“Didn’t ever happen,” Barb said. “They were about halfway through filming and there was an accident. A big fire. Somehow a spotlight fell onto some props and whoosh.” She bloomed an invisible fire with her hands. I saw it in the usual reds and oranges I associated with the word fire. “That producer was so angry, he pulled the whole project. And eventually we left California altogether.”

Deb was shaking her head sadly. “He had so many other movies to make, but it was really the end for poor Carrie. She died a couple years later, if I’m not mistaken. Eleven would have been her only film.”

My heart thumped hearing it from someone else. No, she didn’t die, I wanted to snap. She was murdered.

“Eleven?” Chris asked.

“Wasn’t that what it was called, Barb? It was a number, anyway.”

Barb snapped her fingers. “Yes, that was it. Eleven on his jersey. Ten people dead. Will anyone catch him before he kills number eleven?” She said the last in a deep voice meant to sound like a commercial voice-over. “Not my kind of movie.” The phone rang and she jumped to answer it.

Deb stood and smoothed out her slacks. “Is there anything else, Detective?”

“No,” Chris said. “I think that was all.”

She stuck out her hand; Chris shook it. “Sorry we couldn’t be more help.”

But she had no idea how much help she’d actually been.

20

IT WAS A long four and a half hours home. We weren’t really speaking anymore. There was just too much to talk about. Too many revelations. Too many secrets. Too much confusion. Talk seemed dangerous.

I couldn’t tell if we trusted each other more now, or less. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved to have someone know about the synesthesia or if I hated it. My gut told me I hated it. I just maybe didn’t so much hate that it was him.

God, it was so confusing. Why was he so damned confusing?

Not to mention there was the whole drug thing. I believed with every fiber of my being that he was not taking or selling them. I knew he had a plan, because Chris Martinez always had a plan, and his plans were always For the Greater Good. My plans were usually to save my own ass.

Mostly, I spent the time under my hoodie, working out what might have been his reason for buying drugs from those kids. And the rest of the time was spent rehashing what Barb and Deb had said, and how my mind had lit up like crazy every time they said one word: Eleven.

A tomato-colored word, juicy and smooth and warm from the sun. Tomato, tomato, tomato.