We Were Never Here, page 20
Who could help—who could tell me the truth about Kristen? Jamie was dead. There was Nana—I thought back to her strange, suspicious email, and to the end of that odd drink at their enormous home. Nana in the kitchen, nervously jamming her phone into my hands. Perhaps she was an ally, eager to help but unable to say more. I tried calling and hung up when her voicemail clicked on. I replied to my unanswered email, too, a polite, “Just following up!”
I drummed my nails against the space bar, thinking hard. Wait—there was someone else Kristen had opened up to, someone who knew the whole story. My mind went blank for a moment, and then it blazed out of my fingertips and into Google: Lydia Brightside, therapist, Wisconsin. Her headshot smiled at me from the top of the search results: a woman in her sixties with short reddish-gray hair, small eyes, arms folded in what was clearly the photographer’s suggested pose. So it wasn’t an alias, a name crinkled by Kristen’s memory.
The first link was a bio on the website for something called Westmoor Behavioral Services:
Lydia Brightside, MD, PhD, is a board-certified pediatric psychiatrist with a subspecialty in Conduct Disorder Treatment. She serves as founding executive director and chief medical officer for Westmoor Behavioral Services. Dr. Brightside has more than four decades of experience studying and developing unique pharmaceutical and pioneering therapeutic interventions to treat behavioral disorders in children and young adults…
Huh? I navigated to the center’s About Us page:
Founded in 1995, Westmoor Behavioral Health is a leading residential treatment center in Wisconsin for children and teens struggling with developmental disorders and mental and behavioral health issues.
This…didn’t sound anything like the grief counseling I assumed young Kristen had undergone. But maybe Dr. Brightside was in private practice as well? I found her CV on an academic website and scoured her work history—nope, she’d worked exclusively at Westmoor Behavioral Services since cofounding it a quarter century ago. Was Kristen keeping even more from me than I thought?
I pulled the center up on a map: It was about two hours from here, in a semirural area dappled with lakes.
In college I’d donated plasma a few times, and while most of the process didn’t bother me—the prick, the waiting, the marbled bruise and wooziness afterward—there was one sensation I spent the whole forty-five minutes dreading. I’ll never forget the feeling of plasma-stripped blood flooding back into my veins, a snaking rush of unpleasant cold, like frozen lightning.
And that’s exactly how I felt when my eyes sank below the map to the user reviews. Coldness tearing through everywhere blood should be.
No one comes here except by court order, the first one read.
And then the real upshot: This is where judges send kids who are too rich to go to juvie.
Juvie. My God. Was her time there related to the three deaths circling her head like horseflies at that age? Was she a danger to herself and, more terrifyingly, others?
If Kristen had been involved in a juvenile court case, the records would be sealed. But who would try to prosecute her? What did she do that would land her in an inpatient clinic, meeting regularly with Wisconsin’s preeminent expert on “conduct disorder”? Perhaps she started acting out as she grieved her parents’ death: anger, despair, and survivor’s guilt all churning with the hormones of puberty. Maybe she clapped back at teachers and mouthed off to her grandparents. But would that land her in a bougie alternative to a juvenile detention center? That seemed more like the proper treatment for a child who’d…
I flashed to it, Kristen at the lake house, bottle of lighter fluid clutched in her hand. I’m really good at building fires, she’d said. And: My mom wasn’t even supposed to be home. No way could twelve-year-old Kristen have…
My heart raced. This couldn’t be a coincidence. And if it meant what I thought it did—if the answer really was “Murder, Kristen, yes”—then, God, what did that say about our last night in Chile? Hell, what did that mean for me, right now?
In a rush, I created a throwaway email address and contacted Westmoor under the guise of being a grad student researching psychiatric care in the state. Just general sniffing around. Nothing specific about Kristen.
A jolt as I hit Send, and then I sat back, feeling unseemly.
The next morning, an email was waiting for me from Westmoor Behavioral Services.
Dear Ms. Schmidt,
Thank you for your inquiry. To answer your questions, Westmoor does not accept insurance and therefore serves a very selective community. We work closely with the Wisconsin court system to identify minors who would benefit from our inpatient services; families cannot check a patient in without a referral. Westmoor’s mission of providing a safe, supportive environment for children with severe behavioral issues is unique in the state, although we see similar models in other regions.
