Sugar & Spice

SUGAR & SPICE

KEITH LEE JOHNSON

Published by

Strebor Books International LLC

P.O. Box 1370

Bowie, MD 20718

http://www.streborbooks.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Sugar and Spice © 2003 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 1-59309-013-7

LCCN 2003105030

ISBN 978-1-59309-013-5

eISBN 978-1-439-1-8671-8

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.

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New York, NY 10020

1-800-223-2336

Cover design:
www.mariondesigns.com

First Printing November 2003

Manufactured and Printed in the United States

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

To my mother, thanks for always being there for me.

To Charmaine Parker, who did the final edit on this work, thanks for the hard work you put in. Thank you for taking all my calls, too.

Extra special thanks to Zane for taking a chance on me. I appreciate your confidence in my work.

To Kung Fu Master, Jeff Weasel, who taught me what little I know of the art. Thank you.

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 Lauretta Pierce of the Literary World for the publicity.

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

To Sibylla Nash, thanks for all the insight and a myriad of helpful questions.

To Rush Limbaugh, you once said people should invest in themselves. I heard you, dude, and did just that. Thank you!

Special thanks to Billie Kwiatkowski, Gail Washington, and other former co-workers, who read the work and made suggestions while this book was still being written.

Norrell Prison
District of Columbia
July 5, 2001 Noon

THE TWINS WERE FREE!

After ten long distressed years of confinement in two of the nation's worst prisons, the twins walked to a waiting black stretch Lincoln limousine without looking back at the gray cement fifty-foot walls that had imprisoned them. It was an experience far from the life they had known—a life of privilege and ease—a life given to them by rich absentee parents. In prison, however, they were just another pair of inmates with numbers stenciled to their dungarees.

Norrell Prison was full of corrupt officers who, following the lead of the warden, were as depraved as the criminals they guarded. Many of the officers were taking payoffs from the gang leaders who were heavily into the drug trade, smuggling in heroin, marijuana, and crack cocaine. But the most detestable crime the correctional officers allowed was the buying and selling of inmates. Sexual predators ran rampant in the prison, gang raping the weaker prisoners. It was gladiator school 101.

The most nauseating aspect of the widespread corruption was that the prison ran smoothly with the free flow of drugs and limited anarchy. Restricted depravity kept the prisoners from rioting and murdering each other at will.

Initially, the twins were offered protection from the sexual predators if they would give sexual favors to just one inmate. They refused and were subsequently attacked by several career criminals. Fighting back earned them thirty days of solitary confinement.

At first, they complained to the warden but that only invited reprisals from the inmates and guards. They tried to escape and had their sentences lengthened by six years. Soon, they learned to play the game and bided their time. To survive, the twins became compliant and gave into the debauchery. They had been bought and sold like chattel on an auction block. Every orifice became an instrument of sexual pleasure.

As the years passed, the twins became stronger mentally and physically. They began to build their slender bodies, turning them into muscular walls of stone. They challenged each other nightly in their cell to see who could do the most pushups. After five years of nightly challenges, they were able to pump out five hundred.

By the time they could do two-hundred pushups, they realized they were stronger than the prisoners and guards who had molested them, but they needed to endure—needed to stay in control—needed to stay alive. They continued to indulge in the wanton debauchery, knowing that in time, they would be free.

With two years left on their sentences, the twins were viewed as model prisoners and were given comfortable jobs in the library where they had access to the computer systems. The assignment afforded them plenty of free time to plan and scheme.

Every night, in their cell, they talked until the wee hours of the morning, choreographing every murder. Revenge was going to be so sweet—served so very cold. Now they were free!

Universal City Hilton
Los Angeles, California
Sunday, July, 29, 2001 9:00 a.m.

The palm trees, the sunshine, and the gracious amenities of the hotel were a welcome diversion from my rigorous duties as FBI Agent Phoenix Perry. Just a few weeks ago, I had killed Coco Nimburu, the cunning assassin who had terrorized Washington, D.C. She had killed my father, kidnapped my family, and even hospitalized Kelly McPherson—my partner. A family vacation in California was just what we needed.

