The bell sounded. The doors opened. The students made their way out in giant waves.

And Betsy almost started looking for Spencer.

It was one of those brief moments when your brain just can’t go there anymore, and you forget how horrible everything is now, and you think, for just a brief second, that it was all a bad dream. Spencer would walk out, his backpack on one shoulder, his posture in teenage stoop, and Betsy would see him and think that he needed a hair-cut and looked pale.

People talk about the stages of grief-denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance-but those stages tend to blend more in tragedy. You never stop denying. Part of you is always angry. And the whole idea of “acceptance” is obscene. Some shrinks prefer the word “resolution.” Semantically the notion was better, but it still made her want to scream.

What exactly was she doing here?

Her son was dead. Confronting one of his friends would not change that.

But for some reason it felt like it might.

So maybe Spencer hadn’t been alone that whole night. What did that change? Cliché, yes, but it wouldn’t bring him back. What was she hoping to find here?

Resolution?

And then she spotted Adam.

He was walking alone, the backpack weighing him down-weigh- ing them all down, when she thought about it. Betsy kept her eyes on Adam and moved right so that she would be in his path. Like most kids, Adam walked with his eyes down. She waited, adjusting her stance a little left or right, making sure that she stayed in front of him.

Finally, when he got close enough, she said, “Hi, Adam.”

He stopped and looked up. He was a nice-looking boy, she thought. They all were at this age. But Adam too had changed. They had all crossed some adolescent line. He was big now, tall with muscles, much more a man than a boy. She could still see the child in his face, but she could also see something like a challenge too.

“Oh,” he said. “Hi, Mrs. Hill.”

Adam started to walk away, now veering toward his left.

“Can I talk to you a moment?” Betsy called out.

He glided to a stop. “Uh, sure. Of course.”

Adam jogged toward her with athletic ease. Adam had always been a good athlete. Not Spencer. Had that been part of it? Life is so much easier in towns like this when you’re a good athlete.

He stopped maybe six feet in front of her. He couldn’t meet her eye, but few high school boys could. For a few seconds she did not say anything. She just looked at him.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Adam said.

“Yes.”

More silence. More staring. He squirmed.

“I’m really sorry,” he said.

“About?”

That answer surprised him.

“About Spencer.”

“Why?”

He didn’t reply, his eyes everywhere but on her.

“Adam, look at me.”

She was still the adult; he was still the kid. He obeyed.

“What happened that night?”

He swallowed and said, “Happened?”

“You were with Spencer.”

He shook his head. His face drained of color.

“What happened, Adam?”

“I wasn’t there.”

She held up the picture from the MySpace page, but his eyes were back on the ground.

“Adam.”

He looked up. She thrust the picture toward his face.

“That’s you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, it might be.”

“This was taken the night he died.”

He shook his head.

"Adam?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs. Hill. I didn’t see Spencer that night.”

“Look again-”

“I have to go.”

“Adam, please-”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hill.”

He ran away then. He ran back toward the brick edifice and around the back and out of sight.

CHIEF Investigator Loren Muse checked her watch. Meeting time.

“You got my goodies?” she asked.

Her assistant was a young woman named Chamique Johnson. Muse had met Chamique during a somewhat famous rape trial. After a rough start in the office, Chamique had made herself fairly indispensable.

“Right here,” Chamique said.

“This is big.”

“I know.”

Muse grabbed the envelope. “Everything in here?”

Chamique frowned. “Oh, no, you did not just ask me that.”

Muse apologized and headed across the hall to the office of the Essex County prosecutor-more specifically, the office of her boss, Paul Copeland.

The receptionist-someone new and Muse was terrible with names-greeted her with a smile. “They’re all waiting for you.”

“Who’s waiting for me?”

“Prosecutor Copeland.”

“You said, ‘they’re all.’ ”

“Pardon?”

“You said, ‘they’re all’ waiting for me. ‘They’re all’ suggests more than one. Probably more than two.”

The receptionist looked confused. “Oh, right. There must be four or five of them.”

“With Prosecutor Copeland?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

She shrugged. “Other investigators, I think.”

Muse was not sure what to make of this. She had asked for a private meeting to discuss the politically sensitive situation with Frank Tremont. She had no idea why there would be other investigators in his office.

She heard the laughter even before she got into the room. There were indeed six of them, including her boss, Paul Copeland. All men. Frank Tremont was there. So were three more of her investigators. The last man looked vaguely familiar. He held a notebook and pen and there was a tape recorder on the table in front of him.

Cope-that’s what everyone called Paul Copeland-was behind his desk and laughing hard at something Tremont had just whispered to him.

Muse felt her cheeks burn.

“Hey, Muse,” he called out.

“Cope,” she said, nodding toward the others.

“Come in and close the door.”

She entered. She stood there and felt all eyes turn toward her. More cheek burn. She felt set up and tried to glare at Cope. He was having none of it. Cope just smiled like the handsome dope he could be. She tried to signal with her eyes that she wanted to talk to him alone first-that this felt a bit like an ambush-but again he would have none of it.

“Let’s get started, shall we?”

Loren Muse said, “Okay.”

“Wait, do you know everyone here?”

Cope had caused office ripples when he first took over as county prosecutor and stunned all by promoting Muse to be his county chief investigator. The job was usually given to a gruff old-timer, always male, who was supposed to show the political appointee through the system. Loren Muse was one of the youngest investigators in the department when he selected her. When asked by the media what criteria he had used to select a young female over more seasoned male veterans, he answered in one word: “Merit.”

Now here she was, in a room with four of those same passed-by old-timers.

“I don’t know this gentleman,” Muse said, nodding toward the man with the pad and pen.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Cope put out his hand like a game show host and slapped on the TV-ready smile. “This is Tom Gaughan, a reporter for The Star – Ledger.”

Muse said nothing. Tremont’s hack of a brother-in-law. This was getting better and better.

“Mind if we start now?” he asked her.

“Suit yourself, Cope.”

“Good. Now Frank here has a complaint. Frank, go ahead, the floor is yours.”

Paul Copeland was closing in on forty years old. His wife had died of cancer right after the birth of their now-seven-year-old daughter, Cara. He had raised her alone. Until now anyway. There were no longer any pictures of Cara on his desk. There used to be. Muse remembered that when he first started, Cope had kept one on the bookshelf right behind his chair. Then one day, after they’d grilled a child molester, Cope had taken it down. She never asked him about it, but she figured that there had been a connection.

There was no picture of his fiancée either, but on Cope’s coatrack, Muse could see a tuxedo wrapped in plastic. The wedding was next Saturday. Muse would be there. She was, in fact, one of the bridesmaids.