Two good men, p.1
Two Good Men, page 1
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“A twisted plot with believable characters, you can’t help but need to turn page after page while questioning your own reactions. S. E. Redfearn has once again grabbed hold of her readers’ emotions.”
—STEENA HOLMES, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Sister Under the Stairs
“Compulsive and compelling. A powerful meditation on good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and justice vs. vengeance…Suspenseful, uncompromising, and timely; don’t miss it.”
—J. TODD SCOTT, author of Call the Dark
“A cat and mouse game like no other!…With twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the final page, this is a masterful take on the true meaning of morality.”
—BROOKE BEYFUSS, author of After We Were Stolen
“Redfearn impresses in this taut thriller.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“A brisk and gritty thriller with a strong psychological undercurrent.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
BOOKS BY S. E. REDFEARN
as s. e. redfearn
Two Good Men
as suzanne redfearn
Where Butterflies Wander
Moment in Time
Hadley & Grace
In an Instant
No Ordinary Life
Hush Little Baby
TWO GOOD MEN
S. E. REDFEARN
Copyright © 2024 by Suzanne Redfearn
E-book published in 2024 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Alenka Vdovič Linaschke
All rights reserved. This book or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission
of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations
in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 979-8-212-26312-2
Library e-book ISBN 979-8-212-26311-5
Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
For
My family
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
—NELSON MANDELA
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Author’s note
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
ONE
Dick stares at the two birthday cards on his desk in front of him, still unable to decide: Taylor Swift or the teddy bear? The Taylor card sings, but he can’t recall if Kiley idolizes or despises the singer. He spent an hour in the Hallmark store trying to find the perfect card to welcome his daughter into teenagedom. Finally, the salesclerk took pity on him. She asked Kiley’s age, then handed him the Taylor Swift card. The woman frowned at his teddy bear choice. Dick bought both.
He smiles at the teddy bear card. It reminds him of the stuffed bear Kiley slept with when she was a toddler, a brown raggedy animal, half an ear gone and only one black button eye.
It’s hard to believe so much time has passed.
His alarm beeps, and he puts the cards back in his briefcase, grabs his cigarettes, and walks from the cubicle. With a nod to Graham, who is at his workbench in the lab, he continues to the stairs, then climbs the three flights to the roof of Pentco Pharmaceuticals.
Squinting against the brightness, he walks to the parapet, lights a cigarette, and takes a deep drag. The soothing nicotine fills his lungs, giving him his third heady buzz of the day. As the smoke drifts, he looks at the brilliant blue sky stretched to the Santa Ana Mountains in the distance and thinks God must hold a special place in His twisted, sadistic heart especially for him. For a month, he’s waited for the steely gray clouds to clear, and now, here it is, a day beautiful as the maker can make, and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.
He glances over the parapet at the concrete below then back at the mountains and sighs. Man plans, and God laughs, his dad used to say.
The thought occurred to him on a morning similar to this but the sun obscured. There was nothing particularly memorable about the moment except for the certainty. Nothing to look forward to, and the best of his life behind him. He might have done it right then but didn’t like the idea of leaving on such a gloomy day. He wanted baseball weather, blue skies and sun. But like a cruel joke, the past month set records for consecutive days of overcast skies and rain, Southern California dark and stormy as Seattle.
He lifts his face and sneers at the blinding blue heavens, then lowers it back to the sidewalk. Give or take, it’s about thirty feet. A thin hedge runs beside the strip of concrete, the bushes trimmed each Tuesday by a pair of brothers, Eduardo and Armando. The landscape team has been with the company longer than Dick. He remembers meeting them his first day, his boss at the time introducing him as the new hotshot chemist who was going to find a cure for allergies.
He scoffs and flicks the ashes of his cigarette over the edge, watching as they float like snow to the ground. His own fall, accounting for acceleration, will take less than a second. Which means, in less time than it takes to inhale a breath, the toil of thirty-nine years will be over.
He studies the spot he expects to land and considers again the awful possibility of failing, of waking up to people oohing and ahhing and tsking over him. The odds are slim, the physics of survival nearly impossible, but bad luck has always had a way of finding him.
With a last glance at the stunning blue sky, he crushes the cigarette beneath his toe and returns to the stairs, a hard wish in his heart that the weather holds until Monday.
TWO
It’s strange having to knock.
“You’re early,” Caroline says, clearly displeased. “I’ll take that.”
His ex-wife relieves him of his boxed burden—pink Heelys, size seven, bought from the sporting goods store for $79.95. Kiley knows it’s what she’s getting from him. She dictated what she wanted to Caroline, who then dictated it to Dick. He’d wrapped them anyway.
Taped to the top is the card. He settled on the teddy bear—too unsure to give her the other one. The front of the card reads, “To my daughter on her birthday.” Inside, “You’re a beautiful sight and stuffed just right.” He signed it, “Love, Dad.”
He follows Caroline through his living room and his kitchen to his backyard. Kiley is on the trampoline with Jim. Dick smiles and waves, uncertain as he always is around his kids, a strange feeling made stranger by knowing other men don’t feel this way. His kids are the most important thing in the world to him, the thing he works for and would die for, yet constantly they baffle and terrify him. He’s felt it since they were born, enamored and panicked at once.
Kiley ignores him, while Jim gives a slight nod.
“Hello, Dick. Can I get you a drink?” The meaty palm of Pete, Caroline’s new husband, extends toward him. Pete is the same height as Dick, an inch or two over six feet, but that’s where the similarities end. Pete is thick; Dick is thin. Pete is ruddy and covered in hair—head, face, forearms, tufts sticking out of his collar at his chest. Dick is fair and still unable to grow a full beard. Pete is a plumber. Dick is a chemist.
