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“I need to talk to you,” Finn said to Tate, Sam, and Frankie, ignoring Gabe and Alli. “There’s been a development.”

Alli and Gabe exchanged an awkward glance. Should they leave? Should they not move so as not to distract the sheriff?

She didn’t get a chance to decide before Finn plowed forward.

“A body has been found,” Finn said, his voice soft enough that they could hear him, but that the other patrons wouldn’t. “A new home construction site about five miles outside of town. It looks like…your mother.”

It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. No one said anything for the longest time. Sam’s smile dropped immediately, replaced by the remote mask she’d seen in the early days of knowing him.

He also dropped her hand he’d been holding, stepping back to put a bit of space between them. To an onlooker, they might not have noticed anything, but she was so in tune with this man that she could feel the tension radiating from his body in mere seconds.

“How can you be sure?”

The strangled question came from Frankie, whose face had gone pale as a ghost. She gripped the back of the chair, her knuckles white, as if her legs might give out at any time.

“The belongings found with the remains match what Lily Winslow was reported to be wearing that day. I’m sorry to have to give you this news. I wish there was a gentler way to tell you, but I wanted to let you know as soon as I did.”

“You’re sure?” Tate asked, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “You’re absolutely positive?”

“We’ll have to run DNA, of course,” the sheriff replied. “But yes, I feel confident about the identification. Everything matches. Your mother has been found.”

Sam had crossed his arms over his chest like armor against the world. He wasn’t looking at Alli, or his family, or even Sheriff Finn. His gaze was off somewhere far away.

A place she didn’t think she was welcome.

The happy, smiling man she’d woken up with this morning was long gone.

Sam didn’t want to be here.

But here he was in the corridor outside of Joel’s hospital room. From what Sam had heard, Joel had even sat in a chair for a few minutes and taken some steps around the room. Tomorrow, the doctors were planning to have him start walking up and down the hallways. Once he could do that, he would be moved to a rehabilitation center before finally going home.

Sam was here because it was the right thing to do. Being there for his siblings was paramount to him. Frankie had gone to tell Piper, along with Tate. Zack and Cooper had come to the hospital to help break the news to Joel.

Would he care? Would he be shocked?

Sam had never believed that Joel had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance and death. But he’d often wondered if the old man knew more about the situation than he’d let on.

“What are you doing here?”

The question was growled by Henry, who was perched outside of Joel’s hospital room door along with Rick, who simply rolled his eyes at Sam.

I guess you gave Henry the good news.

“We’re here to speak to Dad,” Cooper said. “And Kim. Here’s a better question. What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to talk to him, too,” Rick replied, his disdain for Cooper evident. “We don’t need to clear that with you. He can have as many visitors as he wants now.”

“Does he even want to see you?” Zack asked, a brow raised in question. “Or are you here to stress him out by complaining and whining about being canned this morning? I’m with Sam on this one. If you try to get Dad on your side by telling a bunch of lies, we’ll tell him the truth. We’ll also bring Finn in on this, and I don’t think you want that.”

“I told you that it was all a misunderstanding,” Rick lashed out, his face going red again.

At this rate, the man was going to have a stroke. He needed to calm the hell down.

“Actually,” Sam said, nodding toward Henry. “You blamed Henry for everything. Said you were just doing what he told you to. That if anyone had done something illegal, it was him.”

Henry’s indignant expression was a reward unto itself. Sam would love to drive a wedge between these two losers, but frankly, it probably couldn’t be done. They needed each other too much.

“I didn’t do anything,” Henry protested. “I mean, we didn’t do anything.”