Sinners & Saints Read online

  But all that was so far behind her; this was her triumphant return to the Golden State. To Jasmine, it felt like she were coming home as the most important first lady in the world.

  No, Hosea hadn’t yet won the election—it had only been a week since he’d won the right to represent the North. But according to Pastor Griffith, the only thing that stood between Hosea and the presidency of the American Baptist Coalition was one more week.

  “When you return to New York on that charter flight next weekend,” Pastor Griffith had told her last night, “your husband will be the newly elected bishop.”

  Jasmine had squirmed, unable to hold her excitement as she sat across from the pastor at Mae Frances’s dining room table.

  Just an hour before, Mae Frances had summoned Jasmine to her apartment. It had been difficult to get away—she’d had to tell Hosea that she was helping Mae Frances with last-minute packing, even as she and Hosea had their own to do. But she’d left instructions with Mrs. Sloss, their housekeeper, and made a promise to Hosea to be back in an hour. Then she’d dashed over in a cab, telling the driver that she’d tip him a twenty if he got her uptown in less than ten minutes.

  The tip would be worth every penny just so she could get to Mae Frances quickly. Because if her friend was ready to share, that meant that schoolhouse, country pastor who had the audacity to go up against Hosea was going down.

  When she’d arrived on the Upper East Side, Jasmine hadn’t walked into the private meeting with her friend that she’d expected. Waiting with Mae Frances was the man Jasmine had met just a week ago, and who, eight years ago, she would’ve had in her bed by now—Pastor Earl Griffith.

  The pastor looked even better than he had last week. He rose from his chair and strutted toward her with so much swag in his swagger that Jasmine had to take a deep breath. And when he embraced her with his greeting, she’d wanted to hold on to him for longer than the two seconds that was appropriate. Because she was in love with her husband, she’d done the right thing and stepped back. But she had inhaled deeply and taken his lavender-and-sandalwood scent with her; she was pleased. Not only was this man fine, but he was loaded with good taste. His cologne of choice—Giorgio Armani.

  “Earl flew in to bring me some of this information himself,” Mae Frances explained as she held up a thick manila folder.

  “Oh, okay,” was all that Jasmine said as she thought about what Mae Frances’s words meant. Obviously, Pastor Griffith was one of Mae Frances’s connections—that was the only reason he’d be here, right?

  “So, you really think Hosea will be elected?” she asked Pastor Griffith as the three sat at the dining room table.

  “Oh, I know he will.” The pastor clasped his hands together. “Not only have we raised more money in the North for the Coalition than the South, which is a big indication of which region will win, but Mae Frances has some information here”—he took the folder from Mae Frances and held it above his head—“that will help to bring Lester Adams, the main competition, down.” He slammed the folder back onto the table.

  “Main competition? I thought this was just between that country bumpkin and Hosea.”

  “Oh, it is,” Pastor Griffith had assured her. “For the most part. But there will be others who will throw their names into the hat; none that will matter, of course.” He leaned forward, bringing his face just inches from her. “Trust me, sweetheart,” he said, “Hosea is the new president.”

  Grabbing the folder back, Mae Frances said, “And here are some of the reasons why.”

  “Huh?” Jasmine muttered. She’d gotten stuck on the sweetheart part of the pastor’s words, but she forced herself now to look at Mae Frances.

  “My people didn’t find too much on Lester Adams, except that he’d been arrested for attacking a woman who claimed that he’d fathered her child; this happened just a couple of years ago—while he and his wife were married.”

  “Married? Not separated or anything?” Jasmine asked, getting excited.

  Mae Frances shook her head. “Married.”

  “Wow, that’s good stuff.”

  Mae Frances waved her hand. “That’s small stuff, because the charges were dropped. But now, his wife? She’s a walking disaster zone.” Mae Frances pulled out a photo and pushed it across the table to Jasmine. “Here’s a picture of the reverend.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said, picking up the photograph with the tips of her fingers just in case ugly was contagious. “This is the pastor who is going up against my husband? How can anyone stand to look at him?” Jasmine squinted as she peered at the pock-faced man with a mop of red hair. “Dang, what does his wife look like? A mud duck?”

