Excerpt from PREDATORY INSTINCT
For Paul...the ultimate publisher/collector
Special Thanks to Paul Goblirsch, Jeff Strand, Gene O'Neill, Leigh Haig, Bill Rasmussen, Brian Keene, my family, and all of my loyal readers, without whom none of this would be possible.
THE CALM BEFORE THE SWARM
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CHAPTER ONE
I
Dr. Lauren Allen pulled up to the barricade in a wash of red and blue lights and rolled down the window of her Sahara Silver Audi A5. A uniformed officer accepted her proffered badge jacket without a word and compared her identification against the list on his clipboard. His upper lip glistened with a liberal application of Vick's VapoRub. She could smell it even over the divine scent of the Mongolian beef in the Styrofoam container on the seat beside her. The call had come in during dinner, forcing her box up more than half of her meal. Had she known what the night would bring, she would have gone for the shrimp with lobster sauce. The onions and peppers were murder on her digestive system.
'Thank you, Dr. Allen.' The officer passed back her credentials. 'Pull into the lot to the left and follow the first row to the end. You'll be able to see where to go from there.'
Lauren nodded and rolled up her window. The officer passed through her headlights and dragged aside the barricade long enough for her to pull through. She turned into the dirt lot as she'd been instructed and followed the uneven rows of older model cars, dirty pickup trucks, and a smattering of tractors toward the logjam to the east. Half a dozen vans were parked at the edge of the lot and in the weeds beside a path that led down into a copse of sycamores. The large Ford Econolines were stenciled with the names of their official offices, lest the drivers forget which one was theirs. Fulton County Coroner. The Evidence Collection Team from the Atlanta Police Department. Fulton County Sheriff's Department. The two unmarked vans were designed to be inconspicuous, but instead only drew attention to themselves. At least she now knew that the FBI had commandeered the investigation, which meant that, with any luck, she'd be home by breakfast.
She parked behind one of the ECT vans, confident that they wouldn't be leaving anytime soon, and walked around to her trunk, which she popped with the tap of a button on her keychain. Her positive-pressure personnel suit was folded neatly next to her oversize briefcase. She slipped the baggy gear over her smart skirt suit, sealed the plastic shield over her face and shoulder length blonde hair, and grabbed the plastic case. Perhaps her attire would prove to be overkill, but people tended to shy away from her and let her do her work in peace when she wore it, as though she were the one who was contagious.
The sodium halide glare from the east guided her through the sycamore grove. She intentionally walked in the grass beside the path so as not to disturb any potentially important footprints and strolled down the emerald knoll toward the source of the glow. She smelled the telltale stench of the early stages of decomposition and adjusted
