? To let more people die while we pretend Crawford was working alone?”
“To grieve. To process what happened. To—”
“Crawford told us there are dozens of them, Vic. Active killers using different elements right now. While we're having this conversation, someone somewhere is planning their next purification.”
Vic was quiet for a moment. “I know. I've been thinking about it too. And that’s the direction this case is going to take now. Resources and teams are already being assembled. But Hayes wants you to take at least two weeks before—”
“Two weeks?” Miles felt anger building in his chest. “How many people will die in two weeks while I'm sitting here grieving?”
“Miles, you just lost your fiancée. And you nearly beat a man to death. A man you had no business dealing with in the first place. That’s really not sitting well with Hayes. You need time to—”
“I need to catch the bastards who killed her.” The words came out harder than he'd intended. “Elena's dead because of this Elementalist and his… his network. Every day we wait gives them more time to kill more innocent people.”
“And what happens if you burn out? If you push too hard and make mistakes that let them escape?” Vic's voice carried the weight of experience. “I've seen good agents destroy themselves trying to work cases that were too personal.”
Miles knew she was right. Knew that grief and rage could cloud judgment, lead to errors that compromised investigations. But sitting in this empty house, surrounded by reminders of Elena's murder, felt like abandoning her memory.
“She was going to be my wife,” he said quietly. “We had the wedding planned. Five months from now, she was going to walk down the aisle in that dress hanging in our closet.”
“I know.”
“Crawford and his Elementalist took that away. They decided Elena was molecularly corrupt and murdered her for it. And according to Crawford, they're doing the same thing to other people right now.”
“So what do you want to do? If you could come back to work tomorrow, what would you do?”
Miles walked to the window and looked out at their small backyard. Elena had planted flowers there last spring. Tulips and daffodils that would bloom again without her.
“I want to bring them all down. Every single disciple. Every follower of this Elementalist's teachings. I want to track them across the country and put them in prison or in the ground, I don't care which.”
“That's a big mission for one person, Miles.”
“Then help me.” Miles turned away from the window. “You know this case as well as I do now. You understand what we're dealing with.”
Vic was quiet for a long moment. "You'll see things a bit differently when you do come back. What I'm about to tell you is just between me and you… Do you understand?"
“Yes. What is it?”
“Hayes is all in on this Elementalist cult, or group, whatever. Like I said, there are teams being assembled all over the country to watch out for signs. And here, locally, it looks like you and I are going to be his leads.”
It was the last thing he’d expected, and he did, for just a moment, feel vindicated. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. But for that to work, you have got to be a team player. If he thinks you need to be on leave for a few weeks, then you shut up and take it. Things are going to be different when you come back.”
Miles felt something shift inside him. Purpose, maybe. Or just the need for revenge disguised as justice. “Fine.
“You know, Miles… if he puts us as the leads on this and it is as wide-reaching as we think it is, it could take years. It could consume your entire life.”
Miles thought about this. About the choice between moving on, finding some way to heal from Elena's death, or dedicating himself completely to hunting the man ultimately responsible for her death. There wasn't really a choice at all.
“Elena's gone,” he said. “Our future together is gone. The life we planned doesn't exist anymore. All I have left is making sure this doesn't happen to anyone else.”
“Okay,” Vic said simply. “Then we do this together. In two weeks.”
“Okay. Hey… thanks, Vic.”
“Of course. Now don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything.”
“Actually, I… yeah, there’s one thing. Could you swing by and pock up her wedding dress? It needs to be returned and I can’t… Jesus, I just can’t.”
“Of course, Miles. I’ll come by after my shift.”
After ending the call, Miles felt something he hadn't experienced since Elena's death. Not happiness, exactly, but determination. A sense of forward motion that replaced the crushing weight of grief.
He walked through the house one more time, looking at Elena's things with different eyes. Not reminders of loss, but motivation for what came next. Every photograph, every personal item, every trace of the life she'd lived became fuel for the mission ahead.
Miles climbed the stairs to his home office, to the room Elena had teased him about.
She’d often referred to it as his Cave of Obsession, and she wasn’t too far off.
The periodic table poster still hung on the wall, marked with colored pins and notes.
File cabinets contained his research on dozens of suspicious deaths, all element-related.
His computer held databases of chemical signatures and crime scene analyses.
For three years, this had been academic, a theory he was trying to prove. A pattern he'd suspected but couldn't confirm. But now it had not only been proven true, but it was also very personal.
Miles sat at his desk and pulled out the first file folder.
Detroit, 2021. Hydrogen cyanide poisoning that had been ruled as suicide, but showed signs of sophisticated delivery.
He'd studied these cases for years, looking for connections and patterns.
This had been the first. And now that Crawford had indeed confirmed that there was one man at the center of all of this, Miles wondered if there were different angles, different paths that might help them find the Elementalist.
If so, he was going to find it all. Every death, every disciple, every connection that led back to The Elementalist. And not just for Elena, but for every future victim who might be saved if he could expose the truth about the Elementalist and his cult.
Slowly, Miles lost himself in the documents and research. Greif would always be there, and mourning would take time. But for now, he had a hell of a lot of work to do.