The Last Sunday Read online

  Samantha could feel his hardening passion pressing against her stomach. She pushed him away again. “I don’t love you, David,” she said sharply. “I don’t need you, and I don’t want you in my life. Do you understand? Now, please leave my office, or I will have security escort you off the property.”

  David stumbled backward. “You don’t mean that,” was his wounded response. “I killed a man for you. Wasn’t that enough to prove to you how much I love you?”

  Samantha looked immediately to the telephone on her desk to make sure the red intercom light was not glowing.

  She returned her cold gaze to his pleading face. “You didn’t kill anyone for me. You killed that boy to save your own life.”

  “I killed him because you said he had a gun. I killed him because you told me to.”

  “You’re insane. Go back to your wife and forget about us.”

  David began to tremble. Suddenly his legs felt as if they would not support his weight. “I don’t think the police will see it the same as you,” he managed to sputter.

  Samantha froze. “The police? Don’t be a fool, David,” she barked. “You’ll go to jail if you go to the police.”

  “I don’t care!” he shouted. “What difference will it make if I don’t have you?”

  “David, you have Scarlett. She loves you. And the little girl. What would she do without you?”

  “Fuck you, Samantha! The ‘little girl’ is more yours than mine. She’s your husband’s bastard child.”

  “Calm down, David. Someone might hear you.”

  “I don’t care who hears me!” he screamed, with his hands flailing at his sides. “As a matter of fact, I want everyone to know how you used me. How you’ve ruined my life.”

  Samantha did not respond. Instead, she turned to the window to calculate her next move.

  When she turned back to David, her expression had transformed to the calm, cool veneer of a woman on a mission.

  “David, I can make you a very rich man,” she finally said, looking him in the eye. “How much will it take for you to forget any of this ever happened?”

  David became enraged. “You bitch. Is that what you think this is about?” he said. “I don’t want your fucking money, Samantha. Don’t you understand I only want you?”

  A thousand scenes flashed in her mind as he spoke. Front page headline: PASTOR SAMANTHA CLEAVELAND ARRESTED FOR MURDER. This just in: “Samantha Cleaveland implicated in the assassination of her husband, Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland,” and emblazoned in bold yellow print on the front cover of the Enquirer: REVEREND SAMANTHA CLEAVELAND AT THE CENTER OF DEADLY LOVE TRIANGLE.

  Samantha quickly wiped the images from her mind, moved to him, and cupped his quivering cheeks in her hands. He could feel the warmth of her breath as she neared. His pulse quickened when she touched his face.

  “David, your life is not ruined.”

  “It is if I can’t have you,” his lips said and his eyes pleaded. “I need you, Samantha. I don’t want to live without you.”

  “I didn’t know I meant that much to you, David,” she whispered.

  “Why did you say those things to me?” he purred as she moved her lips closer to his. “Can’t you see how much I love you? I’ll do anything for you. I’d kill a thousand more men if you told me to.”

  “Would you really do that for me?”

  “Yes . . . yes, I would, baby,” he said as her intoxicating scent filled his nostrils. “I’ll do anything you tell me to. Just make love to me.”

  Samantha gently pressed her lips to his. “I’m sorry, baby,” she panted between passionate kisses. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Make love to me, David. I want to feel you inside me right now.”

  With one hand Samantha deftly unzipped David’s tented slacks to expose his now pulsing member, and with the other she reached to press a security button under her desk that automatically bolted the door to her office. “Make love to me, David, here, on top of my cathedral.”

  Samantha slowly slid her silky hands along the length of his shaft, causing a hushed moan to escape his lips.

  “I need you, David. I’m so glad you didn’t listen to me,” she whispered as she manipulated his flesh, which was like a hardening rod of clay. “I know I can be difficult sometimes. I was just afraid you would leave me first. I didn’t want to be hurt again the way Hezekiah hurt me. That’s why I said those horrible things to you.”

  David could hear only the pounding of his heart and the sound of blood rushing from his brain to his extremities. He pulled the bolero jacket from her shoulders, exposing arms so strong they built an empire, yet so soft they felt like the embrace of a gentle breeze.

  “I need you inside me,” she panted as she raised her leg to his waist.

  Before David could respond, his pants fell to the floor and he felt himself enveloped in her warm, moist flesh. A whimpering gasp escaped his lips without warning.

  “Fuck me, David,” Samantha moaned as she slid up and down his trembling body.

  David stood firm and locked his knees as Samantha consumed his body and his soul. News feeds continued to stream on the monitors behind them. The flashing images, scrolling news reports, and talking ciphers provided a media backdrop to the two writhing bodies. Samantha watched the wall of her images over David’s shoulders as she moaned her undying devotion.

