“I figured out where I met him. He played basketball with Spencer. Before everything happened.”

Sam nodded. “That’s what he told us. Spencer went to someone he knew to get the pills, probably thinking it would be safer that way.”

Angela nodded.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s small comfort during such an unfathomable loss.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Angela said. “I know you ran yourself ragged this week chasing these people down, and it’s not a small comfort to know they can’t do this to anyone else’s family. It’s a big comfort.”

“I wish we could’ve caught them before this happened. I’ll always be sorry that we didn’t.”

Spencer’s funeral, in the same church where her father’s service had been held, was everything Sam expected it to be—poignant, funny, sweet and utterly heartbreaking.

Per Angela’s request, their brother-in-law Mike read a message from Angela to her husband. “Spencer, you were everything wonderful and good in my life. In all the years we spent together, not a day went by when you didn’t tell me how much you loved me and our family. I’ll take that love with me into an uncertain future. I don’t know how to go on without you, but I’ll find a way through for the sake of our three beautiful children. I will make sure they remember you with love and smiles and the comfort that comes from knowing they were well and truly loved by their wonderful father. Sleep in peace and comfort, my love. We’ll remember you always.” Mike’s voice broke on those last words from a wife to her husband.

Sam wiped away tears as Nick held her hand a little tighter.

Next to her, Angela sobbed softly. Sam put her arm around her sister, who leaned her head on Sam’s shoulder.

“On a personal note,” Mike said, “I want to add that I’ll remember how much Spencer loved Angela and their children, how much he was looking forward to the birth of their third child, how wonderful he was with Jack and Ella and how much fun we had together being part of the Holland family. I love you, Spence. We all love you, and we’ll miss you.”

When Mike returned to his seat, Tracy and Angela both hugged him.

“Thank you for doing that for me,” Ang said.

“Anything for you, kid,” Mike said.

Spencer’s brother, Jed, spoke on behalf of the Radcliffe family. “There are moments in life you’ll never forget, and one of them for me will be getting the call that my brother had died while my family and I were in Italy. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he’s really gone. Like, how can that be? I just talked to him before I left on the trip, and he was fine, or so I thought. I’ve since found out he wasn’t fine, but he’d chosen to keep his struggles private. Rather than talk about how he died, I’d rather focus on how he lived. I was five years older than Spencer, so I remember the day he was born and all the days since then. Spencer was a presence. If he was in the room, you knew it. If you didn’t notice him, he’d do something that would give you no choice but to notice him.”