He said, “Brad and I grew up on the same street in a neighborhood in Van Nuys. Our moms were friends, so it was always likely we would become best friends, too, even though we were totally different. Brad was into reading and cameras, whereas I’ve barely picked up a book my whole life. I was always a jock who played sports and was a member of the track team all the way through school. Brad hated sports. But we were tight. Closer than brothers, you could say. Then things changed.”

“What happened?”

“A couple of things. Brad’s mom died a few weeks before graduation. Massive heart attack. It was completely unexpected, and it totally floored him. He never knew who his dad was, and I was about to head off to college in San Diego on a track scholarship. I guess he felt like he was on his own. He told me he was planning to move to Hollywood to try to make some cash from his photography. With all the big stars in Tinseltown, he thought he’d be able to sell his pictures to newspapers and photo agencies, like those paparazzi guys who drive around in Beemers and Ferraris. But I don’t think he had much success. Spent most of his time mixing drinks and serving up shots in a bunch of different bars, as far as I could tell.”

“You kept in touch?”

“We wrote each other from time to time. Met up occasionally for a beer when I was back in LA for the holidays. One time, he told me he’d met a girl. She worked the bars in Hollywood, too, and he seemed real sweet on her.”

“Eleanor Lavelle?”

Pryce nodded. “Then we lost touch for a while. By then, I was back in LA for good. I’d suffered a cruciate ligament injury while training for a big race. The medics patched up the knee pretty good, but I couldn’t hit anywhere close to my previous PRs. My track career was over. I joined the academy, decided to become a cop instead. The day I graduated, me and a few of the other guys went out for a drink to celebrate. We walked into a place in West Hollywood, and guess who was behind the bar?”

“Brad Ferezy.”

“Right. We shot the shit for a few minutes while he prepared the drinks. He couldn’t believe I was a cop now. We swapped numbers and promised to keep in touch. I didn’t hear from him again until the night it all went down in Eagle Rock.”

Jessica noticed her hands were gripping the steering wheel, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the knotted leather the knuckles had turned white. Pryce noticed too.

“You sure you want to hear the rest?” he asked.