And there was my answer.
A handful of years before she befriended me outside an econ class, Kristen—Kristen who felled Sebastian with a lamp and then calmly hatched a plan to sink his body, Kristen who swung a bottle of wine so hard it reshaped Paolo’s skull—had been locked up in a center for emotionally disturbed youths.
Shit.
CHAPTER 27
LOS ANGELES FAMILY OFFERS $1 MILLION REWARD IN HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION
The family of Paolo García, a 24-year-old backpacker whose remains were found in a remote Chilean village, is now offering a $1 million payout to anyone with information that leads to an arrest.
While holding a framed picture of her son, Fernanda García pleaded for justice for him. Fernanda says on April 25, she received a phone call informing her that the body of her son, Paolo, had been discovered by local police in the Elqui Valley, a mountainous region in northern Chile. That call would shatter her life.
“It breaks my heart that he was taken away from us,” Fernanda said.
Fernanda and her husband, Rodrigo García, CEO of the Los Angeles real estate development firm Castillo Development, expressed hope that a $1 million payout would incentivize witnesses to come forward. García was last spotted at a crowded restaurant in Puerto Natales, a port town in southern Chile, on the night of March 30.
“Someone must have seen something,” Rodrigo said. “The money won’t bring him back, but he deserves justice.”
Almost four weeks passed between when Paolo was last seen and when his body was found on April 25 in a shallow grave about 25 meters from the road in Arroyito, a sparsely populated agricultural town in northern Chile, according to reports. Police confirmed that an autopsy had been performed, but no additional information on the cause or time of death has been released.
Paolo was described as a fun-loving and gregarious young man who was finally fulfilling a dream of traveling the world. Born in California, Paolo grew up in Barcelona, Spain, where he enjoyed playing tennis and cooking for friends and family. At the age of 16, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and his parents say that beating the disease left him determined to travel and engage with people all over the world.
If you have information that could help detectives, call Los Angeles Police or text the tip to 637274.
I was at work, digging into my sad salad and scanning the news almost on autopilot, when I saw the headline. My stomach roiled, threatening to expel the limp greens I’d already swallowed. Shit. This was bad; this was very, very bad. My heart beat faster and faster as I read, badum badum badum, until it seemed to be convulsing like a person in the final throes of suffocation.
Nothing like a million dollars to jog people’s memories. God, there were so many potential witnesses whose paths had braided with ours, a big tangled knot: The cars we passed on our predawn drive home to the hotel. The waiter at the patio bar, our fellow patrons, the bartender who watched me freak out and blubber and screech, in English, that my wallet had been stolen. Christ, we were nothing if not memorable. Oh, plus—whoever had turned a light on as we clanked the shovels and flashlights back into the shed. The whistling custodian who took a photo of us in our bathing suits—had he noticed we’d moved his tools? Had the hotel’s housekeeper wondered why the shower curtain was hung up differently? Way to keep a low profile, morons.
And, Jesus. Tennis player, amateur chef, freaking cancer survivor? This made Paolo real; this made what we’d done, even in the name of self-defense and -preservation, more odious. Until now, I could see Paolo as subhuman—Sebastian too—and lock them in a mental jail cell: BAD MEN. Not: bad men with hobbies and loved ones and pasts. Nausea bolted up through me.
“You signed up for yoga, right?” The Slack message from Priya felt like an intrusion, far too mundane for the emergency on hand.
I was about to bow out, but hesitated. Normalcy—I had to maintain it, had to go through the motions lest anyone think anything was wrong. I had a schedule to keep; Aaron and I were grabbing dinner after my class. And anyway, Drishti Yoga had served as my temple after Cambodia, the key to calming me down—better to vinyasa than to sit at home, reading the article over and over. I closed the browser window. “I’ll be there.”
* * *
—
Shortly before six, Priya hoisted her mat over her head and slung the strap across her chest: Artemis with her quiver of arrows. I had a missed call from Kristen and texted that I’d try her later. There was, I realized, nothing in particular for us to do. In the past, I’d have sought out Kristen’s reassurances: We’re fine, we were smart, no one’s looking for us. Now, after all I knew about her past, the dead bodies studding her personal history, I just wanted to stay as far away from her as possible.
At the studio, Priya made a beeline for the locker room while I waited to rent a mat. My ankle felt better, but this was my first class since the injury. I stepped into the changing room and stopped short.
At first I thought I was hallucinating, the way I’d seen Paolo at baggage claim all those weeks ago.
But no—it was her. Priya and Kristen were standing inside, half-changed, heads bent over a phone.
“Kristen?”
She looked up and grinned. “Priya said you guys love this teacher!”
“I— Hi. I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Kristen was telling me about the private yoga class you took in Chile,” Priya added. “I wanted to see the instructor she was talking about.”
“I found her on Instagram. I’m obsessed with her.” Kristen went into a spot-on impression, her fake accent thick: “Keep your knees suave…now we bow to the sky.”
I smiled back but felt my eyebrows knit. Why draw attention to where we’d been, and when?
Priya turned to cram her stuff into a locker and I gave Kristen a WTF look. She responded with a scrunched brow and shake of her head: What is it? Another woman burst into the changing room, banging the door against the wall, and we hustled to get ready for class.
In Warrior 3, I found my balance, tough and firm, but next to me, Kristen wavered and then fell, brushing my outstretched arm and knocking us both over in the process.
Then, in handstand practice, Kristen kicked her way up as if she had something to prove. She stood there calmly, palms as feet, blood rushing to her face but her expression determined.
* * *
—
Kristen and I had parked near each other, so we shuffled down the sidewalk together. As soon as Priya was out of earshot, Kristen turned to me.
“What’s going on? You’re being weird.”
“I’m being weird?” My fingers flew to my collarbone.
“Do you not like me hanging out with Priya?”
“It’s not that,” I said, though it kind of was. I started walking again. “Did you not read the news today? The family’s offering a million-dollar reward. We’re screwed.”
“Hey. Do we need to turn our phones off?”
I stared at her. “You’re seriously gonna make me turn my phone off when you were just telling Priya about Chile?” Heedlessness followed by paranoia—the whiplash set off more alarm bells.
“What, about the yoga studio?” She grinned. “You haven’t told people about that? Maribela was awesome.”