“Thanks, Pete, but I think I still remember where the beers are.”
In the kitchen, he finds Caroline pouring small carrots from a plastic bag onto a plate. She looks good, her dark hair freshly dyed and her face made up with eyeliner and lipstick. She’s kept off most of the weight she lost for her wedding two months ago and looks happier than she did when they were married.
He grabs a Heineken from the fridge and, ignoring her peeved look, retrieves the bottle opener from the top drawer beside the sink. He pops off the cap, then, knowing it will irritate her even more, sets the cap and opener on the spotless counter.
She opens her mouth to snap at him but, saved by the bell, the door chime interrupts. He smirks, and she sneers, then hurries off to greet the guests.
Dick takes a long swig and returns outside.
Three beers and one cold slice of Domino’s pizza later, the party is over. The gifts have been opened and the wrapping paper and empty boxes cast aside. Kneeling, he retrieves his unopened card from beneath the wrought-iron patio set he and Caroline picked out a decade ago.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he says, handing Kiley the lavender envelope and giving her a peck on her dark curls.
She groans and shifts away. He leaves her and crosses the yard to Jim, who is again on the trampoline. “Hey, buddy, I’m going to take off. I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“Then say it,” Jim says, playing up his insolence for his friends.
Dick stands awkwardly a moment before giving a thin smile along with half a wave. He doesn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone else.
He gets to his apartment a little after eight, sighs at the television, then marches back out the door. The rest of the evening is spent drinking beer and watching the Angels play the Padres at the bar down the street.
Near midnight, almost drunk enough to be numb, he returns. He pulls his phone from his pocket to change for bed, surprised to see the voicemail symbol lit up.
“Dick, how could you?” Caroline’s voice squawks.
He shakes his head and slumps to sit on the mattress.
“What kind of a cruel card is that to give your daughter?”
Cruel?
“‘Stuffed just right’!” she shrieks. “Kiley hasn’t stopped crying since you left. It’s not her fault she’s overweight. I wouldn’t blame her if she never forgave you. I certainly wouldn’t—”
Dick taps the screen, cutting off the rant, then drops his elbows to his knees and his face to his hands. He rubs his sockets as if trying to erase the day, then without bothering to change, crawls beneath the covers and falls into drunken sleep, visions of teddy bears and gray concrete swirling in his mind.
THREE
His head fuzzy from his hangover, Dick sets the groceries on the counter, makes himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and pours himself a ginger ale. Then he settles on the couch to watch the second game of the Angels-Padres series.
His phone buzzes, signaling a new voicemail. He considers ignoring it, certain it’s Caroline continuing her beratement. But then, mostly out of boredom, he pulls it from his pocket to see there are actually three messages, all from his sister.
He taps the first one, left an hour ago when he was at the grocery store.
“Dickie, call me,” Dee says.
He moves on to the next, left fifteen minutes ago on his drive home.
“Where are you?” she says, her voice tight.
His pulse ticks up a notch as he taps the one left a moment ago.
“Jesse and I are going to Janelle’s. Call me when you get this.”
Janelle is his sister’s best friend.
He hits the callback button, and Dee picks up on the first ring.
“He’s back,” she says without a greeting.
He blinks at the words, which make no sense, though he understands perfectly what she is saying.
“Otis is back,” she says, confirming it.
Twelve years ago, Dee’s neighbor, Otis Parsons, was sentenced to twenty years for raping Ed Collins, the eleven-year-old brother of Joe Collins, Dee’s boyfriend at the time.
“Did you hear me?” Dee asks, and he realizes he hasn’t responded.
“Huh? Yeah. How?”
“Does it matter?” she says, her fear reverberating through the phone.
He supposes it doesn’t, but he has always struggled with things that don’t make sense. Twenty years is still eight years away.
“I don’t know what to do,” Dee says.
“Did you call the police?”
“I did. As soon as I realized he was back, I called Sheriff Barton.”
“And?”
“And he said there’s nothing he can do. Otis served his time and can live where he wants.”
“But he didn’t serve his time.”
“Dickie, stop!”
“Okay,” he says, squeezing his eyes tight and forcing himself past it. “Is Jesse okay?”
“Freaked out by my freak-out, but other than that, yeah, he’s okay. He’s inside playing Monopoly with Janelle.”
Dick imagines his nephew and Janelle sitting in Janelle’s cluttered living room—Janelle giggling as she collects properties based on their colors, and Jesse generously trying not to bankrupt her, telling her it’s okay if she doesn’t pay the rent when she lands on his properties and trading her Boardwalk for Baltic Avenue so she’ll have the pretty blue match to Park Place. Janelle loves having fun but couldn’t care less about winning.
“He’s going to make good on his threat,” Dee says at the same time Dick thinks it, his heart clenching tight like a fist.
Twelve years ago, it was Dee’s testimony that put Otis behind bars. And a year later, when Jesse was born, Otis wrote her from prison congratulating her on the birth and saying how happy he was that she’d had a boy and how he couldn’t wait to meet him.
Dee gave the letter to Sheriff Barton, and a copy was put in Otis’s file, but since there was no actual threat, there was nothing more that could be done. At the time, Dee wasn’t overly concerned. By the time Otis got out, Jesse would be grown.
But Jesse isn’t grown. Jesse is eleven, the same age Ed was when Otis raped him.
“Are you there?” Dee says.
“Yeah. Just give me a second.”
