Nick pressed two fingers to the man’s neck. Gino’s skin was almost as cold as the metal of the Dumpster.

4:12 a.m.

Crown Plaza

Kansas City, Missouri

Salsa music startled Maggie O’Dell awake. She jolted up in bed and scrambled to the edge before she realized it was her phone. She’d accidentally changed the ringtone and had been too exhausted to fix it.

“I think we may have caught a lucky break,” the voice said without a greeting.

It was R.J. Tully, her sometimes partner when the FBI sent two instead of one. A rare occasion these days.

She pushed hair out of her eyes, blinked to focus on the red digits of the hotel’s alarm clock.

“It better be lucky. You woke me up.”

“Aw geez! Sorry.”

Tully had to be the only law enforcement officer she knew who said things like, “Aw geez holy crap.” It made her smile as she fumbled in the dark to turn on a light.

“I thought you never sleep,” he followed up, giving her a chance to wake up.

He knew she had been battling a stretch of insomnia for over a year now. Getting shot in the head two months ago didn’t help matters. Technically it was called a “scraping of the skull alongside the left temporal lobe.” Unofficially it hurt like hell and the throbbing pain that still visited her head on a regular basis was a bitch. Otherwise she was okay. At least that’s what she kept telling people.

“What’s the lucky break?”

“Got a phone call from Omaha. Homeless man. Stabbed. Looks like our guy.”

She stood up from the bed, rubbed the sleep from her eyes and started turning on lamps. She’d been in the Kansas City area trying to dig up something, anything. But the victims here, and the evidence, were already two weeks cold.

“What makes them think it’s our guy?”

“Blitz attack. No other injuries. Single stab wound to the chest, just under the rib cage. Preliminaries suggest a long, double-edged blade.”

That sounded about right.

For four weeks she’d been chasing this guy halfway around the country. It started at the end of October when John Baldwin, the SSA in charge of BAU II, asked her to take a look at a slice ’n go down in Nashville. Maggie was still recovering from her own injuries but she owed Baldwin a favor and told him she’d take a look. Lieutenant Taylor Jackson sent her every scrap they had on the case, which included witness interviews, security video and even a driver’s license. Unfortunately the video footage showed only a flash of white at the bottom of the screen, the bill of a white ballcap. The driver’s license ended up being an excellent fake and the witness interviews didn’t turn up anything too interesting except that the man in question “smiled too much.”

Just when Maggie believed there wasn’t enough to go on, something odd happened. Her boss, Assistant Director Raymond Kunze, head of the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico brought her the case – the exact same case. He insisted she and Tully make it their top priority. Kunze had been sending Tully and her around on wild goose chases for almost a year. Maggie was immediately suspicious. Why this case? What was the political connection? Who did Kunze owe a favor to this time?

She hated that she was right. Turns out the senior senator from Tennessee was a personal friend of the Nashville victim’s father. It didn’t take much digging for Maggie to discover this wasn’t a one-time “slice ’n go.” She and Tully had found another two victims in New Orleans. According to NOPD Detective Stacy Killian, both were homeless, one a new mother, the other a business man.

Searching ViCAP she discovered what could be as many as ten to twelve victims. Different cities across the country. Similar victims. Same MO. All of them quite possibly the work of one killer she and Tully nicknamed the Night Slicer.

Now Maggie paced the hotel room listening to Tully give her more details. She could hear him rattling paper and knew the notes he had taken were probably on a take-out menu or a dry cleaning receipt – his usual notepads, whatever was handy.

“Here’s the thing,” Tully said. “Omaha’s M.E. believes this one happened earlier this morning. Internal body temp says within last six hours. Night security guard claims it had to be around two o’clock.”

“Two o’clock in the morning? That’s only a few hours ago. How can he be so sure?”

“He knows the victim. Says the guy…” more paper shuffling. “Says Gino usually picked up a dozen extras of the Sunday Omaha World Herald right off the dock. He’d sell them on the street to make a few bucks. But first, he’d bring the security guard a copy and they’d drink hot chocolate.”

“That all sounds very nice but since when do we determine time of death from a security guard’s Sunday morning ritual?”

“Thing is, they found him between two-thirty and three this morning. He already had his dozen newspapers. The Sunday edition didn’t hit the loading dock until two-o-five.”

Tully went silent. He was waiting for it to settle in and Maggie finally understood the lucky break.

“So we’ve got a fresh kill,” she said. And then the realization hit her. “And less than twenty-four hours before he slices number two and leaves town.”

“Omaha’s about 180 miles from Kansas City. Just a hop up and a skip down. Twenty, thirty minute flight,” Tully said. “Might be some delays. Sounds like there’s a bunch of new snow.”

“I have a rental. I’ll drive.” She hated flying. Tully’s “hop up and skip down” already had her stomach flipping. “It’ll probably be quicker than trying to get a flight, getting to the airport, going through security.”

“Looks like a three hour drive, but in the snow—”

“No problem.”

“You sure?”

“You worry too much. I’ll exchange my rental car for an SUV. Let Omaha know I’m on my way.”

5:41 a.m.

Old Market Embassy Suites

Omaha, Nebraska

He looked out his hotel suite’s window and down on the empty cobble-stoned streets. Earlier there had been horses and carriages, street performers on a couple of the corners. The brick buildings used to be warehouses on the Missouri River but now housed restaurants and specialty shops.

Last night despite the snow, the sidewalks had been filled with people, the streets busy with traffic. There had even been a patrol officer on horseback. And yet just five, six blocks he been able to slide a blade up into a man’s heart and walk away. In fact, he walked back through the hustle and bustle to his hotel without a single person noticing.

All was good. He was back in his groove. That nagging fury would no longer drive him to make reckless mistakes.

New Orleans had set him off track. Then Nashville really screwed him up. He had always been careful about choosing targets no one would miss. But Heath Stover, a blast from the past, had knocked him way off his game. And so did that girl, that rich bitch pretending to be some lost soul. The news media continued to cover her murder but at least they were calling it just another unfortunate incident, just another of a long list of crimes besieging the Occupy camps across the country.

That’s the word a reporter used, “besieging,” like the protesters were soldiers in dugouts coming under attack. He shook his head at that. He was sick of seeing the protesters in every city he traveled to. Thankfully he hadn’t had to deal with any of them in Kansas City or here in Omaha. Another good sign that he was finally back on track.

Sales were up. Bosco’s new laser-guided scalpel was a huge hit. Omaha’s medical mecca was like putty in his hands on Thursday and Friday at the Qwest Center conference. He had exploded past his sales quota. Still, it had taken this morning’s kill to renew his confidence.

He looked around the suite and rubbed his hands together. Checked his watch. Maybe he would shower, dress and go down for the breakfast buffet. He had the whole day off. He didn’t have to leave until tomorrow morning. Tonight he was looking forward to the Holiday of Lights festivities. The Old Market would be filled with people again and sounds of the seasons. Now with his newfound confidence he wouldn’t need to go far at all to find target number two.