Hard To Bear by Georgette St. Clair Page B

point in dragging this out any further.  She already found herself struggling to keep her mind on her work, with Flint’s face popping into her mind and constantly distracting her. 
    “Fine,” she said, forcing herself to sound cool and neutral.
    “I had an amazing time last night.  I’d like to see you again.  Are you up for dinner tonight?”
    She swallowed hard.   Be strong, she scolded herself. 
    “I don’t think I can make it.  I found some interesting information at the house that Adrian was renting, and I need to go talk to my publisher about it.  There were a bunch of notebooks and a journal that he’d hidden in his room, where he talked about some land parcel purchases he was investigating.  I need to get them back to the office so I can start tracking down the owners of those parcels of land.”
    “I thought you were going to leave the investigating to the police.” Flint’s voice had suddenly gone cold and hard.
    “I never said that,” she said.  “ You suggested it. I ignored you.  I’m a reporter, Flint. That’s what we do.  We investigate.”
    “Can’t you just give it a little more time?”
    “No, I can’t.  There are too many mysteries here, and I feel like there’s a common thread tying everything together, and maybe it will lead to the people who have gone missing.  I have to go, Flint, I’m driving on these windy country roads. I don’t want to hit a tree.”  She hung up her cell phone and tossed it in to her purse.
    She was almost back at the center of town when she suddenly realized blue lights were flashing behind her.
    She glanced at her speedometer.  She was going thirty miles an hour in a thirty mile an hour zone.
    Puzzled, she waited as the sheriff’s deputy strode up to her car.
    “License and registration?” the wolf shifter asked her.
    She handed them over, annoyed.  He went back to his car, and she sat there waiting until he returned and handed them back to her.
    “May I ask why you pulled me over?” she asked.
    “One of your brake lights is out.”
    “It is?” She was puzzled.  “I hadn’t noticed.”   She also wondered how he’d noticed. It was daytime. She’d been cruising at a steady speed, and hadn’t stepped on her brakes. 
    “Go stand behind the car. I’ll show you.”
    She sighed and slid out of her seat, and walked behind the car as he got in the driver’s seat.  He started the car up, and after a moment, she saw both brake lights flashed.  She walked back to the car.
    “They’re working fine,” she said, suspicious. What the heck was going on here?
    He turned off the ignition and slid out of the car.  “You must have some kind of short in the electrical system, or maybe it’s the bulb.  You should get that looked at.”
    He walked back to his patrol car, climbed in, and drove off.
    Coral sat there, puzzled, sure that he’d been up to something, but not sure what.
    Then a sneaking suspicion flared up.  She grabbed her purse and searched through it.  The journal and the notepads were gone.
    She hurled the purse on to the floor, swearing at the top of her lungs.
    Then she picked up her cell phone and called Flint.
    “Did you tell the sheriff’s office to have me pulled over?” she demanded.
    There was a long pause, and she gritted her teeth with anger.
    “Coral, I’m telling you that you need to back off this story for now.  If you’d just be patient, you might very well find that you’ll get what you need.” 
    “Be patient? Tell that to the people whose kids are missing!” Furious, Coral hung up the phone.
    Then she drove back to the newspaper, marched into the publisher’s office, and told him what had just happened.  She left out Flint’s involvement, and the fact that she suspected he was an Enforcer.
    “How do you think the sheriff’s office knew to look for those notebooks?” Mr. Brewster asked.
    “Well, this being Blue Moon Junction, anyone could have seen me going to the house that Adrian