We had begun our family excursion in San Francisco. Kelly and I were there last month investigating the Warren family murders—more of Coco Nimburu's handiwork. She had killed twelve FBI agents, chopping the heads off two of them before killing Mr. and Mrs. Warren.

Having been in the city by the bay again made me want to take Savannah there for her first real vacation. San Francisco was the first city I had visited when my father and I returned to the United States. My father had been in Naval Intelligence—assigned to the American Embassy in China for twelve years. I, however, spent most of my twelve years studying the martial arts under the tutelage of legendary Kung Fu Master, Ying Ming Lo.

After taking in as many of the sights as we could get in for the five days we were in San Francisco, we flew down to the City of Angels. Coco
Nimburu had entrusted her remains to me. She had harbored a secret desire to be an actress and asked me to sprinkle her cremated remains on the Paramount Studios lot, which was no easy task. I had to take several tours to accomplish this, sprinkling a little of her all over the lot. The important thing was that I had done as she had asked and that made me feel good. Even with all that she had done to my family and my circle of friends, I had felt a kinship with her and missed her mind games and her infectious laughter.

I was sitting in the Café Sierra restaurant, reading the complimentary copy of the
USA Today,
waiting for my husband and daughter to join me. The warden of Norrell Prison had been murdered back home near Washington, D.C. According to the paper, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Perkins had been brutally killed in their home. They had both been savagely lashed with a whip. The killer had raped the wife repeatedly throughout the night, then dismembered her and her husband with a chain saw. Large amounts of cocaine and money were found near their decomposing corpses. They had been dead for a week. Captain Callahan, who ran the prison, told a reporter that Warden Perkins was supposed to be vacationing in the Cayman Islands.

Just as I finished the article, Keyth and Savannah came to the table and sat down. I looked up from the paper at my husband and shook my head. He had been an FBI agent and instantly knew that something terrible must have happened. I gave him the paper and he began reading it.

“Hi, honey,” I said to my daughter. “You ready to go to the park?”

“Yeah, Mommy.” Savannah beamed.

I had promised her that our first stop today would be the
Terminator T2:3D
theater at the Universal Theme Park. We had seen the exciting short film once and Savannah wanted to see it again, but the lines had looked like a two-hundred-yard anaconda. We were flying back to Washington tomorrow afternoon and this would be our last chance to see the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Edward Furlong look-a-likes being chased through the theater by futuristic terminators, with loud explosions and laser fire all around us. It's truly an unforgettable experience. Truth be told, I was just as excited as my daughter.

24708 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, California
Sunday July 29, 2001 1:00 p.m.

The twins watched Heather Connelly drive a silver Bentley Arnage down the long winding driveway, then through an electronically controlled gate. She stopped briefly, looked both ways, and turned right onto Pacific Coast Highway. After starting a yellow Hummer, they followed her.

Heather Connelly was twenty-seven years old, tall, slender and tanned, with brunette shoulder-length hair. The vivacious beauty had won the Miss California crown at eighteen. She had hoped to win the Miss America title and perhaps go on to win the Ms. Universe pageant but was sidetracked by a bout with cocaine that derailed her chances of winning and threatened her looks.

Heather Connelly had been Malibu High School's most promising pupil. She was class president, valedictorian, prom queen, and president of the National Honor Society. Her musical talents included playing piano, saxophone, and violin. She also had a powerful singing voice before her bout with cocaine. Like Christina Aguilera, Heather could sing pop, jazz, and rhythm and blues, but she preferred opera.

Today marked the fifth year that Heather Connelly had been clean and
sober. It was a time for celebration. She wanted to show Jasper Hunter, the man who had helped her beat the cocaine addiction, just how grateful she was. Tonight she planned to fulfill a particular fantasy of his, but she needed something special for the romantic interlude.

Jasper Hunter had been a counselor at the Wise Counseling Center in San Francisco when he and Heather met. He had found her extremely attractive, but dating the clientele was grounds for dismissal. He ignored the rules like he had so many times before and fell under Heather's intoxicating spell. William Wise, the owner, discovered them in a compromising situation and fired Jasper on the spot. By that time, Heather was well on her way to conquering the addiction that had gripped her very soul.