“I promise I will find out who killed Curtis,” Nash had told his beloved.

But he hadn’t kept that promise, though that really hadn’t mattered to Cassandra. She was not one for vengeance. She just missed her big brother. So he had sworn to her right then and there. He had sworn that he would never let her know this pain again. He would protect those she loved. He would protect them always.

He had promised her that again on her deathbed.

It seemed to bring her comfort.

“You’ll be there for them?” Cassandra had asked.

“Yes.”

“And they will be there for you too.”

He had not replied to that.

Joe came toward him. Nash took in the classroom. In so many ways they had not changed at all from the days he’d been a student. There were still the handwritten rules and the cursive alphabet in both capitals and small letters. There were splashes of color everywhere. Recent artwork was drying on a clothesline.

“Something else happened,” Joe said.

“Tell me.”

“Guy Novak keeps driving by my house. He slows down and glares. I think he’s scaring Dolly and Allie.”

“Since when?”

“He’s been doing it for about a week now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t think it was important. I figured he’d stop.”

Nash closed his eyes. “And why do you think it’s important now?”

“Because Dolly got really upset when he did it this morning.”

“Guy Novak drove by your house today?”

“Yes.”

“And you think it’s an attempt to harass you?”

“What else would it be?”

Nash shook his head. “We had it wrong from the get-go.”

“What do you mean?”

But there was no reason to explain. Dolly Lewiston was still getting the e-mails. That meant one thing. Marianne hadn’t sent them out, even though, after suffering so much, she had said that she had.

Guy Novak had.

He thought about Cassandra and his promise. He knew now what he would have to do to take care of this situation.

Joe Lewiston said, “I’m such a fool.”

“Listen to me, Joe.”

He looked so scared. Nash was glad that Cassandra would never see her baby brother like this. He thought about how Cassandra had been toward the end. She had lost her hair. Her skin was jaundiced. There were open wounds on her scalp and face. She lost control of her bowels. There were times the pain seemed unbearable, but she had made him promise not to interfere. Her lips would purse and her eyes would bulge and it was like steel talons were shredding her from inside. Sores covered the inside of her mouth toward the end so that she couldn’t even speak. Nash would sit there and watch and feel the rage.

“It’s going to be okay, Joe.”

“What are you doing to do?”

“Don’t worry about it, okay? It will be fine. I promise.”

BETSY Hill waited for Adam in the small patch of woods behind her house.

This overgrown area was on their property, but they’d never bothered to clean it out. She and Ron had talked a few years back about razing it and putting in a pool, but the expense would cause a strain and the twins were still too young. So they never got around to it. Ron had built a fort back here when Spencer was nine. The kids would play on it. There had been an old swing set too, something they bought from Sears. Both had been abandoned years ago, but if she looked close enough, Betsy could still find the scattered nail or rusted piping.

The years passed and then Spencer started hanging back here with some of his friends. Betsy had found beer bottles once. She debated raising this with Spencer, but whenever she tried to broach the subject, he withdrew even more. He was a teen having a beer. What was the big deal?

“Mrs. Hill?”

She turned and saw Adam standing behind her. He had come in through the other side, from the Kadisons’ backyard.

“My God,” she said, “what happened to you?”

There was swelling on his dirty face. His arm had a huge bandage wrapped around it. His shirt was torn.

“I’m fine.”

Betsy had heeded his warning and had not called his parents. She feared blowing this opportunity. Maybe that was wrong, but she had made so many wrong decisions over the past few months, one more barely seemed relevant.

Still, her next words to him were “Your parents are so worried.”

“I know.”

“What happened, Adam? Where have you been?”

He shook his head. Something about the way he did that reminded Betsy of his father. As kids get older, you see that more-not just looking like their parents but locked into the same mannerisms. Adam was big now, taller than his dad, almost a man.

“I guess that picture has been on the memorial page for a long time,” Adam said. “I never go there.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Can I ask why?”

“It isn’t Spencer to me. You know? I mean, I don’t even know those girls who set it up. I got enough reminders. So I don’t look at it.”

“Do you know who took the picture?”

“DJ Huff, I think. I mean, I can’t be sure because I’m just in the background. I’m looking away. But DJ uploaded a lot of pictures to that site. Probably just uploaded them all and didn’t even realize it was from that night.”

“What happened, Adam?”

Adam started to cry. She had been thinking just a few seconds ago that he seemed so close to manhood. Now the man vanished, and the boy was back.

“We had a fight.”

Betsy just stood there. Maybe six feet separated them, but she could feel the hum of his blood.

“That was how he got that bruise on his face,” Adam said.

“You punched him?”

Adam nodded.

“You were his friend,” Betsy said. “Why would you fight?”

“We were drinking and getting high. It was over a girl. Things got out of hand. We pushed and then he threw a punch. I ducked it and then I hit him in the face.”

“Over a girl?”

Adam lowered his eyes.

“Who else was there?” she asked.

Adam shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“It shouldn’t. I’m the one he had the fight with.”

Betsy tried to imagine it. Her son. Her beautiful son and his last day on earth and his best friend in the world had struck him in the face. She tried to keep her tone even, but that wasn’t happening. “I don’t understand any of this. Where were you?”

“We were supposed to go to the Bronx. There’s this place there. They let kids our age party.”

“The Bronx?”

“But before we went, Spencer and I had the fight. I hit him and called him horrible names. I was so mad. And then he ran away. I should have gone after him. I didn’t. I let him go. I should have known what he would do.”

Betsy Hill just stood there, numb. She remembered what Ron had said, about how no one forced their son to steal vodka and pills from the house.

“Who killed my boy?” she asked.

But she knew.

She had known from the beginning. She had sought explanations for the unexplainable and maybe she would get one, but human behavior was usually much more complex. You find two siblings who were raised in the exact same manner and one will end up sweet and one will be a killer. Some people will chalk that up to “hardwiring,” to nature over nurture, but then sometimes it isn’t even that-it is just some random event that alters lives, something in the wind that mixes with your particular brain chemistry, anything really, and then after the tragedy, we look for explanations and maybe we find some, but it is just theorizing after the fact.

“Tell me what happened, Adam.”

“He tried to call me later,” Adam said. “Those were those calls. I saw it was him. And I didn’t answer. I just let it go into voice mail. He was already so stoned. He was depressed and down and I should have seen it. I should have forgiven him. But I didn’t. That was his last message to me. He said he was sorry and he knew the way out. He had thought about suicide before. We all talk about that. But with him it was different. It was more serious. And I fought with him. I called him names and said I’d never forgive him.”