Matt nearly jumped out of his seat. “She was a trauma nurse?”

“Yes—does that mean anything?”

“The first victims in both Missoula and in Liberty Lake were trauma nurses. And get this—at least one of them worked at Spokane General. This has to be it, Detective. This is the connection. It goes back to Anne Banks when she was a nurse. Do you have anything else? Friends of hers from then? Anyone who is still in Spokane or knew her from the hospital?”

“One person—an Olivia Gunderson. She’s still a nurse at Spokane General—runs the neonatal unit—and had been Anne’s maid of honor. Mr. Banks said she visits the kids a couple times a year. I’ll email you her contact information.”

“Thank you, Gino. I’ll let you know what comes of this.”

Matt hung up. “Ryder,” he said, “finish working on the backgrounds, specifically the employment history for victim four, Sophia Kwan. See if she ever worked at Spokane General. Find out if any of the other victims have any connection to Spokane General, as a patient or a family member that was a patient or in any employment capacity, medical or not. Two victims are connected to the same employer—we have to dig deeper. Look at any connection between all seven victims and Spokane and the surrounding area. Did they work here, go to school here—we have a major university a stone’s throw away. Did our professor in Missoula start here at Gonzaga? Call Tony and tell him we may need a warrant for any lawsuits that Banks was party to—I know hospitals and nurses and doctors are sued all the time. There might be something there.”

“Sir, the hospital attorneys will think you’re fishing.”

“Just tell Tony I’m working on something tangible to give the fucking lawyers.”

Matt wasn’t positive he was on the right track, but he felt he was definitely in the ballpark. Two victims had been nurses at Spokane General. One, more than a decade ago. Did they know each other at some point? More importantly, had the killer known? And what was the significance?

Matt pulled out Anne Banks’s autopsy report, keeping the conversation he just had with Detective Jacoby in mind.

The killer grabbed her and stabbed her from behind. Then he laid her body down and sliced her three times across.

No matter how he analyzed it, as Jacoby said, the kill had been fast. No drugs or sedatives had been found in the tox screen. The murderer stalked Banks, knew where she ran, stabbed and killed her without hesitation.

His instinct told him that Anne Banks wasn’t his first victim. No one can be that quick, that meticulous, that prepared and able to kill without hesitation on his first kill. Matt supposed adrenaline might play a role, but normally there’d still be some hesitation, a mistake, no matter how small. This monster made none. The victim had no time to scream. No time to fight back. She had no defensive wounds. Even if she had tried to grab him, his slick poncho wouldn’t have given her traction.