“Severe behavioral issues”—so it was true. Young Kristen was diagnosed with this as a child. But surely she didn’t spend weeks or months in an institute?
But then my eyes widened:
In regards to Dr. Brightside’s history, she has seen patients at Westmoor exclusively since the center opened in 1995. She is not in private practice, and full-time resident patients at Westmoor are her only clients (in addition to group therapy with parents, siblings, etc.). I’ve attached a PDF of our brochure. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
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.”
We stopped in front of my sedan. “I don’t think we should be drawing attention to the fact that we were there at that exact time.”
She rolled her eyes. “If we’re trying to act normal, news flash: Talking about yoga at yoga is normal.”
“I guess, but—”
“Em, no one is drawing a line between us and that,” she interrupted. “Here, if you want to keep discussing let’s at least toss our phones in your car.”
I complied, slamming the door with gusto, then turned to her, fists on hips. “You’re being reckless.”
“What, you think Priya is going to see the news and, like, call the FBI?”
“I know, but—”
“Hey, I’ve got a hot tip.” She held her hand up like a phone. “These two women I know, sweet girls, law-abiding. They were in that same region of the world as that backpacker sometime last month, so you should probably send a SWAT team. A million dollars, please.”
“I know. It’s not logical.” I shook my head. “You should read the article. It’s terrifying.”
“Fine, but it’ll probably just result in a deluge of false leads. If anything, it proves they’ve got nothing. And if they do miraculously get as far as talking to us: Yeah, we chatted with him at a bar, there were a ton of people there, I made out with him, he left, never saw him again. He was a vagrant, Emily.”
“But someone could have seen us…loading the trunk, or putting the shovels back, or, or maybe we didn’t clean as well as we thought in the suite or the rental car…”
“No one knows anything but us. You and me.” She narrowed her eyes. “Unless you’ve told anyone. Like Aaron?”
A sparkler of fear in my chest. “Of course not.”
“Emily.” She settled her hands on my shoulders. “We need to stay calm and stick together. Now is not the time to freak out and start acting weird.” She glanced at a gaggle of teenagers ambling past. “Okay? We got this.”
I nodded, because it felt like the right thing to do. But in truth, I couldn’t shut myself into my car fast enough. I watched her reach the corner and disappear behind an office building.
I had to face the facts: After Chile, Kristen and I had fundamentally opposing ideas of what Paolo’s death meant for our friendship. Even now, with the walls closing in on us, I could only see it as a reason to cut all ties. But Kristen saw things differently. And Kristen was used to getting what she wanted. In life, and especially from me.
I saw it again, Paolo’s legs on the floor. Toes upturned like a stargazer.
And Kristen’s eyes, pleading and wild.
Emily, she’d said. We have no choice.
* * *
—
I checked my email when I got home, and felt a cold jab when I saw one of the senders: Casa Habita, the hotel where we’d stayed in Quiteria. The spot with the charming wood-burning stove and extra-thick shower curtain. I clicked on it as nausea curled:
Dear Ms. Donovan,
Thank you for your recent stay at Casa Habita. I contact you regarding the unfortunate death of an American tourist in this area. At the request of the local police, all hotels in the region are asked to contact all visitors who stayed in the four weeks past. If you saw anything or have information about Paolo García, reply to this message please and we will connect you with the local policeman. Thank you.
Crap. We’d paid in cash, but I’d been the one to fill out the reservation form at check-in, since it was in Spanish. I texted a screenshot to Kristen with nothing but a question mark, and she replied immediately: Nope, don’t remember anything. But that is a long span of time—who would?
Who would? Who would? Alarm shot up through me and I stifled a groan. Then I saw the time and jolted; even if I left now, I’d be late for dinner with Aaron. Dammit, why was I always behind on things these days? Life was moving too quickly, jerky and unnatural, like an early black-and-white film. I ran to my car and backed into the street, then whipped through a yellow light.
At the next intersection, I breathed deeply. I had to relax, had to seem normal with Aaron. Had to not total my car in my distracted rush to meet him. Getting killed in a collision right now—my vital organs mangled by metal and plastic and upholstery and glass—would be a little too on the nose.
A hell of a way to add to Kristen’s body count.
* * *
—
I didn’t feel like talking about her, but Aaron was insistent. It was sweet, in a way—he asked how things were between Kristen and me, and when I blanched at the question, he grew determined to help.
