It was a CNN article, Paolo’s smiling face at the top. The headline: Backpacker’s Remains Found in Remote Chilean Village.
CHAPTER 21
“Hey, did you want to make a campfire tonight?” Kristen called. She’d stuck her face into the freezer so her voice echoed. “We bought ice cream, but we could also do s’mores. I’m great at building fires. But we can wait until tomorrow.”
When I didn’t answer, she smacked the freezer door closed and whirled around. “Did you hear me? We should probably get more firewood, but—”
“Kristen.” I dropped my phone on the table, thunk. “You need to see this.”
“What is it?” Her nose wrinkled. “Did someone you used to hook up with send you a birthday text? I hate when dudes—”
“I’m serious. Check your email.”
She squeezed her eyebrows, then snatched her phone off the kitchen counter. I watched her face as she read: expressionless.
“Well, shit.”
I reread the email. “Do you think Nana knows?”
“Knows what? That we’re stupid girls who travel to faraway places and are lucky to still be alive?” She rolled her eyes. “The obnoxious thing about Nana’s performative concern is that she isn’t actually worried about me—she’d be glad to say ‘I told you so’ if something happened. It’s just another way for them to criticize me.” She raised a naggy finger. “？‘Look at you making stupid decisions, and no surprise, I was right and the world is dangerous and you’re not a functioning adult.’ Typical.” She flopped into the chair across from mine.
“Wait, that’s not even my point. Paolo. Was freaking found. Doesn’t that disturb you the tiniest bit?”
Kristen stared at me, stock-still, then cocked an eyebrow. “Let’s turn our phones off.”
“Kristen, for Christ’s sake, no one is listening, we’re in the middle of nowhere with crappy reception, and—”
“Phones off.” She said it firmly, calmly, like I was a little kid having a meltdown. I slowed my breathing and knew she was right. Siri was always listening, always ready to pipe up and hook us into the grid.
“Not till after we read the article,” I said.
“Fine.”
The body of a 24-year-old Spanish-American backpacker who went missing after months of traveling around South America has been found, according to police. Paolo García was last seen in Puerto Natales, a city in Chilean Patagonia, on March 27.
On Wednesday, police confirmed to CNN that a body found by police in Arroyito, a remote area in Chile’s mountainous Elqui Valley, was his.
On Thursday, Chilean National Police told CNN that they had completed an autopsy overseen by an American consular official. Police have not released information about the cause of death but confirmed they are treating the investigation as a homicide.
The García family is now working to bring Paolo’s body back to the United States, police said.
“Right now we are grieving and desperate for answers,” said Rodrigo García, Paolo’s father and the owner of Castillo Development, a Los Angeles real estate development firm. “The police must figure out who did this and make him pay.”
Paolo García was born in California but spent most of his life in Barcelona. He had dual citizenship in the United States and Spain.
García was regularly out of touch for weeks at a time during his travels, so it’s unclear how long he was unaccounted-for before his family reported him missing. The man’s personal effects, including his passport and wallet, were not with him, so local teams are investigating where in the area he may have stayed, according to Spain’s Agencia EFE news agency.
On Wednesday, Paolo’s sister Elena García said her brother wanted to live life to the fullest. Paolo had been saving up for the trip for years, and he was “very excited to see new countries and meet new people,” Elena said.
The last time they spoke was on March 23, when Paolo messaged his sister to say how amazing his trip was.
“He wanted to explore the world, to live life without regrets,” Elena said.
I looked up. Kristen was still reading, stone-faced.
Each revelation was like a bass drum, struck. Boom: Paolo was American. Boom: Paolo came from a wealthy family, one with the resources to not stop until they’d gotten justice. Boom: This news might grip the nation, handsome Paolo as the next photogenic Natalee Holloway. Shit.
And Paolo had a family. A sister. Jesus. Now they weren’t shadowy stand-ins in my imagination; they had names, voices, lives. Suddenly all I wanted was to google the sister, learn everything I could about this poor sibling-less Elena, jam my thumb onto the bruise. Why isn’t there a term for someone who’s lost their brother or sister? There are orphans and widows and widowers. This seemed worse.
Finally Kristen stopped reading. She blew a breath out through pursed lips, then tapped her screen.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Replying to Nana. Then my phone goes off again. Yours too.”
“Christ.” I held down the right buttons, then tossed my dead phone onto the table like it disgusted me. “It’s a lot, right?”
“It’s not ideal.”
“Not ideal?”
“Nothing about the autopsy. The cause of death or state of decomposition. And now they’ll probably start asking around in all the touristy towns. I still think we’re fine, since he hadn’t even had time to check into a hotel, but—”
“He’s American, Kristen. The freaking American consulate is involved.”
“I know—I can’t believe he didn’t mention that.”
“He had a sister.” I slapped at my phone. The guilt I’d been holding back breached the dam and gushed into my stomach. “He had a family. And they’re grieving, Kristen. Because of us.”
She looked bewildered. “Hitler had a mom too. That didn’t make him less terrible.”
“They found him! It took them less than two weeks! And his family’s loaded! We’re so screwed.”
She looked right at me, holding eye contact even as my gaze flitted around the room. “Emily, it’s fine.”
“How is it fine?” I realized my breath was high in my chest, tight and quick. My throat felt like it was shrinking and I stood, rummaged in my purse, and closed my lips around my inhaler. Began the sweet countdown from ten to one.
“Are you okay? You want some water?”
“I’m not okay.” I sat down roughly. “How are you so calm?”
“Because we were smart. Because we did everything right.” She splatted her palm onto the table. “They found him in a town we were never seen in. We don’t even know exactly where we were. And the body must have deteriorated—they don’t know exactly when it happened. There’s nothing tying us to it.”
I wanted to believe her. But she hadn’t been the one to spearhead this operation. And when I was the one in charge, something always went wrong. “How do you know we did everything right? You were freaking out the whole night!” I counted the loose ends on my fingers: “Someone could have seen our car, or seen us getting the shovels or putting them away—there was that light. Or someone remembers us from the bar. Or maybe we left something of his behind in the suite—it was dark, and we were hustling. We didn’t even have proper cleaning supplies. Or, or what if the rental car had built-in GPS or satellite tracking or something, and they can track where we—”