Pretenses Chapter 1

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. Immediate, 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 figured was stealthily creeping toward her. The carpeted hallway absorbed the sound of footsteps as the figured 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.

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