Pretenses

Keith Lee Johnson

Strebor Books International

PRETENSES

O
THER BOOKS BY
K
EITH
L
EE
J
OHNSON

Sugar & Spice

Fate's Redemption
(Summer 2005)

PRETENSES

Keith Lee Johnson

A Strebor Books International LLC Publication

Distributed by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Published by

Strebor Books International LLC
P.O. Box 1370 Bowie, MD 20718
http://www.streborbooks.com

Pretenses
© 2004 by Keith Lee Johnson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical or photocopying
or stored in a retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher except by
a reviewer who may quote brief passages to be included in a review.

ISBN-13: 978-1-593-09018-0

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-12255-6

LCCN 2003112280

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Distributed by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
1-800-223-2336

Cover art: © www.mariondesigns.com

First Printing June 2004

Manufactured and Printed in the United States

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

Praise for PRETENSES

“Keith Lee Johnson has worked his magic in this wonderfully written suspense thriller.
Pretenses
is packed with multi-layered suspenseful plots that will leave a reader thirsty for more. The name states it all as raw truths are revealed. Murder, deception, and betrayal—a must-read.”

—Tee C Royal of RAWSISTAZ Book Club

“
Pretenses
is intriguing! I couldn't put it down. It moves quickly and had me guessing.”

—Valorie M. Taylor, author of
Secrets of Gingerbread Men

“Entertaining and suspenseful, Phoenix Perry is a heroine for the new millennium.”

—Sibylla Nash, author of
Dream City

“Keith Lee Johnson's novel,
Pretenses
is vivid, fast and thoughtfully paced, exciting, sobering. The action scenes and violence are especially brilliant. The whole work is written in a very lean prose while carrying some very important themes. There is a wealth of surprises and twists of plot to please the most demanding reader of this popular genre.”

—James Cunningham, Dept. of English, University of Toledo

TO
L
ILA
T
HORNTON
,
WHO BELIEVED IN ME
.
Your kind words of encouragement served as the rocket launcher
that ignited the flame and helped me write this book in 30 days.
Thanks for believing I could do it.

To Him, who is able to do considerably more than I can ask or think; I give thanks.

To Kung Fu Master, Jeff Weasel of the Tiger's Den Martial Arts School, who taught me what little I know of the art, thank you.

To Leonard Kress, my fiction writing teacher at Owens Community College, your encouragement to write Life Choices way back in 1996 was very instrumental in launching my career. Thanks for telling me to finish that short story in your class. I'm often asked, “What made you start writing?” I have answered this question so many times that I've lost count. But I always tell the story about you and fellow professor, Shannon Smith, sitting in your cubicles, discussing that original short story that became a 579-page novel. I often wonder what would have happened if Shannon had not mentioned my short to you? Would I be an author today?

To Martina “Tee C” Royal of RAWSISTAZ Book Club, thanks for spreading the word and being a genuine source of encouragement.

To the dead (Bruce Lee, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), your words and philosophies live on in me.

Special thanks to the Toledo Public Library for all its help researching this and other projects.

To fellow Toledoan Marcus Cordland, thanks for the use of your image. You helped bring Keyth to life.

To my editor, Sibylla Nash, author of
Dream City
, thanks for all the insight and a myriad of helpful questions on this and other projects. I'm looking forward to working with you again.

A very special thank you goes out to Police Officer Pamela Adrienne Wise-Wilson, who spread the word among her coworkers at 911 Emergency in Toledo, Ohio. You've been a huge help.

To Daryl Newsome, Dana Ingram, Bonnie Williams, Annie Toyer, Billie Kwiatkowski, Gail Washington, and my uncle Eddie Gray Hooker for purchasing Sugar & Spice and spreading the word.

To Roderick Vincent Allen, my best friend, and his father George Allen, who treated me like a son since I was fifteen years old, thanks for all the free barbeque from your restaurant in Toledo—Mister Big Stuff's Plantation Barbeque.

To Leonora Hunter, I appreciate all that you're doing in San Diego to help get my name out there in the wild, wild West.

To Trena Bell, founder of the Black Pearls Book Club in Dallas, Texas, thanks so much for picking me up at Love Field Airport and showing me a wonderful time while I was there in August 2003. I'm looking forward to meeting with you and all the pearls again.

A special thanks goes out to Professors Lorry Cology and Linda See, and all my teachers at Owens, for all of their encouragement.

