Alex was pretending to read the Town of Sterling Annual Report when Josie suddenly burst out of the secured door into the police station’s waiting area. She was crying hard, and Patrick Ducharme was nowhere in sight. I’ll kill him, Alex thought rationally, calmly, after I take care of my daughter.

“Josie,” she said, as Josie ran past her out of the building, toward the parking lot. Alex hurried after her, finally catching up to Josie in front of their car. She wrapped her arms around Josie’s waist and felt her buckle. “Leave me alone,” Josie sobbed.

“Josie, honey, what did he say to you? Talk to me.”

“I can’t talk to you! You don’t understand. None of you understand.” Josie backed away. “The people who do, they’re all dead.”

Alex hesitated, unsure of the right move. She could fold Josie tighter into an embrace and let her cry. Or she could make her see that no matter how upset she was, it was something she had the resources to handle. Sort of like an Allen charge, Alex realized-the instruction a judge would give to a jury that wasn’t getting anywhere in its deliberations, which basically reminded them of their duty as American citizens, and assured them that they could and would come to a consensus.

It had always worked for her in court.

“I know this is hard, Josie, but you’re stronger than you think, and-”

Josie shoved her hard, breaking away. “Stop talking to me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some fucking witness or lawyer you’re trying to impress!”

“Your Honor. Sorry to interrupt.”

Alex wheeled around to find Patrick Ducharme standing two feet behind them, listening to every single word. Her cheeks reddened; this was exactly the kind of behavior you didn’t put on public display when you were a judge. He’d probably go back into the police station and send out a mass email to the entire force: Guess what I just overheard.

“Your daughter,” he said. “She forgot her sweatshirt.”

Pink and hooded, it was folded neatly over his arm. He handed it to Josie. But then, instead of backing away, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Josie,” he said, meeting her gaze as if they were the only two people in this world. “We’re going to make this okay.”

Alex expected Josie to snap at him, too, but instead Josie went calm under his touch. She nodded, as if she believed this for the first time since the shooting had occurred.

Alex felt something rise inside her-relief, she realized, that her daughter had finally reached out for the slightest bit of hope. And regret, bitter as any almond, because she had not been the one to put the peace back into her daughter’s face.

Josie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “You all right?” Ducharme asked.

“I guess.”

“Good.” The detective nodded in Alex’s direction. “Judge.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, as he turned and started back to the police station.

Alex heard the slam of the car door as Josie slipped into the passenger seat, but she watched Patrick Ducharme until he disappeared from sight. I wish it had been me, Alex thought, and she deliberately kept herself from filling in the rest of that sentence.

Like Peter, Derek Markowitz was a computer whiz. Like Peter, he hadn’t been blessed with muscles and height or, for that matter, any gifts of puberty. He had hair that stuck up in small tufts, as if it had been planted. He wore his shirt tucked into his pants at all times, and he had never been popular.

Unlike Peter, he hadn’t gone to school one day and killed ten people.

Selena sat at the Markowitzes’ kitchen table, while Dee Dee Markowitz watched her like a hawk. She was there to interview Derek in the hope that he could be a witness for the defense-but to be perfectly honest, the information Derek had given her so far made him a much better candidate for the prosecution.

“What if it’s all my fault?” Derek was saying. “I mean, I’m the only one who was given a clue. If I’d been listening harder, maybe I could have stopped him. I could have told someone else. But instead, I figured he was joking around.”

“I don’t think anyone would have done any differently in your situation,” Selena said gently, and she meant it. “The Peter you knew wasn’t the one who went to the school that day.”

“Yeah,” Derek said, and he nodded to himself.

“Are you about finished?” Dee Dee asked, stepping forward. “Derek’s got a violin lesson.”

“Almost, Mrs. Markowitz. I just wanted to ask Derek about the Peter he did know. How’d you two meet?”

“We were both on a soccer team together in sixth grade,” Derek said, “and we both sucked.”

“Derek!”

“Sorry, Mom, but it’s true.” He glanced up at Selena. “Then again, none of those jocks could write HTML code if their lives depended on it.”

Selena smiled. “Yeah, well, count me in the ranks of the technologically impaired. So you two got to be friends while you were on the team?”

“We hung out on the bench, because we were never put in to play,” Derek said. “But no, we weren’t really friends until after that, when he stopped hanging out with Josie.”

Selena fumbled her pen. “Josie?”

“Yeah, Josie Cormier. She goes to the school, too.”

“And she’s Peter’s friend?”

“She used to be, like, the only kid he ever hung around with,” Derek explained, “but then she became one of the cool kids, and she ditched him.” He looked at Selena. “Peter didn’t care, really. He said she’d turned into a bitch.”

“Derek!”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said. “But again, it’s true.”

“Would you excuse me?” Selena asked.

She walked out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, where she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed home. “It’s me,” she said when Jordan answered, and then she hesitated. “Why is it so quiet?”

“Sam’s asleep.”

“You didn’t pop in another Wiggles video just to get your discovery read, did you?”

“Did you call specifically to accuse me of lousy parenting?”

“No,” Selena said. “I called to tell you that Peter and Josie used to be best friends.”

In maximum security, Peter was allowed only one real visitor a week, but certain people didn’t count. For example, your lawyer could come and see you as many times as necessary. And-here’s the crazy thing-so could reporters. All Peter had to do was sign a little release that said he was willingly making the choice to speak to the media, and Elena Battista was allowed to meet him.

She was hot. Peter noticed that right away. Instead of wearing some shapeless oversized sweater, she had dressed in a tight blouse with buttons. If he leaned forward, he could even see cleavage.

She had long, thick curly hair and doe-brown eyes, and Peter found it really hard to believe that she had ever been teased by anyone in high school. But she was sitting in front of him, that much was true, and she could barely look him in the eyes. “I can’t believe this,” she said, her toes coming right up to the red line that separated them. “I can’t believe I’m actually meeting you.”

Peter pretended he heard this all the time. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s cool that you drove up here.”

“Oh, God, that was the least I could do,” Elena said. Peter thought of stories he’d heard, of groupies who’d written to inmates and eventually married them in a prison ceremony. He thought of the correctional officer who’d brought Elena in, and wondered if he was telling everyone else that Peter Houghton had some hot girl visiting him.

“You don’t mind if I take notes, do you?” Elena asked. “For my paper?”

“That’s cool.”

He watched her pull out a pencil and hold the cap in her mouth while she opened her notebook to a fresh page. “So, like I told you, I’m writing about the effects of bullying.”

“How come?”

“Well, there were times when I was in high school that I thought I’d rather just kill myself than go back to class the next day, because it would be easier. I figured if I was thinking it, there had to be other people thinking it, too…and that’s where I came up with the idea.” She leaned forward-cleavage alert-and met Peter’s eyes. “I’m hoping I can get it published in a psychology journal or something.”