We Were Never Here(85)
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When I woke, Aaron was out on the balcony, frowning at his iPhone screen. He was deep in a photoshoot with a tiny gecko that clung to the glass, loving the attention. He stepped inside and asked how I was feeling, but all I could say was that I needed coffee. Suddenly, being here felt ludicrous. Where would I be safe? Should I leave the country, hide out in Canada, hope that no one would extradite me?
“I didn’t see a coffee maker,” Aaron said. “Should we grab breakfast downstairs?”
Normalcy—I had to maintain it, had to fake it. So I brushed my teeth and stepped into some clothes. I’d failed to plug my phone in, and it had died; with a flare of anxiety, I jabbed the charger into the wall and walked away right as the Apple symbol appeared on the screen.
The sight of food made my innards turn: shiny green apples, one of those conveyor-belt toasters, a cauldron of oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins in canisters nearby. I forced down a banana as we sat on the deck, squinting into the sun and paging through a book of local hiking trails. Walking sounded nice, moving through wide-open space when it felt like cardboard walls were pressing in on me from every direction. We selected the lowest-hanging fruit, and I relaxed at having a plan—a three-mile loop that began just a block away from the property, following a country road and then branching off for a final ascent. “Rewarding views” from a portion along a steep ridge.
As Aaron rose to refill his Styrofoam coffee cup, I allowed myself a dreamy moment: What if this could become our lives? Not scraping peanut butter from tiny plastic tubs near an ugly lobby, but living somewhere new, somewhere beautiful. A fresh start totally distinct from Kristen, the past; here, with the sun stamping our table and lizards flicking by our feet, I could almost convince myself that the madness of the months since Cambodia existed on another plane, a different dimension, with no bearing on this one. Maybe this was Arizona’s magic, all that talk of vortexes and UFOs and the connection to the stars: Here, no one could touch us.
We marched inside and prepared for our trek—snacks packed, sunscreen applied, dorky baseball caps perched on our heads. We were halfway through the lobby when a voice made me freeze.
“Emily!”
Aaron whipped around next to me, but I stayed still as an ice sculpture, fragile as a flake of snow.
“Emily.” It was louder now, closer, and a vault opened up inside me, down and down and down. No.
A hand on my shoulder. Like it was a needle and I, a soap bubble, iridescent and doomed.
I turned and blinked at her. Pop.
“I came as fast as I could,” Kristen said. And she pulled me into a one-sided hug.
CHAPTER 37
POLICE RELEASE SKETCH IN APRIL SLAYING OF SPANISH-AMERICAN BACKPACKER
Los Angeles investigators, working with Chilean officials, released a composite drawing in an effort to track down a woman they suspect is connected to the death of a Spanish-American backpacker last month.
Paolo García, 24, was in the middle of a year-long backpacking trip around South America when he disappeared. He was last seen on April 13, and his body (identified by dental records) was found in a shallow grave in Arroyito, a farming area in northern Chile.
Police released a sketch of someone believed to be involved. That person was described as a white female in her 20s, about 5 feet 6 inches tall, with brown hair and a North American accent.
The death of García, who lived in Barcelona but had dual citizenship in Spain and the United States, made headlines on multiple continents and sparked an international manhunt, with García’s family offering a $1 million reward for information that leads to an arrest.
Anyone with information on García’s murder or the person of interest is urged to contact Los Angeles police.
CHAPTER 38
My lips pursed to ask the inevitable: What are you doing here? Then I started to laugh. Of course she was here. I’d asked her that exact question multiple times over the last few weeks. Always when I’d let my guard down, when I’d just begun to relax. She’d have some reasonable-sounding explanation, for sure. She’d be confused and hurt when it was clear I wasn’t thrilled by her sudden appearance. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Aaron asked it for me, his voice bright but baffled. “Kristen, holy shit! Aren’t you in Milwaukee?”
Her eyes flicked toward mine. “I took a red-eye. Just landed. Emily…told me she needs my help.”
“What?” I blurted. Now we all three looked mystified, a Bermuda Triangle of bewilderment.
“Your email…” she said with a meaningful frown.
“How did you find us?” Aaron asked.
“Aaron was…posting photos. With tags.”
“I— What about my email made you think I was telling you to come here?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I thought that’s what your message meant? You said no contact and then you…you contacted me.” She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “Well, if this isn’t some bizarro codependent power play…Jesus, Emily.”
“Excuse me?”
“Whoa, let’s all take a breath.” Aaron had that panicked look on his face, as if some mysterious and ancient female ritual were about to begin.