The only son a psycholog.., p.1
The Only Son: a psychological thriller with a shocking twist, page 1
THE ONLY SON
BRIAN R. O'ROURKE
Published by Inkubator Books
www.inkubatorbooks.com
Copyright © 2023 by Brian R. O’Rourke
Brian R. O’Rourke has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83756-276-3
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-83756-277-0
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83756-278-7
THE ONLY SON is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.
CONTENTS
Inkubator Books
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
Inkubator Newsletter
Thank You For Reading
The New Husband
About the Author
Also by Brian R. O'Rourke
This novel is dedicated to my wonderful wife, Jenna, and my two amazing daughters, Fiona and Eloise.
JOIN THE INKUBATOR MAILING LIST
You will be the first to learn about new releases plus the many FREE and discounted Kindle books we offer!
bit.ly/3dOTSW2
1
SARAH
THURSDAY
The walls at the agency are not sound-proofed. The heated argument between my brother-in-law and his client is coming through loud and clear. I can hear every word they’re saying from my desk while I finish my lunch.
“I’m not upset about your relapse,” Carl says. “It’s the lies I can’t deal with anymore, Jayden. I vouched for you with the judge. The next time I go to bat for another client, he won’t believe me.”
Jayden is one of Carl’s more difficult clients, assigned to the agency through the court per the terms of his parole. He’s been to prison once already and narrowly avoided another stretch when he pled to a lesser offense.
“I ain’t lying to you!”
“I have it on good authority that you were using again,” Carl says. My brother-in-law is usually even-keeled. He’s a great social worker, hard-working, as empathetic as he is patient. But Jayden pushes all his buttons.
“Screw this, man. You just wanna put me back inside.”
“That doesn’t make a lick of sense, Jayden. If I wanted you in prison, why would I stick my neck out for—”
Carl’s office door is thrown open. Jayden emerges and shoots me a nasty look like I’ve been intentionally eavesdropping. My face turns bright red. I want to tell him I didn’t hear a thing, but I’m not very good at lying and by the time I even consider fibbing, I’ve taken too long to try.
Jayden storms out of the office, nearly bowling over another social worker standing in the aisle between cubicles.
Carl comes flying out of his office but he doesn’t give chase when he realizes Jayden is almost to the exit.
Carl resembles his brother. They have the same blue eyes and chestnut hair, though Carl is beginning to go bald and is thick around the waist in a way that my husband has never been. Dwayne is five years younger than him, is in fantastic shape, and is the handsomest man I’ve ever dated. Being very plain-looking myself, I still have days where I wonder how I landed such an attractive husband.
Carl is looking at me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, knowing it’s not.
Carl shakes his head sadly. “I really thought Jayden had gotten over the hump.”
As a social worker and counselor, Carl has worked primarily with addicts for over twenty years. All that experience has given him a surprisingly accurate intuition about when a person has finally kicked their habits, i.e. gotten over the hump. He’s not wrong often.
I feel like I should say something but everything I think to say sounds so hollow and cliché. Still, I feel bad for him. A lot of people say they want to make the world a better place, but Carl is one of the few who actually works toward that goal.
I also owe him a great deal. He was there for me when I left my first husband. And he got me this job at the agency, even though I had no college degree or relevant work experience. I’ve been his assistant for nearly ten years now.
Carl’s voice flattens. “Jayden seems determined to become another statistic.”
Before I can express sympathetically how much Carl has done for Jayden, my phone is buzzing.
It’s my son, Andrew.
Andrew normally texts, and he’s at wizarding camp right now, so this is unusual. I immediately suspect something is wrong.
“Sorry.” I hold up my phone. “It’s Andrew. Do you mind if I take this?”
Carl smiles at me. “You know you don’t have to ask.”
Carl reenters his office.
At least five other people would be able to hear my conversation if I took the call at my desk. I duck into the nearest unoccupied conference room and close the door.
“Hey, Andrew,” I answer.
“Mom.” He sounds like he’s been crying. “Can you come home?”
