“Hmmm,” Thalia murmured knowingly.

“Besides, people involved with art are right-brained; they don’t apply scientific tools and methods with any sort of rigor or consistency,” Zoe emphasized. Most of the time, scientific tests are conducted to verify hunches. Intuition almost always comes first.”

“But there are a lot of good fakebusters out there who don’t have your synthesis—”

“Synaesthesia.”

“Yeah, that,” Thalia said. “But that short circuit in your brain didn’t just turn you immediately into a fake-buster. As a little girl, you didn’t beg to be taken to the Getty Museum so you could point out all their forged art.”

“True,” Zoe said. “The raw ability needed to be trained. I had no idea that this sixth sense would ever be useful, but because it was about color and music, I gravitated toward those in my education. I suppose the education was sort of like computer software programs in my head that gradually developed. I had no way of knowing that I was programming my wetware every time I looked at art, standing before a piece for hours, absorbing the brush strokes, the way light fell on a sculpture, the shape of faces, the drape of cloth—a million things I can’t put into words but which my mind eventually began to set to music.”

“This is too weird,” Thalia said. “Not just sounds, but music?”

Zoe nodded. “Makes sense, right? Yellow piccolos, red cellos, black kettle drums—with all the colors in a painting—or the million degrees of gray in a marble sculpture—stands to reason that you’ve got a pretty big orchestra performing. Some simpler pieces sound like jazz or rock or R&B. The broader my music exploration was, the more ways the art had to express itself.”

“Music in your head.”

Zoe nodded. “In my head.”

“In Russia, they lock people up for that so they won’t hurt themselves.” Thalia winked at her. “You don’t have any little voices in there—you know, Martians or the CIA or something—telling you to kill people?” The tension faded as they both laughed.

“So what does my Vermeer sound like?” Thalia asked tentatively.

Zoe turned to face the painting and after a short moment, she said: “Like a world-class orchestra with second-rate strings.”

“Second-rate strings?”

Zoe cocked her head and pursed her lips as she struggled for the correct words. “Strings are subtle,” she said finally. “Look here—” She pointed at the painting. “It’s got that wonderful deep luminescence, almost like frosting with light that we’ve all come to associate with Vermeer. The glowing highlights and deep realistic shadows are true to form as well.”

“The good parts of the orchestra?”

“Right on,” Zoe said. “But look at the people’s faces.” She pointed to the image of Christ and then moved her finger around the crowd depicted on the shoreline. “First of all they’re blocky. They convey no soul or feeling. They’re just faces without meaning. And look at the fishing boat on the shore—it’s all squashed up and out of proportion. Vermeer was a stickler for accuracy, for precise perspective.”