Lady Jasmine (24 page)

Her laughter stopped. She couldn’t believe she was thinking that. Mr. Smith just wanted her to dance—and that’s all she wanted to do. So why had that thought come to her? She didn’t want to do that, did she…

“Mama,” Jacqueline called as she tapped her mother’s hand. “Mama!”

Jasmine snapped from her reverie. “Yes, baby?” But her eyes wandered down to the rhinestone letters that were on the front of her daughter’s T-shirt. She had on a matching one that Hosea had brought home for his favorite ladies two weeks ago.

Like mother, like daughter.

Jasmine lifted Jacqueline into her lap and hugged her. “I love you, you know that, right?”

“Yes,” Jacqueline sang and giggled. “Sing song, Mama.”

With the memories of her sins fresh in her mind, Jasmine sang the song about God’s love with her daughter. And as she sang, she prayed that God would always keep Jacqueline in His hands so that her daughter never, ever became like her mother.

G
ENTLY
, H
OSEA PASSED THEIR SLEEPING
daughter to his wife. “I’m going to get the mail.”

Jacqueline was knocked out, and in her sleep she weighed heavy in Jasmine’s arms. But even though her limbs were already aching, Jasmine could have held her daughter forever. She sighed, lulled by the calming rhythm of Jacqueline’s sleep breathing.

It had been a great time with her daughter, the perfect way to spend the day before the storm. Tomorrow it would begin, starting with Jerome Viceroy.

Jasmine followed Hosea into their apartment.

“Want me to put her down?” he asked.

Jasmine shook her head as she hugged Jacqueline tighter. “I want to hold her a little longer.”

Hosea nodded as he sorted through the envelopes he held. “What’s this?” He held the packet up higher. “Jasmine Pepper Bush?”

She had to fight to keep standing, to keep holding Jacqueline.

With a deep frown, he asked, “Why would someone call you Pepper?”

“Oh, you know,” Jasmine began. She had to rock Jacqueline in her arms to stop herself from snatching the envelope from him. “That was what some of the kids called me back in the day. Back in college.”

“Really?” he asked, taking Jacqueline from her arms and handing her the envelope. “I never knew that.”

“Yeah.” She laughed, hoping that her chuckle hid some of her shaking. “People used to tease me for using so much pepper on my food. My friend, Viva, started it.”

“Oh.” He was already moving toward Jacqueline’s bedroom, thoughts of “Pepper” already gone from his mind. “I’m going to lay my pumpkin down.”

She had a gift—Jasmine knew that. The way her lies came so easily. And the way she could integrate just enough fact, right in the middle of her fiction.

Hosea wasn’t out of her sight before she spun around and dashed into their office. When she closed the door, she had to wait for her heart to slow down, wait for the shaking to stop.

This was her hell. Suppose she hadn’t been home? Suppose he’d opened the letter?

Calm down,
she told herself. That nightmare had not happened.

She ripped open the manila envelope and snatched the letter from inside.

You have until Friday or your sins will come to light. You and Hosea will be destroyed—unless he steps down now.

She read the letter again, looking for that clue that Detective Foxx assured her would come. But how could a mistake be made in so few words? Just like with the last letter, there was nothing to be found.

She closed her eyes, leaned against the door, and let the envelope slip from her hand. Her wish was that she could stay locked up in this room through eternity—never having to face Hosea, or the church board, or anyone.

But then her fight came back. She had her plan; she could still win.

Shaking, Jasmine knelt down, grabbed the envelope, then moved to the desk. Her eyes scanned the letter and the envelope again.

Then she looked at the letter.

Back at the envelope.

Again and again.

It’ll be something small, but they get careless. They make mistakes.

She saw it!

“Jasmine?”

She jumped a foot into the air, startled by Hosea’s voice. With a quickness, she stuffed the letter into the desk drawer. “Huh?” she called out.

Her heart was beating wildly, but it wasn’t fear that sent blood pumping fiercely through her veins. It was exhilaration—she’d inhaled the sweet scent of victory.

She peeked into the hallway, looked at Hosea as if their world was normal. “I’m checking my e-mail. Malik said he sent me something to review.”

