Olivia was the same age Anne would have been—forty-three. She was tall and willowy, with a short haircut and no-nonsense attitude.

“I was really upset that the newspapers mentioned Anne this morning—I’m just glad it was here and not in Portland, where Craig could read it. Her murder destroyed him. He’s never been the same.”

“I spoke to the detective in charge of Anne’s case, and he gave me your name. He also confirmed that Anne had worked here prior to moving to Portland.”

“Yes. Is that important?”

“It may be. Did you work here at the hospital with her?”

“Yes—we went to nursing school together. Shared an apartment until she moved to Portland. She was my best friend.” Her voice cracked, then she rubbed her eyes. Matt let her collect herself, didn’t push her.

A moment later, Olivia took a deep breath and continued. “We were hired right after graduation. I did a rotation of several floors before settling on neonatal, and I went back for advanced training. Anne always wanted to work in the emergency room—she didn’t like to be bored...” Her voice trailed off as nostalgia hit her again. “I almost moved to Portland with her, but I got a promotion here right before Craig proposed, and my family is all in the Spokane Valley. And she and Craig needed time to be newlyweds. But we talked nearly every day. I was there when each of her kids was born. I still miss her. I was engaged when she was killed—we were planning my wedding together.” She looked down at her wedding band. It was simple, Matt noted, like the woman sitting in front of him.

Matt had let Olivia talk freely to make her comfortable sharing with him. But now he needed to focus her.

“Olivia, I know this is hard for you, but I need you to dig deep. You’ve worked with law enforcement before, right? In your capacity as a nurse?”

“Of course.”

“So you know that sometimes, we don’t have all the information we need about the victims. I’m still in the investigation stage. You heard about Victoria Manners and how she was killed.”

“I saw her picture in the paper. Read the article. It was awful.”

“Did you know her?”

“No. We have hundreds of nurses. I know everyone in my department, a few others, but I’d never met her. She was a temporary employee, right?”

“Yes, a trauma nurse with a staffing company. I’m going to be blunt with you, Olivia,” Matt said. “We don’t have a suspect. We’re using every resource at our disposal to identify and stop this killer. Victoria had been here for three weeks, and we have reason to believe the killer targeted her because she worked here, specifically, in the emergency room.”

“Oh God—do I need to warn the staff?”

“No—the killer has a pattern. The first victim in each city is a nurse.”

“But Anne wasn’t a nurse anymore!”

Matt didn’t have to say anything before Olivia figured it out on her own. “You think it’s someone who knew Anne when she worked here? Why? Everyone loved Anne.”