Hard To Bear Read Online Free PDF

puzzled. “Have you checked with the sheriff’s department?”
                  The woman burst into tears. “They’re giving me the runaround,” she sniffled. “You have to understand, I know my son, and he simply would not disappear like that.   The note was fake.  Why do you think it was typewritten? Because he didn’t write it.”
                  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about a note. Have a seat.”  She pulled up an empty chair for the woman, and sat down to face her.
                  “My name is Molly Freidman,” the woman said dolefully. She pulled a crumpled up handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at her eyes.
    “Coral Colby,” she said.  “Tell me what you know so far.”
                  “My son had worked here for several months when he just disappeared.  didn’t come in to work one day, and he always shows up on time, so by mid morning, when he didn’t answer his phone, your boss went by the house he was renting to check on him. When nobody answered the door, your boss called the sheriff’s office.” Tears welled in the woman’s eyes.  Coral grabbed a box of tissues from her desk and handed it to her, and the woman blew her nose noisily and tossed the wadded up tissue into the trash can. 
    “Thank you,” she said shakily.   “ They got the landlord to let them in, and the place was empty.  His clothing and suitcase were gone. There was a typewritten note saying that he needed to travel for a while to figure out what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.”
                  “And you don’t think there’s any possibility the note was legitimate? I understand that he’s your son, but kids don’t always tell their parents everything.  If he was having second thoughts about his career, maybe he wanted to work it out on his own.”
                  “No, he was very excited about being a reporter, and he even said that he was working on some big story, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.  Being a newspaper reporter had been his dream his whole life.  And we talked all the time. We talked the night before he disappeared, and he was in a great mood.  When he disappeared, I came here from Cleveland, where we’re from, and filed a missing person’s report, and they acted like I was over-reacting.  Then I went and looked at his apartment.  Somebody had searched it.   There were rugs pushed back, chairs knocked over.  I asked his landlord, and he said that he’d heard someone breaking in there and chased them off with a shotgun, but he didn’t get a good look at them.  I told the sheriff’s department, and they said that somebody had probably broken in because they knew it was vacant now.  What I think is, someone kidnapped him, and they broke in because they were looking for something.”
                  Coral frowned, wondering if the woman was just a stressed-out parent or if there was something more going on. 
    “ I found out more,” Molly said, running her shaking hand through her hair. “I found out that two other people from Blue Moon Junction have disappeared recently.  Did anyone tell you about that?”
                  “No,” Coral said, perking up. Now this sounded like a story.  She glanced across the room, and saw the publisher, Mr. Brewster, in his office, waving at her. He was making some kind of hand gesture at her. He was circling his finger at his temple, indicating the woman was crazy.
                  “David Bollinger was out of town on a business trip a few weeks ago,”  the woman said.  “His wife reported him missing. The police say that it’s because he and his wife were going through a rough patch, and he just wanted to disappear and start over – but he’s got two teenagers in high school.  Would he just completely disappear like that, without saying goodbye, when he could easily have filed for divorce?