“Dang,” Hosea shook his head, “I love your godbrother, but he needs to put you back on the payroll if he’s going to work you like this.”

“I know, but you don’t mind, do you? It won’t take long. And I think he’s going to hire someone to replace me soon.”

“Nah, I was kidding. Go ’head.”

“I’ll make this quick,” she said, before she stepped back into the office.

Sitting in the chair, she slid the letter and envelope from the desk drawer and stared at both. Like Detective Foxx had said, her blackmailer had made a mistake!

All she wanted to do was to rush out right now and confirm it. But she didn’t have a good enough lie that would convince
Hosea that she needed to leave their apartment in the middle of the night.

She’d have to wait until morning.

Still, she exhaled a long sigh of relief. After all these weeks. After all those threats. After all her nightmares…it was almost over.

Her line of attack was already in her mind.

First, she’d get confirmation.

Next, she’d go to the source.

And then, Jasmine Cox Larson Bush was going to get her sweet revenge.

J
ASMINE’S DAY BEGAN IN THE
middle of the night.

She rose, moved stealthily through their bedroom, dressed inside her closet, and was sitting in front of the computer before the hands on the clock rolled around to five o’clock. The new day still had not yet begun to dawn when a half hour later, she scribbled a note to Hosea explaining how she’d forgotten to tell him about a very early meeting she’d scheduled with Malik. And it was a bit before six when the rental company delivered the car she’d ordered online—so that she could move around freely—to the front door of her apartment building.

As she climbed into the Lexus, she turned over what she was going to do. There really wasn’t much to her plan—just two parts: Confirm. Destroy!

Fifteen minutes later, as the tower of City of Lights at Riverside Church came into view, Jasmine could feel the hard beating of her heart, its pace rising as she got closer. She’d timed her arrival perfectly; the sun had made its debut when the tires of her car rolled over the gravel of the vacant parking lot.

Months had passed since Reverend Bush’s shooting, yet she still felt unsettled about being in the church alone. But her eagerness trumped her fear.

After turning off the ignition, she sat for a moment, praying that this was truly the beginning of the end. Then once she said, “Amen,” she shot into action. She jumped from the car and dashed to the door.

Her hands were shaking as she aimed the key for the lock—more anxiety. Stepping inside, the rubber soles of her sneakers allowed her to take silent steps across the area that Mrs. Whittingham claimed as her own. But Jasmine wasn’t worried about anyone hearing her—no one ever came to the church this early.

By the time she sat behind Mrs. Whittingham’s desk, the familiar emotional cocktail stirred inside of her. Her eyes scanned the desktop, but then her excitement waned a bit when she didn’t see what she was looking for. She scrambled through the folders that were neatly lined in the middle of the blotter, not caring about the neat stack that Mrs. Whittingham had left.

When she still found nothing, Jasmine opened the center drawer, rummaged through the rubber bands and paper clips and pens and pencils.

Her heart began to beat harder, but this time, it wasn’t from anticipation. Now it was fear…that she had been wrong.

She opened the top drawer on the left.

And she saw it.

The roll of stamps.

The Black Heritage ones that she’d discovered on Mrs. Whittingham’s desk weeks before. The ones that matched the one on the blackmail letter that had been sent to her apartment.

It will be something small. But blackmailers get careless: they make mistakes.

Mrs. Whittingham had made her mistake, Jasmine was sure. To anyone else, this evidence may have seemed flimsy, but Jasmine knew she was right. Mrs. Whittingham was the person who had been tormenting her. Mrs. Whittingham was the blackmailer.

It was on now.

“J
ASMINE
L
ARSON
, I
CAN’T BELIEVE
you’re calling me this early,” Mae Frances raved when she answered her phone without even saying hello. “Did you forget that I’m an hour behind you? Though sometimes I feel like I’m fifteen hours behind you. No, where I am in Texas sometimes I feel like I’m fifteen years behind you…”

“Mae Frances!” Jasmine yelled through her friend’s rant. She eased up on the accelerator and slowed down as the green signal turned to red. What she really wanted to do was to take every light. Get down to Mrs. Whittingham in record time. “I know who it is!” she screamed.

