“Carol is dead,” Cohen said matter-of-factly. “Like you, she developed an infection at the site where she shot up. But hers just kept getting worse until she collapsed at my feet. And she knew who killed her. She described him to me. Said he was tall and handsome, but he had these eyes that look dead.” Cohen shook his head. “But you want to hear the worst part? Not only did he kill Carol, he used her to spread this awful infection. And he let her die thinking she was responsible. This guy used you for the same purpose, Angie.”

Angie sniffled a few more times, but she didn’t reply for a long time. Unlike the last time Lopez saw her, wired on drugs and writhing like a patient with a neurological disorder, Angie kept very still. Finally, she looked up at Cohen. “His eyes were dead,” she whispered.

“You did meet him,” Cohen said encouragingly.

She waved her palms in front of her. “But you can’t tell, Jake. He’s so jealous.”

“Not a word,” Lopez promised.

Angie’s eyes pleaded. “Jake would kill me if he knew that I got stuff off this guy. I got no money. Jake would think for sure that I screwed him for drugs, but I didn’t! The guy gave them to me free.” She shook her head bitterly. “Now I know why.”

Lopez and Kilburn shared a glance, but Cohen kept his eyes on Angie. “Angie, we need your help to find this guy,” he coaxed. “What do you remember about him? His voice. His smell. His clothes. Anything?”

“His face,” Angie said emphatically.

“What about it?”

“I’m good with faces. Mom—” she swallowed—“my mom used to tell me I had a photographic memory. I can still picture the guy’s face.”

“If we brought a police artist in here to talk to you …” Cohen suggested.

“I’m a good portrait painter. My tenth-grade art teacher said I was going to grow up to be an artist.” She made fleeting eye contact with Cohen. “Guess not, huh?”

“You can draw him?” Cohen asked.

Angie shifted her butt up the bed. She reached for the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out a notepad. She flipped it open and leafed through some doodles and drawings. Even though Lopez glimpsed it only briefly, one portrait bore a striking likeness to Angie’s boyfriend Jake. Angie reached a page and stopped. She turned the notepad outward to show them the sketch.

Lopez’s heart skipped a beat. The man was handsome in a cold, detached way. His hair shot off his head in short spears. His expression was unreadable, his eyes deadly. An unfamiliar feeling overcame her. It was fear.

44 - Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

44

Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania