The Podcast

Chapter 5

Tuesday Night

"Hey, get those damn things out of your ears and come talk to your uncle." Lucas beckons toward Camila. She rolls her almond-shaped eyes and slumps into a dining room chair next to Lucas. The two have always been close, but now that Camila is sixteen, all adults are officially cringe or annoying—including her tío. Especially since all of her friends have a ridiculous crush on him.

"Let me see what shit music you kids are listening to these days." Lucas flashes her a rare smile, one he reserves just for her. He plucks the left earbud out of Camila's ear.

"—a crowd gathers, knocking on the glass of the vehicle and trying unsuccessfully to open the car door. According to reporting by Meriah Covert for the Los Angeles Times, several of the girls initially assume it's some sort of prank. Perhaps by another sorority or—"

"What is this?" Lucas takes the earbud out and Camila throws him an exasperated look. "West Coast Killers."
"West coast what? What's that?" Lucas looks at his niece like she's grown a second head. Her expression is a mirror reflection—albeit sassier—their dark eyes the same shape, tilted faintly upward toward the tails of their brows. "A band?

"Ohmygod, no. It's not a band, tío, It's literally the most famous true crime podcast. Aren't you like a hotshot detective? How do you not know about WCK?"

Lucas grabs the phone from Camila and sees a title looping horizontally across the screen, hovering above a pause and play bar. It reads:

West Coast Killers #142: Ruined Bruins

"Why are you listening to true crime? Do your friends listen to this?"

"I don't know! Why does anyone do anything? Literally everyone listens to this podcast, Uncle Lucas. It has, like, millions of listeners. The stories are super addicting. And informative."

"Informative how?" Lucas' brows pinch in disapproval, playing father for the moment.

"Like, for example," Camila turns to face him, her expression serious, "if I ever get stabbed, I know to lay down, preferably on like a bed or a couch or something soft, and cradle myself like a big bowl. That way I'll keep enough blood in my body so I don't die before the medics show up."

"What the fu—"

"If you can say it, I can say it!" Camila's face brightens, chiding her uncle with their 'swear jar' saying even though they've never had an actual jar. Just the promise that Camila could curse if Maria or Lucas did it first in front of her. Worked like a charm when she was growing up.

"There's no reason you need to know any of that." Lucas grimaces before running a hand through his hair. "It's not good to fill your head with that sh—crap."

"Almost got you twice!"

"Camila! Come help me fix plates please!" Maria yells over the ABBA music playing in the kitchen. Camila stands from her chair, the faint of a smirk on her face. Lucas makes a note to ask Maria if she knows Camila is listening to this shit. Aren't there parental controls on these apps? Not that Maria will listen to him. Despite his 6'3" frame, standing a foot taller than his sister, Maria still sees Lucas as her baby brother. The one she half-raised when their lower-middle class parents had to work odd shifts. She never stopped worrying when he enlisted in the Army. Or when he came back and devastated her with his decision to continue his danger-seeking ways in the LAPD. She prays every night that he will find a desk job, meet a nice girl, settle down—their mother's rosary digging into the palms of her hands in vain. But Lucas knows his sister. He knows that like most women in his life, there is a part of her that thrives off the drama—the drama of worrying about a man. If it isn't him, she'll find someone else to worry about. Probably for the best that they keep it in the family.

Looking back down at the phone on the table, he presses play, the abandoned right earbud Camila had been wearing dangling onto his denim-clad thigh.

"—a junior named Aubrey Fullbright, also a Pi Beta Phi sorority sister, joins the commotion outside. When she takes in the scene, she immediately freaks out. See, Aubrey knows the car and the girl inside. It's her best friend and roommate, Hanna Bellevue—"

Lucas feels the blood pump between his ears. Pi Beta Phi: the same sorority he'd visited yesterday. He's gone his whole life without hearing the Greek name and now two days in a row. He takes the earbud out of his left ear and pulls his own phone from his back pocket. He navigates to search and types in, 'Hanna Bellevue Pi Beta Phi.'

Maria and Camila place three steaming places of lemon chicken and cheesy rice, their voices bouncing back and forth like a tennis match, absorbed in the benign bickering of mothers and teenage daughters.

"Lucas, eat." Maria swats his upper arm, moving around the table to sit across from him.

But all Lucas can see is the Google search result. The sheer audacity of it. The shell shock of an unexpected bomb drop.

"Hanna Bellevue died on February 12th, 1997 at the age of nineteen. She was found dead inside her car parked outside UCLA's Pi Beta Phi house, of which she was a sorority member. Her boyfriend, Connor Foster, was also found dead the same day, killed from blunt force trauma to the back of the head. While there have been a handful of lead suspects over the years, their murders remain unsolved. Hanna's family holds a service every year in February in honor of their daughter's passing."