“Who what is?” Mae Frances asked through her yawn.

“The blackmailer. It’s Mrs. Whittingham!”

Jasmine could almost see her friend’s frown. “Sarai Whittingham?” She sounded alert now. “She’s not one of the suspects.”

“I know! Can you believe this? I’m still having a hard time digesting that she would do this to Hosea, but she’s the one.”

“How do you know?” Mae Frances asked, sounding doubtful.

Jasmine paused, not sure that she wanted to share what she’d
found. She could imagine Mae Frances’s reaction.

A stamp?
her friend would say before she laughed. Mae Frances would think that was ridiculous.
You think she’s the blackmailer because you found a stamp? Anyone could have used her stamp.

And then Mae Frances would talk and talk until she talked Jasmine out of such a preposterous theory.

But this was a mind-heart thing. In her mind, she remembered what Detective Foxx had told her, and in her heart, she knew she was right.

Jasmine said, “I know it’s her, and I’m on my way over there now.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Yup. You were right; Mrs. Whittingham did have a daughter, and then she let her parents raise her child as their own,” Jasmine said, giving Mae Frances the story she’d put together during her sleepless hours last night. “Can you believe how much of a hypocrite she’s been? I cannot wait to take her down.”

“Maybe you should think about this,” Mae Frances said slowly.

Jasmine couldn’t hide her shock. “Think about what? This woman has been torturing me for weeks. For years, really. Now, I’m gonna show her that she messed with the wrong one.”

There was a pause before Mae Frances said, “Sit back for a minute, Jasmine Larson.”

“You’re amazing.” Jasmine shook her head. “I thought you’d want to be on the first thing smoking out of Texas, wanting to get a piece of her yourself.”

“Now, you know Mrs. Whittingham is not my favorite person, but this situation—if you expose it—I have a feeling it could blow up on you.”

“But you’re the one who gave me the information!”

“Because I wanted you to have what you needed, but I want you to be smart, too. Before you do anything, think. It might
be time for a little compassion.”

“She never had any compassion for me.”

“Well, those idiots in the Bible didn’t have compassion for Jesus either…”

Oh, brother!
Jasmine closed her ears and rolled her eyes. Why had she ever taken Mae Frances to church? Her friend had been a much more effective ally when she’d been an atheist.

Mae Frances said, “All I’m saying, Jasmine Larson, is to talk to her and make sure she doesn’t say anything to Preacher Man about your being a whore—”

“Don’t use that word!”

Mae Frances ignored her. “But after that, let it go.”

Even though her friend couldn’t see her, Jasmine’s head whipped from side to side. “I’m not about to let her get away with this.”

“Think about all the things you’ve gotten away with,” Mae Frances said. “There’re people who look at you and don’t think you deserve to be married to Preacher Man.”

Jasmine wished her friend was sitting right here so that she could slap her. “How did this become about me? And when did you turn into Mother Teresa?”

Mae Frances continued as if Jasmine hadn’t spoken. “Remember, you’ve gotten away with quite a bit in your life, and as my good friend, Jeremiah Wright, always says, If you’re not careful, those chickens will come home to roost!”

What did that have to do with her? Her chickens weren’t going anywhere; she hadn’t done anything wrong. It was Mrs. Whittingham who needed to pay—big time.

“Jasmine Larson, are you listening to me? I know what bitterness can do. I used to be you, and I don’t want you to grow up to be me.”

Jasmine twisted her car from 132nd Street into the curved driveway of the high-rise brick building with L
ENOX
T
ERRACE
stenciled on the glass in gold letters. “Mae Frances, I’ve got
to go.”

“Don’t you hang up on me, Jasmine Larson,” Mae Frances barked. “I know you don’t want to hear me, but—”

“What? Mae Frances? Can you hear me?” Jasmine pulled the phone away from her ear. “I think I’m losing you.”

“You’re not fooling me one bit—”

“I can’t hear you. I’m losing the signal…” Jasmine clicked off her phone and then pressed the Power Off button. She knew for sure Mae Frances was going to call back—mad.