  Pastor Griffith chuckled, but Mae Frances was all about business.

  Mae Frances said, “That’s what he used to look like; somebody done cleaned him up good.” She passed another photo.

  “Yeah, he does look a little better,” Jasmine admitted. “But he still can’t stand next to Hosea.”

  “Too bad it’s not that kind of election,” Mae Frances said, rolling her eyes as if she wanted Jasmine to focus. “And here’s his wife.”

  Jasmine grabbed the photo, eager to see her real competition. Okay, Jasmine thought, so she wasn’t so bad. Yeah, she was rough around the edges, but if you didn’t know ghetto, you might miss it on this one. “She’s young.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mae Frances said.

  “And she doesn’t look sophisticated at all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She won’t be able to handle me.”

  “It’s not her age or lack of sophistication that gives us the advantage,” Mae Frances said. “If we have to use the pastor’s wife to bring the pastor down, it won’t be a problem. She’s given us plenty of ammunition.”

  As Mae Frances reviewed the dossier with Jasmine, Pastor Griffith stood and strolled into Mae Frances’s kitchen. Jasmine’s eyes followed the man and two thoughts came to her mind: There should’ve been an eleventh commandment—that no man’s butt should ever look that good. And the second was that he was pretty comfortable in Mae Frances’s house. How close were these two? And how long had they known each other?

  It took everything within her to break the lock her eyes had on Pastor Griffith’s behind and turn back to Mae Frances.

  “Okay, so this is what we know,” Mae Frances said. “She may have been brought up in a middle-class home, but she’s as low class as they come.” Jasmine leaned forward to hear this news. “I’m telling you, Jasmine Larson, she almost makes you look like a Girl Scout.”

  Jasmine frowned. “What you tryin’ to say, Mae Frances?” She’d been called lots of things, but ghetto wasn’t one of them.

  Her friend waved her hand. “I’m sayin’ what I’m sayin’. Don’t be getting your feelings hurt when we have so much to do. Focus. Now, the first thing we have that we can use is that this Rachel chick slept with the best friend of the man she claimed she loved.”

  “Really?”

  “And then, got pregnant by the friend.”

  “Dang,” Jasmine said, making Mae Frances look at her with raised eyebrows. “What?” Jasmine asked.

  “You ain’t always been saved.”

  “I never slept with any of Hosea’s friends,” Jasmine huffed. And then, she felt something pull her eyes … up … and she looked into the eyes of the pastor.

  Just for a moment, she’d forgotten that he was there and she wanted to slap her friend for saying those things in front of him. How was she supposed to make a good impression with Mae Frances talking about how she hadn’t always been saved?

  But it didn’t seem like she had anything to worry about. Pastor Griffith seemed unfazed, perched against the counter, sipping water, his gaze on both of them, though it looked like his thoughts were beyond this room.

  She cleared her throat, shifted a bit in her seat, and forced her attention back to Mae Frances.

  “Anyway,” her friend continued, “she’s done everything from slashing tires, to h
aving utilities turned off, to showing up at a wedding and fighting with the bride.”

  “Dang, she is worse than ghetto—she’s country ghetto. Has she ever been arrested?”

  “Yeah, she’s been arrested, which will play into another plan I have. But the thing is, she’s not the only one in that family with issues. Their father may have been a pastor, but all three of his children were running around like they were trying to get him kicked out of the pulpit. Besides Rachel’s antics, one of her brothers is gay and the other one is a serious drug addict.”

  “And this is the first family of that hick church?”

  “Maybe that’s why it’s a hick church. But their three thousand members seem to love them.”

  “Three thousand?” Jasmine laughed. City of Lights at Riverside Church had four times that membership. “And they say everything is bigger in Texas. Please.” Jasmine tossed the papers that Mae Frances had given her back onto the table, as if this information on the Adams family was irrelevant. “Okay, so she’s ghetto, they have lots of family drama, but I don’t see how any of this is gonna help us.”

