Fool Me Twice (A Mike Stoneman Short Story)

By Kevin G. Chapman

Fool Me Twice is the short story where NYPD homicide detective Mike Stoneman first appeared in print. The story was written as an entry for a short story competition in 2012, where it won first prize. Later, Mike Stoneman became the primary protagonist in the Mike Stoneman Thriller series of novels, beginning with Righteous Assassin: A Mike Stoneman Thriller in 2018. In the short story, Mike investigates the death of a wealthy businessman, who is found dead in his swimming pool. Mike gets the story from his teenage debutante daughter, who explains that her father was chasing her and beating her after an argument. It was an accident that he fell into the pool and hit his head. Mike believes the story. Years later, the same woman calls the police to the same swimming pool, where her abusive boyfriend is dead. Mike has to decide whether the second death is just a coincidence – or is murder. Can Mike separate his sympathetic memories of the battered teenager from the facts? And can he resist the feminine wiles of this beautiful woman?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin G. Chapman
• Release date: Apr 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463054369

Kevin G. Chapman

Kevin G. Chapman is an attorney specializing in labor and employment law and in independent author. His current project is the Mike Stoneman Thriller series. Righteous Assassin (Mike Stoneman Thriller #1), was named one of the top 20 Mystery/Thrillers of 2019 by the Kindle Book Review and is a finalist for the Chanticleer Book Review CLUE award. Kevin has also written a serious political drama, A Legacy of One, self-published in 2016, which was short-listed for the Chanticleer Somerset Award for literary fiction. Kevin is a resident of West Windsor, New Jersey and is a graduate of Columbia College (‘83), where he was a classmate of Barack Obama, and Boston University School of Law. Readers can contact Kevin via his website at www.KevinGChapman.com.

Book preview

Fool Me Twice

A Mike Stoneman Short Story

Kevin G. Chapman

Copyright © 2020 by Kevin G. Chapman

ISBN:

Kindle Direct Publishing

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters depicted here are the products of the author’s imagination and any connection or similarity to any actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

Cover Photo: Shelby Bell [vwcampin]

The Mike Stoneman Thriller Series

Righteous Assassin: Mike Stoneman Thriller #1

Deadly Enterprise: Mike Stoneman Thriller #2

Coming in 2021: Lethal Voyage: Mike Stoneman Thriller #3

Other Novels by Kevin G. Chapman

Identity Crisis: A Rick LaBlonde Mystery

A Legacy of One

Visit me at www.KevinGChapman.com

For Sharon

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR.

Detective Mike Stoneman was born as a character in a short story called Fool Me Twice. I wrote the story as my entry into a writing contest sponsored by the New Jersey Corporate Counsel Association, of which I am a member. The contest required the story to have a legal theme, including crime, and it had a 5000-word length limit. The tight word limit required me to trim down the original draft from more than 8000 words! This story is presented here exactly as it appeared in the