But she didn’t have a single word to say to her friend. Mae Frances had gone all the way Christian on her. Not that she wasn’t concerned about God, but sometimes there were situations that you had to handle yourself.

“How long are you going to be?” the doorman asked as he pointed to the car she’d parked in the visitor’s space. “You can only stay there for thirty minutes.”

Jasmine glanced at her watch. It was just barely seven. “I’ll be back way before my thirty minutes are up,” she said with a nod.

What she had to do wasn’t going to take long at all.

“What do you want!” It was an exclamation more than a question. Then Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes grew huge. “Did something happen to”—her hand covered her mouth—“Samuel?”

Jasmine pushed past the woman as she stepped inside.

“No, my father-in-law is—” Jasmine stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to think about Reverend Bush; whenever she did, her heart softened.

Jasmine knew he’d be saddened by what she was about to do. He would tell her to pray, to let Jesus take the wheel, to forgive all that Mrs. Whittingham had done.

But Jasmine turned away from those thoughts of grace that she’d learned from him. Instead, she turned her heart over to the
dark side and then faced the woman who’d brought such havoc into her life.

“If nothing’s wrong with Samuel,” Mrs. Whittingham slammed the door, “then why are you here?”

Jasmine had been thinking about the words she would say at this moment, and she had no plans to drag this out. “Because I wanted to look into the hateful eyes of the evil, conniving witch of a woman who had the audacity to blackmail me.”

Many images had gone through her mind when Jasmine wondered what this moment would look like, and one picture was that Mrs. Whittingham would stare back at her with blank eyes. Her fear was that the woman would have no idea what she was talking about.

But the glimmer that shined in Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes, even for a millisecond, filled Jasmine with relief and rage at the same time.

“You really are a case,” Jasmine said. “You pretend to love Reverend Bush, you pretend to love Hosea, you pretend—”

The woman didn’t let her finish. “Don’t come into my home and preach to me about love!” Mrs. Whittingham tightened the belt of the flannel bathrobe before she pointed her finger in Jasmine’s face. “You don’t know a thing about loving anyone but yourself.”

“You think you know me?” Jasmine sneered. “It’s obvious that you don’t, because if you did, you would have known that you just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

With bold steps, Mrs. Whittingham came closer. “Oh, really?” she scoffed. “It was a mistake to send you those letters?” She chuckled. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Jasmine’s eyebrows rose. Audacity surely made people stupid, sometimes.

Mrs. Whittingham mistook Jasmine’s silence for defeat. “That’s what I thought. There’s nothing you can do. In fact”—she moved away from her—“I’m glad that you found out. And
since you have the nerve to come up in my face like this, I think I need to call Hosea. Need to let him know who you really are. Then maybe he’ll do what he should have done a long time ago—maybe after he talks to me, he’ll finally divorce you.”

Jasmine chuckled. “You really think you have that kind of power over my husband?”

Mrs. Whittingham passed her a wicked smile. “When I tell him that he has more than a name in common with the prophet, Hosea. When I tell him that his wife is no different from Gomer—and that he, too, married a whore….”

Jasmine flinched, wanting to smack the woman down for that.

Mrs. Whittingham continued, “We’ll see what he says.”

Even as she moved toward the telephone, Jasmine stayed silent. She remained that way until Mrs. Whittingham lifted the receiver.

Then she said, “Before you make that call,” Jasmine powered up her cell, “can you give me Ivy’s number?”

Through the slits that Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes had become, Jasmine could see the woman’s uncertainty. “What do you want with my sister?” she asked, her bravado a bit less.

Looking straight at her, Jasmine frowned. Then she tilted her head, as if she was baffled by Mrs. Whittingham’s words. “Your sister? You mean your daughter, don’t you?”

Mrs. Whittingham stood stone still, frozen in the moment and in fear.

With slow steps, Jasmine moved toward the woman who’d been tormenting her. Her eyes flashed with the fiery fury that had been building inside of her for weeks.

“And you have the nerve to call me a whore? At least I claimed my daughter.”