Special, special thanks to Zane, Charmaine Parker, and Strebor Books International for diligently working behind the scenes on my behalf, making my dreams a tangible reality, for opening the door of opportunity, making all the BS I've been through with wannabes in the publishing arena (so-called agents, publishers [more than one] etcetera) WORTH IT ALL. I have struggled for seven years in relative obscurity, wanting to work with other black folk (not that I'm against working with whites) who had a vision of working together for once in our collective lives, and not be at one another's throats in the process. I fully understand that anything worth achieving will not be easy, but Zane, you, Charmaine, and Pamela Crockett have been a bright and burning light by which other African-American publishers can learn and model their own companies; putting
such things as honesty first and actually paying your authors what's due them, and paying them on time without excuses, which indeed is truly the American way.

Special thanks to Camille and Romaine James, a set of identical African-American clairvoyant twins who predicted I would meet a woman (Zane) from the East and that that woman would help me become a big success. Well, Camille and Romaine, you young ladies predicted this nearly a year ago and half of your prediction has come to pass…How could I have forgotten to acknowledge you two sweet women? Please find it in your hearts to forgive me.

To Donna Garth, wife of one of my best friends, Fred, who took the time out of her busy schedule to read my mysteries, a genre she doesn't usually read. Thanks so much!

Thanks to Larry Whatley of the Urban Beat radio program in Toledo, Ohio. Thanks for the air time, my brother. We must do it again. I had so much fun. You let a brotha talk. And if you know me at all, I have to say whats on my mind. Thanks!

9400 Mount Vernon Circle
Alexandria, Virginia
June 2001

A
FIGURE
, dressed in a black uniform, nested in a tree across the street from the house, waiting for Supreme Court nominee Jennifer Taylor to arrive. It was all so perfect. No one would be able to figure out the real reason Jennifer and Webster Taylor had been murdered. Influenced by the media hype, people might assume that they were murdered because of their opposition to abortion, which had nothing to do with it. Something far more shocking was going on. The Taylors would be the first of a long list of people to be killed. But none of that mattered now. The loving couple would be dead in a few minutes.

If necessary, the figure would have stayed in the tree until dawn, remaining perfectly still, hidden by the foliage. From the comfortable perch, the figure was able to scrutinize every car that entered the cul-de-sac.

At 11:00, Judge Taylor's black Mercedes-Benz cruised quietly up the street and turned into the driveway. Immediately, the figure jumped from the tree when the automatic garage door began to open and ran across the street. Judge Taylor hit the door button and entered the house without waiting for the automatic door to close completely. The figure walked into the garage, breaking the motion detector beam. The garage door stopped descending and automatically reversed.

Webster Taylor sat in front of the television set in the living room cheering on the Los Angeles Lakers.

“Who's winning, Web?” the figure heard the Supreme Court nominee ask her husband.

The figure could see the long-legged, fifty-five-year-old beauty who had no idea the figure was stealthily creeping toward her. The carpeted hallway absorbed the sound of footsteps as the figure tiptoed further and further. A few more steps and the figure would be within reach of the controversial judge.

“My Lakers! Kobe Bryant is having a field day. How'd the meeting go?”

“Terrible. We can talk about it after the game.”

The figure entered the living room, kicked Judge Taylor in the back of her knee with a powerful thrust kick, and then grabbed a hunk of her thick hair and jerked sharply to the right, snapping her neck like a twig. Jennifer Taylor grunted a little just before taking her last breath.

Hearing the sound, Webster turned around to see what had happened to his wife. He saw a figure dressed in black holding a semiautomatic with a silencer attached to the muzzle. “Oh, no,” he said with resignation, just before a single bullet pierced his forehead. The Assassin picked up the expelled shell casing, walked swiftly back down the hallway and out through the garage, and disappeared into the night.

T
HE RAPIST
began his career following an incident on the Beltway. Apparently, he wasn't driving fast enough for the rude couple in the Lexus behind him. The man kept flashing his bright lights and blowing the horn. After the Rapist switched lanes to allow them to pass, the woman pressed her middle finger against the passenger side window as they sped by him.

The Rapist was so enraged that he followed them to the John F. Kennedy Concert Hall on F Street. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was performing. He asked the box office clerk what time the concert would be over and then returned to his car to wait. As the hours passed, his anger smoldered, growing more intense with each passing second. When the performance ended, people came out of the hall by the hundreds. The Rapist spotted the rude couple getting into their Lexus and followed them again. He was planning to teach them a lesson they would never forget.