Chapter 41 The Body
Chapter 41 The Body
The call came three days later.
Liam answered it, his phone pressed to his ear, his face going pale as he listened. When he hung up, he looked at Adrian, and Adrian knew something was wrong.
"It's Elena," Liam said. "They found her. In a motel outside Baltimore. She's dead."
The words hung in the air, heavy and cold. Adrian felt something inside him crack, something that had been holding together since they'd walked out of the crater.
"Are you sure?" Ezra asked. His voice was small, young.
"She left a note. Addressed to Adrian." Liam pulled out his phone, showed him a photograph of a piece of paper, the handwriting familiar, the words short and final.
I'm sorry. I couldn't stop running. Tell the others it wasn't their fault. Tell Adrian the keys were never the answer. He was.
Adrian stared at the words, at the handwriting he'd come to know, at the signature at the bottom that was just a single letter: E.
"She's gone," he said.
Damien put a hand on his shoulder. "We need to see the body. Make sure it's her."
They drove to Baltimore in silence, the rain falling, the wipers scraping across the windshield. The motel was on the outskirts of the city, a place that rented by the hour, that didn't ask questions, that had seen too much and forgotten most of it.
The police were there, two of them, standing by a car that wasn't theirs. They let Adrian through without asking for ID, without asking anything. They knew who he was. They'd been waiting for him.
Elena was lying on the bed, her hands folded on her chest, her eyes closed. She looked peaceful, younger than she had in life, the lines of worry and fear smoothed away. There was a bottle on the nightstand, empty now, and a glass that had fallen to the floor.
Adrian stood beside the bed, looking at her face, at the face he'd known for only a few weeks but felt like he'd known forever.
"She did this," Ezra said from the doorway. "She chose this."
"She was tired," Liam said quietly. "Forty-seven years is a long time to run."
Damien didn't say anything. He stood in the corner, his arms crossed, his face unreadable. But Adrian saw the way his jaw tightened, the way his hands clenched at his sides.
Adrian reached out, touched Elena's hand. It was cold, colder than he'd expected, the skin already losing the warmth of life.
He thought about the key she'd given him, the one that closed, the one that sealed. He thought about the words she'd written: The keys were never the answer. He was.
He didn't know what that meant. He didn't know if he'd ever know.
He bent down, kissed her forehead, and walked out of the room.