I stood at that gas station for nearly an hour, scanning every passing car, every stranger\u2019s face, but the man never came back.<\/p>\n
Still, I couldn\u2019t let it go.<\/p>\n
The jacket had been Adam\u2019s\u2014there was no doubt in my mind. I had given it to him on his 19th birthday, and one sleeve had a cigarette burn near the cuff from the night we snuck out to a bonfire together. I saw that mark when the man walked past me.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I drove straight to my mother\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
Before I could even sit down, she looked at me and whispered, \u201cYou saw something, didn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
My blood ran cold.<\/p>\n
I told her everything.<\/p>\n
Her face drained of color, and she started trembling. Then she walked silently to her bedroom closet, reached into the back, and pulled out an old photo album. From inside it, she removed a letter\u2014one I had never seen before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got this three years after Adam disappeared,\u201d she whispered. \u201cI never told anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside was a handwritten note:<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t look for me. I left because I had to. If you love me, let me stay gone.<\/strong><\/p>\n It was signed with Adam\u2019s name.<\/p>\n I stared at her in shock. \u201cWhy would you hide this?\u201d<\/p>\n Tears filled her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I knew that wasn\u2019t all of the truth,\u201d she whispered. \u201cAnd because deep down\u2026 I always feared someone made him write it.\u201d<\/p>\n That night, for the first time in 13 years, we went to the police.<\/p>\n And this time\u2026 we had a lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I stood at that gas station for nearly an hour, scanning every passing car, every stranger\u2019s face, but the man never came back. Still, I couldn\u2019t let it go. The jacket had been Adam\u2019s\u2014there was no doubt in my mind. I had given it to him on his 19th birthday, and one sleeve had a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6020,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018\/revisions\/6020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}