“What’s wrong? Why are you home?”
He bursts into tears, and my heart breaks. My first thought is he’s been bullied again. Andrew is different. We know he has a severe case of ADHD. Without medicine he can’t relax and he’s argumentative. To make matters worse, he’s also a sensitive boy, so naturally he gets picked on a lot. I suspect he might be on the spectrum too, but Dwayne is tired of us having to take him to doctors.
When school is out, Andrew prefers to be at home, by himself, typically. So I was thrilled when Andrew expressed interest in wizarding camp this summer. But now I’m worried that the typical problems he faces at school have followed him to camp. The bad kids always find him.
“Honey, tell me what’s wrong,” I say.
“Please come home.”
“Andrew, I’m at work right now.”
“Mom—please.”
He sounds scared, almost panicked.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something terrible’s happened. I just need you to come home.”
It’s a little after one o’clock. I’m supposed to work until 4:00. I had a couple things to tidy up, but they could wait until tomorrow. I haven’t left work early in years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I took a sick day.
Carl will understand, I hope.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes, okay?”
Andrew hangs up without saying goodbye. I have no idea what this is about, but I’ve never heard my son this upset before.
I stick my head in Carl’s door. He looks up from his computer.
“What’s up?”
“It’s Andrew…” Some intuition holds me back from telling Carl the truth. “Andrew’s not feeling well. Do you mind if I leave early?”
Carl doesn’t take his eyes off me. “Is everything alright?”
He’s seen through me. I’m not a very good liar, partly because I don’t get much practice at it. But it’s also because lying is not an option I normally consider.
I trust Carl, but at the same time I don’t know what’s upset Andrew so much. I have a bad feeling about what awaits me at home. Plus, my husband thinks I have a tendency to overshare. Dwayne doesn’t yell at me, but a few months ago he raised his voice when he found out I’d told Carl about his cholesterol. Dwayne is a very private man.
“Yeah.” I fake a smile and keep my voice low. “You know how Andrew can get sometimes.”
Carl nods knowingly. “It’s no big deal. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
I hurry out of the office. I’m hoping my intuition is wrong and it’s nothing bad. We don’t need any more drama this year. Andrew’s grades took a dip and he quit the basketball team halfway through the season, which infuriated Dwayne. Then there was the bullying at the end of the term.
The agency is only fifteen minutes from home. I park in the driveway. As I head up the sidewalk, I get the creepy-crawly feelings on the back of my neck like I’m being watched. I stop before I reach the porch and look down our street. We live in a nice neighborhood of single-family homes with a lot of space between houses. Dwayne does very well for himself. I really am lucky to have found a man that provides so well. My father could barely hold down a job, and my mother would spend fifty hours a week trying to finagle unemployment or disability rather than put in an honest forty hours at a real job. Needless to say, my childhood wasn’t very stable.
A curtain shifts next door. But our neighbors on that side, the Pritchards, are away on vacation. It must be their orange tabby, Hobbes. He loves watching people from the windows on the ground floor. Their niece usually comes by to take care of Hobbes while they’re gone, but I don’t see her car. They’re not due home till next week.
I look past the Pritchard house but don’t catch anyone spying on me. Everybody else in that direction is at work as far as I know. The only other person who might be around is our neighbor’s seventeen-year-old son, John DeMarco. He’s on summer break and last I heard, he just got fired from his part-time job at the deli around the corner. John is a wild kid who’s always getting into trouble.
At a neighborhood party a few weeks ago, I caught John looking down my dress while I bent over to get a beer out of the cooler for Dwayne. When I gave him a reproving look, he just shrugged and with a smile told me I had great tits. I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to say, and when Nora from next door came in to grab a drink I acted like nothing had happened. I thought about discussing the disrespectful behavior with John’s mother but didn’t want to turn it into a big thing.
If Dwayne knew, he’d probably kill the kid.
Not seeing anyone about, I proceed to my house.
