The one named Darnell cleared his throat. ‘Uh, I think I’m gonna bounce, man.’

Cord’s stare drilled into the kid. ‘How about you wait a few more minutes and answer a few questions for us first? Start with where you were this past Saturday.’

Darnell’s head flopped back and forth, hair flying into his face like he was a live Bobble Head, except instead of being perched on someone’s dash, he was stuck on this porch. ‘Uh, I live down in Hobbs, man. I just came up last night to visit my cousin here. I was heading back today. Gotta work, you know.’ His left eye twitched, either because he was lying or nervous – or both.

‘What’s your last name?’ Alyssa asked.

‘Williams?’ He posed his response as a question.

‘Are you asking me? You don’t know what your own last name is?’

Bright red circles stained both cheeks as he stammered, ‘Naw, man, I know. Williams.’ He nodded his head as if he was still trying to convince himself.

Alyssa’s stare caused him to shuffle his feet back and forth. ‘Who can verify you were in Hobbs Saturday?’

‘My boss. I was working, so yeah.’

‘You always work on Saturday?’

Another quick jerk of the neck. ‘Yeah. I’m off Sundays and Mondays.’

‘Where do you work?’ Alyssa’s eyes held steady even as Darnell’s landed anywhere except on her or Cord.

‘Dawson Construction. I’m learning to be an electrician. We worked until five, then a group of us hit up a bar.’ He fumbled in his back pocket before producing his license. ‘Uh, do you need to see my ID?’ Alyssa almost laughed.

Instead she grabbed the license and handed it behind her to Cord so he could jot down the information. ‘Is the address on your license current?’

Darnell’s head jerked forward. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘We’re also going to need a phone number in case we need to contact you later, along with your boss’s name and number as well as the boys you hit the bar with.’

‘Wh–wh –why do you need to get ahold of them?’ His eyes darted to the driveway where, Alyssa assumed, one of the cars there belonged to him.

‘To verify you were where you said.’

‘Oh, right. Sure, sure.’ Rubbing at his nose, Darnell pulled his phone from his pocket and opened his contacts. A minute later he rambled off the names and numbers of his boss and the three guys he claimed to have been with Saturday night, and the second Alyssa told him he was free to go, he wasted no time skirting past them as he scampered over to his car.

Alyssa watched him back out of the drive before she turned back to Chance, who watched his cousin disappear around the corner. When he brought his gaze back around, he skipped over Cord to land on Alyssa, a smirk replacing the indiscernible expression he’d been wearing. Leaning back once more in his metal chair, he rested his left ankle on his right knee, the stress on his jeans causing the tattered holes to rip further. ‘If you’re here about that frat party, I didn’t see nothing or no one.’ He cleared his throat and then spit off the porch.