  “Oh, it’s gonna help us,” Mae Frances said, glancing sideways at Pastor Griffith as if they’d talked about this before. “Plus, look at what all of this tells us about Rachel—she’s young, hotheaded, and she can be manipulated.”

  “And if all of that fails,” Pastor Griffith began as he strutted back to the table, “she can be set up to take a big fall. And with her history, everyone will believe anything that we set her up for.”

  “Oh, that’s good. So what are we gonna do?” Jasmine said excitedly. It had been a while, but she’d taken down a lot of people in her time. She’d sent one man to jail, made another disappear from the city quickly; she’d stolen husbands and left women hysterical and alone. Oh, yes, this was her expertise. And the best thing was that this time, it wasn’t about her—she wasn’t doing it for any personal gain, she wasn’t being selfish. She was doing this for Hosea and for the good of all African American Christians everywhere.

  Pastor Griffith said, “Mae Frances has a fantastic idea on how we can make Rachel take a big fall, but I don’t think it will come to that.” He pushed Mae Frances’s folder aside. “I think it’s going to be as simple as knowing who’s on the voting committee and getting to every single one of them. When they hear about Hosea and what he can do for the Coalition, they’d be crazy not to vote for him.”

  Pastor Griffith talked for the next twenty minutes about his plans, and he was so thorough that Jasmine wondered for a moment why he was so adamant about Hosea’s election. But she pushed those thoughts aside and looked at Pastor Griffith as the blessing he truly was. If it hadn’t been for him, Jasmine wouldn’t be on the verge of such power. When Jasmine finally left, she was impressed, elated, and ready to go.

  More than fifteen hours had passed. Now Jasmine leaned back in her seat seconds before the plane’s tires skidded against the runway.

  “That feels like a roller coaster,” Jacqueline squealed in the seat behind her.

  Jasmine smiled at the sound of her daughter’s voice. And by his silence, she knew that her son was asleep.

  When the plane rolled to a stop, Jasmine squeezed her husband’s hand. “We’re here.”

  With a grin, Hosea leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Just remember, darlin’, we haven’t won this yet.”

  “It’s just a matter of days.”

  “We might not win at all.”

  “We will.”

  “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if we don’t.”

  “We’re gonna win.”

  The strength of her conviction made him pause, made him frown. “Jasmine?”

  She reeled in some of her enthusiasm. “I’m just saying that when they all get to know you, they’re gonna love you as much as I do.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, right. Just remember what I said. I want to win this straight up—no tricks.”

  “What kind of tricks could I have when I don’t even know these people or anything about the Coalition?”

  “Hmmmm … let’s keep it that way, because like I told you, the Coalition will have the president that God wants it to have.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah! Jasmine thought. She was thrilled when the airplane’s doors opened; there was no time for Hosea to give her a long lecture about God. As if she didn’t love the Lord. They both loved God—it was just that Hosea walked in his faith and she worked her faith.

  It was a good thing she did—they wouldn’t have half the life they had now if she hadn’t combined faith and works. Hosea just didn’t know—he’d come up because of her and she was about to shoot him into the stratosphere.

  Taking Zaya from Mae Frances’s arms, she followed Hosea. The two of them, the children, Mae Frances, and the rest of the New York delegation, which included the Senior Reverend Bush and Reverend Penn and his wife, were swept away by an entourage of ministers that Pastor Griffith had put together. The minutes moved in a whirlwind, and if this was the life that she could expect as the president’s wife, then it couldn’t come fast enough for Jasmine.

  Already, they’d been flown across the country on a private jet and whisked into the hangar, before being escorted to three waiting limousines that would carry them all away.

  Jasmine shivered as she stepped outside. Not from the temperature—it was April in Los Angeles. Her trembling was from her excitement. She was home.