The front door is locked, which I find odd. Andrew has a bad habit of never locking doors when we’re leaving the house, so it seems strange he’d shut himself in, especially when he knows I’m due home any moment.
After fumbling with my keys and getting inside, I call out from the foyer.
“Andrew, honey, where are you?”
“In here.”
Andrew comes out of the den. He won’t meet my eyes. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. They’re all over the place.
“What’s wrong?”
His lower lip trembles. “I didn’t do it, I swear.”
“Do what?”
“He’s in the garage.”
2
SARAH
“Who’s in the garage?” I ask.
Andrew shakes his head and covers his face with his hands before bursting into tears again. “I swear. I didn’t do this.”
“Do what?”
He won’t look at me, won’t answer my question. And now his words are beginning to sink in. There’s someone in the garage. And I know, without Andrew coming out and saying it, that this person, whoever it is, must be…
“Andrew, what happened?”
He tears his hands away from his face. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are wet with tears.
“I left camp early because there were these two assholes making fun of my costume and I came home and he was here in the garage like that. Just … dead. I didn’t do anything, I didn’t even touch him. I swear!”
Dead. There it is.
There’s a dead person in my garage. And—I hate the next thought that occurs to me—my son found the body. I’m not a detective. I don’t even read mystery novels or watch crime shows. All those things upset me.
But I know what this means. I know how this looks. There’s a dead person in my house, and Andrew is the one who discovered him.
“Andrew—”
Before I can say anything else, my son bolts upstairs. I hear his bedroom door close. I don’t know what to do. I wish Dwayne were here. But I can’t call him without knowing exactly what the problem is. He hates when I do that.
I hurry through the kitchen. The door to the garage is open, another oddity. Even Andrew always remembers to close it.
I stick my head in the doorway and peer inside. Right there, in the middle of the concrete, is a body lying on its back. It’s obvious the person is dead, but still I call out.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
No response. I watch the body. Its chest doesn’t rise and fall with breath. Though long blond hair obscures the face, I feel like I know this person. The body is angled away from me, its head closest and its feet farthest. But I can tell the body belongs—or belonged—to a young man.
To a teenager.
Oh God…
I step into the garage, careful not to touch anything. I’m already thinking of my house as a crime scene.
Keeping my distance, I round the body so I’m standing at its feet now. There’s no blood, but my immediate intuition is that this was a violent death. His head is tilted backward, his neck bulges, and his jaw juts. His mouth is open, his jaw locked as if he were gasping for air. Though the boy’s long blond hair obscures half his face, the cheek that is visible appears puffy. The lifeless eye I can see is sickeningly rolled back into his head and horribly bloodshot. I bite back the bile creeping up my throat.
Now that I’ve gotten a closer look, I notice the marks on his neck too. As a mother of a teenaged boy, I know what fresh bruises look like. But there are also other markings. The skin of his neck looks raw, almost like it’s been scrubbed by something rough. With a flash of insight, I realize what has happened: this boy was hit hard in the face, pinned to the ground, then strangled. And once that was done, the killer frantically scrubbed the victim’s neck, presumably to remove any DNA evidence.
I clamp a hand over my mouth and fight tears. Who would do this? And why? And why would it have happened here?
It’s while I’m asking myself these awful questions that I finally recognize the young man. It shouldn’t have taken me this long. After all, I’ve known him for thirteen years. Under all that hair, under the swelling, under the bruising, it’s Hal English.
Hal and my son used to be best friends.
3
SARAH
I don’t know what to do.
I should call the police.
No, first I should call a lawyer. Right?
No, the first person I should call is Dwayne. I can’t talk to an attorney or a police officer before speaking to my husband.
I return to the kitchen, leaving the interior door to the garage open, and phone Dwayne. Hopefully he’s not trapped in one of his many meetings and can actually take the call.
“Sarah, now’s not a great time,” Dwayne answers in a huff, and I cringe. He owns his own business, so I try not to bother him during the work day. The man basically runs from one meeting to the next and often works through lunch. “What is it?”