“What…are…you…talking…about?” Her words were so shaky, it didn’t sound as if she was speaking English.

Jasmine laughed. “Oh, come on. You can come up with
something better than that.”

The phone slipped from Mrs. Whittingham’s trembling hand, but neither one of them watched it fall to the floor. Their eyes were locked on each other.

Jasmine said, “For all the years I’ve known you…the way you looked at me, talked to me, like I was so beneath you. But we really are the same person, aren’t we, Sarai? So if I’m a whore who kept her daughter, what kind of whore are you?”

The water was already welling in the older woman’s eyes. “What,” she began, her voice still trembling, “are you going to do?”

Jasmine glared at her for an extra instant before she shrugged. She lowered herself onto the yellow-flowered Chesterfield. Leaned back and crossed her legs like this visit was a pleasant one. “I’m not sure yet.”

It took some time, but Mrs. Whittingham found her voice. Lifted her chin as if she found some courage, too. “Looks like we’re at a standstill,” she said.

“Oh, really? And how do you see that?”

“Because now…both of us have a secret and something to lose.”

Jasmine twisted her lips as if she was in deep thought. “I don’t quite see it that way. I’m thinking that maybe I should tell Hosea about…that little summer I had when I was so young, and then you’ll be the only one with a secret and something to lose.”

Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes got wide with the thought of what that would mean for her. “You’re bluffing,” she said.

“You think so?”

Mrs. Whittingham nodded. “Hosea will leave you.”

Jasmine cocked her head. “I know that’s what you’re hoping, but think about it, Sarai. Hosea has been upset with me before. But no matter what, we always work it out. Because here’s the thing—he loves me. And he always comes back, because
whether you want to believe it or not,” she leaned forward, “I am the woman God chose for him,” she said, repeating what Hosea always told her. “So my husband and I will get through this.

“But you and Ivy,” Jasmine shook her head, “I don’t know. You’ve been lying for over thirty years. And what will Ivy think? What will she do when she finds out that her sister is really her mother?”

Mrs. Whittingham’s beach-sand-colored skin paled more and for a moment, Jasmine thought the woman was going to drop to the floor right then.

Still, Jasmine pressed. “It’s so tabloid, so soap-opery.
Your sister is your mother.”
She paused, letting those words settle. “My bet is that Ivy will never speak to you again, never forgive you, probably wish that you were dead. She might even send up a couple of prayers to God asking that He help with that.”

Mrs. Whittingham gasped, and every bit of resolve she had melted with the tears that sprang from her eyes. “Please, if there is anything good inside of you—”

“Inside of me?” Jasmine shot up from the sofa. “You didn’t have any compassion for me when you sent me those letters. And what about Hosea? Why would you want to humiliate him? Why would you want him to step down from what his father wanted him to do?”

“Because…because….” Mrs. Whittingham choked on her sobs. “It was getting to be too much for him. He wasn’t making the right decisions. The pressure…it was all too much, and it was best that he focus on his father. He didn’t need to be worried about the church. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“So you thought the best way to get him to listen was to blackmail his wife? To disgrace his family?”

“You’re the one who brought disgrace to him!” Mrs. Whittingham shouted through her tears. “You’re the only one who
could have brought Hosea down. You’re the whore!”

Jasmine had never been punched with a swing to her gut, but she imagined that this was how it would feel. Without a word, she turned away and marched toward the door.

“Jasmine!” Mrs. Whittingham’s voice was filled with panic. “What are you going to do!”

Jasmine’s eyes were as hard as her heart when she turned back.

The woman begged again. “Please! I know you hate me, but don’t destroy Ivy’s life.”

All Jasmine said was, “I’ll be in touch.”

“What does that mean?” Mrs. Whittingham cried.

Jasmine closed the door on her words. She stood in the hallway for a moment and then…a thump! As if Mrs. Whittingham had fallen to her knees. It startled Jasmine, at first. Until she heard the muffled cries that filtered through the closed door. The whimpering followed her as she strode toward the elevator. Even when she pressed the Down button, Jasmine was sure she could still hear Mrs. Whittingham weeping.