Right. It wasnt like his own profession didnt have a lot of jargon to it. The difference was that he knew that jargon. Hed been speaking it all of his adult life. What was he doing here? He didnt even speak these peoples language. By the time he got up to speed, the case would be cold.

What were looking for is why these two? There are hundreds of young women with dark hair who work in health care in Washington D.C. Danielle leaned forward, dark eyes intense, and interlaced her fingers. If we can find the nexus, the place that connects them, we may find the person who killed them or, at the very least, find their motive.

Okay. That he could do. Finding those connections was his specialty. Morgan shrugged out of the fleece jacket and hung it on the back of the office chair. He ran his hands over the folder. Then he flipped the folder back to its first page. The woman in the photo paperclipped to the first page of the report that greeted him still looked vaguely familiar. Then again, shed been the lead story in pretty much every local newscast hed caught in the past few days.

The name was familiar, too, though. How long had Michelle worked at Bridgepoint? he asked Danielle.

She flipped through a couple of pages and frowned. Less than a year.

Whered she work before? Morgan asked, fairly certain he knew the answer.

Danielle frowned down at the papers in front of her. Georgetown.

Well, there was one step closer to that nexus Hernandez was seeking. Georgetown was a big place, though. He sat back and read the rest of the file, sliding into that focused mental space that let him connect the dots for a difficult diagnosis.

Lexa had grown up in Bethesda, near D.C., but had left to do her undergrad at UC Berkeley and then medical school at Rush University in Chicago. Shed made her way back to the east coast for her residency. Shed mentioned how happy she was to be close to her family again a couple of times.

Michelle had been born in D.C., had an Associates degree from a technical college in D.C., and had worked at Howard University Hospital before shed come to Georgetown and then had moved on to Bridgepoint. Based on her file, Morgan wasnt sure if shed ever traveled more than a hundred miles from the District, much less lived on another coast.

Like a lot of residents, Lexa didnt have time for much in the way of hobbies, but she apparently made time to play piano now and then. Michelle was active in her church and was on a bowling team.

Lexa was single and wasnt dating anyone seriously. Michelle had recently moved in with her girlfriend of two years.