Chaos

Chaos
Patricia Cornwell

No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-fourth engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.Someone is following you…One summer evening in New England, two young girls stumble upon a body. Forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta arrives at the scene to find a young woman has been attacked with almost superhuman force.Someone is taunting you…Meanwhile, people close to Scarpetta start receiving suspicious calls. Could they be linked to Scarpetta’s anonymous cyber stalker, Tailend Charlie?Someone wants to destroy you…A second death shocks Scarpetta to her core. Because analysis of the body shows a material that doesn’t exist on earth. And it’s clear that someone, or something, is coming for her, and is hell-bent on creating chaos…

Copyright (#uae2f268a-757e-5538-a906-04752c87c64c)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

First published in the United States by William Morrow,

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016

Copyright © Cornwell Entertainment, Inc. 2016

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photograph © Elly De Vries / Arcangel (http://www.arcangel.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=Homepage)

Patricia Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008150655

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008150648

Version: 2018-09-24

Dedication (#uae2f268a-757e-5538-a906-04752c87c64c)

To Staci

—In Memory of Tram—

Epigraph (#uae2f268a-757e-5538-a906-04752c87c64c)

THERE IS LOVE IN ME THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU’VE NEVER SEEN. THERE IS RAGE IN ME THE LIKES OF WHICH SHOULD NEVER ESCAPE.

—Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Table of Contents

Cover (#u0723d9d5-5e08-58fa-9cbb-df6f26e7372a)

Title Page (#uaf962008-cc4d-51fe-89da-b464726a2e5f)

Copyright (#u65f9fbf8-4818-54e4-9904-6ec23e043f75)

Dedication (#u1002a3c7-aea6-5d3b-ac21-850182462636)

Epigraph (#uf43a7722-00bb-5f95-89e9-85195bdcc6d1)

Prologue (#u834e8f15-4f07-545b-b318-7068d909c129)

Chapter 1 (#u83e10d65-3b89-551e-93df-6e2b6c38e58e)

Chapter 2 (#ud498258f-6fba-5d2a-90f9-18326631365a)

Chapter 3 (#ufa1b3d8f-8e31-5498-a525-c05a08c79c61)

Chapter 4 (#u43089315-a92a-5c88-9844-d0a4aa64bdcb)

Chapter 5 (#ucb28ccc0-cf9a-5edf-b142-8ff87c734a3a)

Chapter 6 (#u3915ba02-3000-5efd-ae23-d9f26f8e6099)

Chapter 7 (#ud17d255d-e5d5-52ea-a6d6-a495f62eace3)

Chapter 8 (#u9943079b-41e8-56b5-99b1-2f6067eff640)

Chapter 9 (#ub83f0d1f-79ee-5387-af6e-643d1da73cd2)

Chapter 10 (#u334ec4ff-c628-5bec-97a0-8d566bfefa21)

Chapter 11 (#ua9c9600d-0b24-59cb-b2e1-cde4ae9bf3e1)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)