PROLOGUE
Sarah Morrison arranged the pile of construction paper into neat stacks on her desk.The afternoon sun streamed through the tall windows of her kindergarten classroom, casting long rectangles of golden light across the floor and the desks.She’d just finished straightening up for the day; her class was typically well-behaved and left very little mess behind.Currently, the only untidy things remaining were several finger paintings hanging from clotheslines stretched between bulletin boards.The walls practically vibrated with color.
She loved this time of day.The children had gone home an hour and a half ago, their voices and laughter echoing down the hallway until the last school bus pulled away.Now the building settled into quiet.Sarah could work without interruption, and she settled peacefully into the post-school day quiet.It wasn’t too dissimilar to stepping outside after a severe thunderstorm and appreciating the moment fully.
The classroom felt like a small universe designed entirely for wonder.Reading corners filled with oversized pillows invited exploration.A science station displayed magnifying glasses and collections of smooth rocks the children had brought from home.The dramatic play area transformed daily according to the students' imagination.Yesterday it had been a restaurant.Today, it was a veterinary clinic complete with stuffed animals wrapped in gauze bandages.
Sarah picked up a stack of drawings from the art center.She smiled as she sorted through each one.Every drawing told a story.Every crooked line represented a child's attempt to capture their world on paper.Emma had drawn her family as stick figures with enormous smiles.Marcus had attempted a self-portrait, though his nose appeared to be growing from his forehead.Jessica's drawing showed what might have been a dog, or possibly a horse, standing next to a house that defied all laws of physics and perspective.
Tomorrow, she would hang them on the bulletin board, and each artist would beam with pride when they saw their work displayed.
The lesson plan for tomorrow sat open on her desk.The five senses unit was always a favorite.The children would taste different foods, smell various spices, listen to recordings of animal sounds, and explore texture bins filled with rice, sand, and cotton balls.She had spent the weekend shopping for supplies, filling small containers with vanilla extract, cinnamon, and lemon zest.
Sarah walked to the supply closet and pulled out the materials she had prepared.She then returned to her desk and began writing the day's schedule on the whiteboard.The marker squeaked softly against the smooth surface.Morning circle time would introduce the concept.Then they would rotate through five stations, one for each sense.The afternoon would end with a group discussion about their discoveries.
A sweet smell drifted through the classroom.Sarah paused, marker in hand, and sniffed the air.It was pleasant but unfamiliar.Not the usual scents of glue sticks and disinfectant that permeated the school building.This was different.Almost floral, but with an underlying sharpness that made her nose tingle.She checked to make sure she wasn't using the wrong marker, perhaps one of the special ones that radiated certain smells (purple was grape, orange smelled like oranges, and so on).But that wasn't it; she had her plain old, black dry-erase marker.
She glanced around the room, trying to identify the source.The windows were closed.The air conditioning hummed quietly in the background.Nothing seemed out of place.She wondered if the custodial staff was using a new cleaning product in the hallway.But even if so, the last of the custodians would have left for home about half an hour ago.
Sarah returned to the whiteboard and continued writing.The smell grew stronger.Sweet and cloying, like overripe fruit left too long in the sun.Her eyes began to water slightly.She blinked and wiped them with the back of her hand.
And then, as she returned her focus to tomorrow’s schedule, the marker slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.A wave of dizziness washed over her.The cheerful classroom seemed to tilt sideways.The children's artwork on the walls blurred into streaks of color.She gripped the edge of her desk for support, confused and suddenly afraid.
Something was wrong.Very wrong.
Sarah tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs felt tight and strange.The air itself seemed thick and difficult to draw in.Panic began to rise in her chest.She needed to call for help.Her phone sat on the desk just a few feet away, but the distance felt enormous.
She took a step toward the phone.Her legs wobbled like water.The sweet smell filled her nostrils completely now.It was everywhere, coating the inside of her mouth and throat.Her vision started to dim around the edges.She could barely breathe now, and she wondered if she was perhaps having some sort of allergic reaction to whatever that odd smell was.
Sarah's hand reached out desperately toward her phone.Her fingertips brushed the edge of the desk, but her coordination was failing.It might as well have been on the moon.Her breathing became shallow and rapid.Each breath felt like trying to drink through a straw that was slowly closing.
She stumbled forward, knocking over a container of crayons.They scattered across the floor in an explosion of color.Red, blue, yellow, green.The same colors the children used to draw their families, pets, and houses.The same colors that now seemed to dance and swirl in her failing vision.
The sweet smell intensified.It was inside her now, filling every cell of her body with its toxic presence.Her throat burned.Her chest felt like it was being crushed by an invisible weight.She gasped for air that wouldn't come.
Sarah's knees buckled.She fell among the tiny chairs and child-sized tables.Her face hit the carpet where just hours before, children had sat cross-legged listening to stories about brave mice and friendly dragons.Above her, the ceiling seemed to spin slowly.Paper butterflies and cardboard stars performed their endless dance while she lay gasping on the floor below.
Her vision narrowed to a tunnel.The edges of her sight went black, then gray, then disappeared entirely.The last thing she saw was Emma's drawing of her family, the purple-haired stick figures holding hands in a line across the bottom of the page.Their crayon smiles seemed to wave goodbye as darkness closed in.
Construction paper and crayons lay scattered where Sarah had dropped them.The whiteboard held her half-finished schedule for tomorrow's lesson on the five senses.
Sarah Morrison would never see another group of kindergarteners discover the world through taste and touch and smell.The five senses of her final lesson plan had betrayed her completely, delivering death disguised as something sweet and harmless.
CHAPTER ONE
Miles Sterling adjusted the microscope's focus and studied the hair sample mounted on the slide.The strand was dark brown, roughly six inches long, with a distinctive kink near the root that suggested it had been pulled out rather than cut.Under magnification, the cuticle showed the telltale damage patterns he'd learned to recognize over years of forensic analysis.
He was deeply zoned in on the sample as the lab hummed quietly around him.Centrifuges whirred in the background.Digital scales beeped as technicians weighed evidence samples.The familiar rhythm of scientific investigation filled the sterile white space of the FBI Laboratory Division at Quantico.It was methodical work.Precise.Predictable in ways that field investigations never were.Miles was comfortable here, although he had been feeling a bit restless as of late.
Nearly three weeks had passed since he and Agent Victoria “Vic” Stone returned from San Francisco.Three weeks since they'd arrested Diana Hartwell in that cramped museum storage room.Three weeks since Hartwell had tried to kill Mayor Callahan with molten gold while Miles tackled her to the ground.
He tried to push the memory away and focus on the hair sample and the case to which it was tied.The case belonged to the Baltimore field office.A domestic assault where the victim had fought back, leaving behind physical evidence that might identify her attacker.This was the kind of work Miles excelled at.Clean analysis.Objective results.No philosophical puzzles about periodic table murders or gold-obsessed killers.
Behind him, there was a knock on the door.It opened slowly and Dr.Patricia Hendricks walked in, carrying a stack of case files.She was the division's DNA specialist, a woman in her fifties who'd spent the last twenty years helping to build the bureau's genetic database.Her gray hair was pulled back in a neat bun.Despite eight hours of processing evidence, her lab coat was spotless.
“How's the hair analysis coming?”she asked, setting her files on the adjacent workstation.
“Getting there.”Miles made notes in his lab notebook.“Definitely consistent with forcible removal.The suspect's DNA profile should confirm identity once the comparison runs.”
