“That’s your choice, if you think you need one.” Alvarez didn’t intend to back down.
“You mean like if I’m guilty?” His eyebrows shot up over his glasses to make furrows across his forehead. “Well, I’m not. No way.” He turned to Donny. “You know that, man. I mean, Destiny, she was cool and all . . . but . . .” His lower lip protruded a bit and he lifted his shoulders up to his ears. “I just didn’t know much about her.”
“You didn’t know that she was pregnant?” she asked.
He visibly started. “Like as in knocked up?” The skin on his face tightened. Either he hadn’t known or he hadn’t thought anyone would find out. He turned his head, and this time the look that passed between the two friends was unreadable. “How would I know that?”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Pescoli asked.
“I dunno . . . maybe two weeks ago . . . maybe longer. I can’t remember. She was always hanging around.”
“But you’d only met her twice?” Pescoli pressed. “That’s what you said.”
“I meant, I really didn’t know her. Sure, I saw her. With Donny or . . . or whoever, but I never spoke to her but a few times. But, yeah, she was around a lot.”
“So you weren’t with Donny, here, when he met up with her, a week ago last Friday?”
Alex wagged his head. “Uh-uh.”
“Were you over here playing video game
s that evening?”
He flicked his gaze at Donny, eyes locking. “Yeah?” It was more of a question than a statement.
Donny said, “After Teej, Alex, Tophman, and I grabbed some pizza, we played games, then they all took off. After that, that’s when Destiny called me and came over here.” It sounded like he was giving Alex the story, so that he could back Donny up. The kid was just digging himself a deeper grave.
“So you were never at Reservoir Point?” Pescoli pressed. “You and Destiny didn’t go up there?”
Donny’s jaw worked and he thought about lying again; Pescoli could see it in the way his eyes shied away from hers. But he said, “Nope. Her folks don’t like me much so we met here.” He looked pathetically miserable.
“Anyone else here?” Pescoli asked.
“No,” he shot back. “Like I said, we wanted to be alone.”
“What did you talk about?” Alvarez asked, her voice calm.
“Nothing.”
“The baby?” Alvarez prodded.
“No! Jesus. I didn’t . . . I didn’t know about that.” He rubbed his chin. “She wanted to get back with me. I said no. We argued.”
Pescoli asked, “Did it get physical?”
“No! Fuck. I told you. I didn’t hurt her. Never laid a hand on her!”
“So you talked and fought,” Alvarez said, sending her partner a silent warning glare to be cool. “What then?”
“She left. Mad.”
“How long was she here?” Alvarez clarified.
“About an hour, I guess, maybe a little longer. I dunno.”
“So now it was dark,” Pescoli said. “And you just let her go. By herself.”
“Yes!” Donny was getting angry, color tinging his cheeks and the back of his neck. “That was the whole point. She wanted to talk to me alone, to, you know, work things out, but it didn’t happen. That’s it. She was there, we talked, fought—just words—and then she stormed off. She always did that, just left, sometimes maybe slammed a door. That’s all I know. What she did afterward, I don’t know. I never heard from her again.”