“Okay, that’s mainly what I needed to know—”

“Sergeant Cohen,” she cut in. “Where do you think your witness acquired her infection?”

“This is pure conjecture,” Cohen said. “But the suspect—a drug dealer, or at least someone posing as one—gave our witness heroin and cocaine three days before she died. And I think it might be related.”

“Gave her?!” Lopez raised her voice.

“Yes,” Cohen said. “According to our witness, he called it a ‘sample’.”

Lopez felt the blood draining from her face. “This man,” she said hoarsely, “was he tall with very dark eyes?”

Cohen was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice had dropped to a near whisper. “How did you know?”

36 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

36

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Her bare skin wrapped tightly in the silkiness of the goose feather comforter, Horton stared up at the faux finish of the ceiling trying to figure out how she had wound up in Luc Martineau’s bed again. She had agreed to meet for dinner only to let him know that their personal relationship—whatever that amounted to—was over. But after polishing off a bottle of wine while listening to his charmingly persuasive arguments, she’d found herself in the back of a limo, half-dressed and emotionally disoriented.

When her post-orgasmic euphoria faded, all the disasters of her world came flooding back. She felt ashamed of herself for allowing Martineau to seduce her the day after Viktor’s corpse was found tangled in the reeds of Struble Lake. And she knew that Neil, who had taken Leschuk’s death particularly hard, would have been horrified. “Sleeping with the enemy,” he would have labeled it.

Oraloxin. The mere name had once brought butterflies of anticipation to her stomach. Not any more. Now she associated it with misadventure and tragedy. Even its apparent ability to fight MRGAS engendered no pride. On the contrary, it brought her unease.

She was pulled from her dark thoughts when Martineau, bearing two fresh glasses of red wine, strode into the room in only his silk boxers. Horton suspected he relished any opportunity to show off his hairless chest and lean muscular body, the product of his obsessive workout regime.

He stopped and eyed her from the edge of the bed. “What is it, Ellen?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Just thinking about Vik.”

“Ah.” Martineau closed his eyes and shook his head. “C’est vraiment tragique.”

“Luc, did you know that Vik was an experienced fisherman ?”

“Even experienced fishermen have accidents, Ellen. Especially when they go out on the water alone before dawn.”

She took no solace in his remark. “Of the three of us in the lab, Vik took the bone marrow complications the hardest.”

Martineau put the glasses of wine on the bedside night-stand and sat down on the side of the bed. He stared at her. “What are you suggesting, Ellen? From what I’ve heard, there was no evidence of foul play.”