  She slapped on her sunglasses as Hosea strapped the children into the backseat of the first Town Car, but she kept her eyes on her husband since Reverend Penn’s wife was standing so close to the car. Jasmine shook her head. She still couldn’t believe that the Penns had been invited to fly on the chartered plane, as if they belonged with their group. What was worse was that it had been Hosea’s idea to include them.

  “Reverend Penn has tried to become president twenty-three times!” Hosea had said. “We need to show him respect.”

  “And how does letting him travel with us show him respect?” Jasmine had asked.

  Hosea had just waved her words away, letting her know that it was a done deal—the Penns were going to be part of the Bush entourage.

  But as Jasmine stood eyeing the reverend’s wife, she had a feeling that Hosea had made a grave mistake. “I just don’t trust that woman,” Jasmine muttered to Mae Frances.

  “Who?” She turned to see who Jasmine was staring at. Mae Frances sucked her teeth. “You don’t need to worry about that Debbie Does Dallas movie star. Hosea don’t want to have nothin’ to do with the likes of her. Who you need to be thinking about is right over there.” She jutted her chin forward, pointing to the left.

  And there he was. Just feet away … the man from the photo, Hosea’s competition—Lester Adams.

  Mae Frances had been right. Someone had cleaned the man up good, but even from this far away, Jasmine could tell that he was no match for her husband. Reverend Adams looked like a country boy for real, as he shuffled toward his car. And if the size of his entourage was any indication of what was to come, Pastor Adams needed to take the two men who stood on either side of him, turn around, get back on the bus, and go home.

  Still, Jasmine wanted to get closer. If there was anything that she knew well, it was men. With her man-dar up, she would get a read on Lester Adams. Pastor Griffith had his own plans, but if Reverend Adams reacted to her in the right way, this election might be as simple as sending a prostitute into his hotel room.

  She straightened the light wool of the designer pantsuit that her personal shopper had selected for this trip, tossed her curls over her shoulder, and sauntered toward the men. The sidekicks’ eyes were already on her as she approached, though Reverend Adams was concentrating on a newspaper he held.

  See? Country. He didn’t even know when a beautiful woman was nearby.

  But right when she was just inches away from the man, a tornado blew by—in the form of a woman wearing a beige pantsuit that was too light, so inappropriate for the month of A
pril.

  Barreling in front of her, the woman blocked Jasmine. With her arms folded, her lips poked out, and her attitude showing, she asked, “May I help you?” as if she had her own radar. As if she knew exactly when a woman was within feet of her husband.

  Jasmine had to hold her laughter in. Rachel Adams. Oh, this was going to be easier than she thought. This heifer thought she was big and bad and bold. Well, Jasmine had something for her—the perfect way to introduce herself.

  Jasmine’s lips spread into the slowest of smiles. “Hello,” she said, reaching for the woman’s hand. “My name is Lady Jasmine—actually, Jasmine Cox Larson Bush, the new first lady of the American Baptist Coalition.” She paused. “And excuse me, but who are you?”

  Chapter

  SIX

  No, she didn’t. Rachel had to take deep, slow breaths because it was obvious this old hag was delusional. She’d recognized Jasmine right away. The sultry way she slithered off the jet. The whole entourage, like she was M.C. Hammer. The way she slid those designer glasses on—just showing out.

  Had it not been for Dirt Diggers, Rachel might actually have been intimidated. But the information she knew about Jasmine Cox Larson Bush empowered her.

  A smile crept up on Rachel’s face as she shook Jasmine’s hand. “Jasmine?” she said, ignoring the first lady comment. In her dreams. “Rev. Bush’s wife?”

  Jasmine smiled confidently as she nodded. “The one and only.”

  Rachel feigned confusion. “I’m sorry. I thought Rev. Bush’s wife was named Natasia.”

  Bingo! Jasmine’s whole body tensed as she lost her smile. Rachel tried desperately to fight back a smirk. Hosea was practically a saint, but the private investigator had managed to find out about his ex-fiancée and former producer, Natasia Redding. The rumor mill said the two of them had had an affair. The PI couldn’t confirm it, but judging from Jasmine’s uneasy reaction, there was something to the story.