Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Sure.”

“And Tophman and the rest. We ended up at Austin Reece’s place. His dad has it all set up. Awesome man cave with a huge TV, bar, pool table. Couches and recliners everywhere and then, outside, off the deck, a kick-ass pool.” He gave Pescoli a cold stare. “I didn’t leave in the middle of the night and go to Reservoir Point.”

“What time did you go home?”

“The next morning. Left around six, came home, showered, then went to work again. Had to be there by seven.” He sent them both a belligerent, defiant look this time. “Check with the other guys if you don’t believe me.”

“We will,” Pescoli assured him.

Alvarez added, “And come down to the station. We’ll need your DNA.”

“Shit, I told you I didn’t even know her.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Alvarez said.

“You damned cops. Always tryin’ to bust my balls.”

“Just do it,” Pescoli advised and after a few more questions, they left.

“Prince of a guy,” Alvarez said on the way out.

“You should meet his father.”

Once inside the sweltering car, Alvarez pulled out of the long, squat building’s parking lot and rolled down the window. “They’re all going to alibi each other for both weekends,” she said.

“Let ’em. I still want to talk to Austin Reece in person, at his place.”

“He’s lawyered up. His father, being an attorney, refused to let him talk to us without legal counsel present.”

“Well, let’s drop in and find out. I’d love to see th

is awesome ‘man cave.’ Gee, if Santana wanted one of those things when we’d been building the house, I think I would have shot him.”

Alvarez snorted as the baby gave a sudden, big kick. Pescoli sucked in a breath, then tried to call Bianca, but her daughter didn’t pick up. Nor did she respond to a text. Pescoli frowned, but told herself not to borrow trouble. Maybe Bianca was sleeping or taking one of her marathon showers, though she wasn’t supposed to get the cast wet.

“Problems?” Alvarez asked.

“Don’t know. Probably not.” She called the station and told Zoller to let her know when either of the Bell boys came in and offered up DNA samples. Clicking off, she asked, “Who do you think the father of Destiny’s baby is?” as she stuffed her phone into a pocket.

“Maybe whoever she met after she left Donny. So far, Donny seems to be the last person to see her. And he admits they fought. Maybe she told him about the baby, and he had no way of knowing that it wasn’t his, right? She might not have known. So they get into it. He sees red, strangles and shakes her so hard he snaps her neck and kills her.”

Pescoli turned the scenario over in her mind. It was possible. “Or he was in a black rage that she was seeing someone else.”

“Or, it was someone else, the real baby daddy. Someone who was jealous or had another bone to pick with her. Something that didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she was pregnant.” She paused. “Or, it could have been completely random.”

It didn’t seem that the attack was the result of the girl being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Doesn’t feel that way,” Pescoli said, squinting through the windshield. “It feels like it was done by someone she knows.”

“Someone strong as . . .”

Big Foot? “Don’t say it,” Pescoli warned.

“. . . an ox.”

“I have to think the baby was the reason. We don’t have any other motive for someone to kill her.”

“No obvious motive,” Alvarez agreed as she wheeled into the parking lot of Northern General Hospital. “But then maybe we’re being blinded by the obvious. Maybe there’s something else. Another reason someone wanted her dead.”

Pescoli’s cell phone rang, and she answered, even though she didn’t recognize the number of the incoming call. “Detective Pescoli.”