  Without warning the climactic evidence of his passion violently bubbled to the surface. David leaned forward and braced himself on the glass desk as Samantha intensified her assault. His body shook and his knees trembled from supporting both their weight. With his eyes closed and his mouth clamped tight to prevent involuntary shrieks of ecstasy, David released a torrent of his love for Samantha. The two panted in unison until the rushes of passion subsided.

  “You understand you belong to me now,” Samantha said as David retrieved his pants from around his ankles and tucked in his shirt. “Do you understand what that means?”

  David flashed a satisfied smile and said, “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Yes, I understand, baby.”

  “I’m not sure that you do. The world is different up here, David,” she said, looking out over the grounds. “And now you’re a part of it. You have to play by a different set of rules. Rules that may sometimes seem . . . contrary to what you’ve been taught. But there’s no turning back now.”

  It was Jasmine Cleaveland’s first night at home after spending twenty-eight days in a drug rehabilitation center in Arizona. The death of her father had caused her to sink deeper into a world of sex, alcohol, and drugs. When she arrived home, she was greeted at the door by Etta Washington, the live-in maid.

  “Hello, Jasmine,” Etta said from the threshold of the front door as the driver opened the rear door of the black Escalade. “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you,” Jasmine replied with a smirk. “Is Mother home?”

  “Yes, dear,” Etta responded politely. “She’s in the study. She would like to see you before you go to your room.”

  “Tell her I’m tired. I’ll talk to her later.”

  At seventeen, Jasmine was the adolescent version of her mother. Her beautiful, flowing, satiny hair had been trained and pampered from a young age to never need artificial lengthening. Despite the fact that she had lived for years in the fast lane, her skin was flawless.

  Her life had been what little girls’ dreams were made of. She had known only the most elite private schools, had traveled around the world with tutors at the ready, and received a white convertible BMW 650 with a sable interior, wrapped with a red velvet bow, on her sixteenth birthday. Jasmine partied with her celebrity contemporaries, the children of movie stars, and trust-fund babies in New York, San Francisco, Milan, and Paris. There was neither day nor night in her world. There was no destination in the world that either a private jet or a first-class airline ticket would not take her and her friends to party and to shop. The world was her playground.

  There would be days when neither Samantha nor Hezekiah knew where she was
. And then a call would come.

  “Mommy, it’s me.”

  “Where are you, Jasmine?” would be her mother’s distracted reply.

  “I’m in the Hamptons, at a party,” Jasmine explained on one particular occasion.

  “You didn’t tell me you were leaving the city. What party?”

  “It’s a release party for Beyoncé’s new album.”

  “I need you home tomorrow afternoon. Your father and I are doing the promo for the new broadcast, and you need to be in a few of the shots.”

  “Mother! The party is for the whole weekend. Everybody’s here. I can’t just leave. I should have never called you.”

  “I don’t care who’s there. I need you here tomorrow. I’ll arrange for the plane to pick you up at the airport first thing in the morning. My assistant will call you with the time.”

  “Can’t the pictures just be of you and Daddy this time? I don’t want to leave.”

  “Don’t argue with me, young lady,” Samantha said angrily, now giving the conversation her full attention. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  There was silence on the line as Samantha waited for a response. She could hear music and laughter in the background.

  “Jasmine, is that understood?”

  “Yes,” came the huffy reply.

  “And, Jasmine.”

  “What?”

  “Stay out of the newspapers please.”

  On the day her father was murdered, Jasmine took an overdose of sleeping pills. Her stomach was pumped, and she was shipped off to a drug rehabilitation facility in Arizona. She spent twenty-eight days listening to the children of the rich spew the pathetic details of their drug-addled lives onto the terra-cotta-tiled floor of the group therapy room. And now she was home. More angry and alone than ever before.

  Don’t you think you should at least go in and say hello to your mother?” Etta asked as Jasmine walked past her to the staircase.

  Without turning around or altering her stride, she replied curtly, “I said I’ll talk to her later. Please have someone bring my bags up.”

  Her bedroom suite was the size of a three-bedroom apartment. It had a private marbled bath with a Jacuzzi tub and gold fixtures, a book-lined study, a walk-in closet dripping from ceiling to floor with clothes and accessories from the trendiest designers, and a king-size bed strewn with stuffed animals and antique dolls and flanked by freshly cut flowers in crystal vases, which were mysteriously replaced every Monday afternoon.

  When Jasmine entered the suite, she immediately felt like a trapped little bird in a luxurious gilded cage.

  There was a tap on the door, accompanied by, “Jasmine, honey, it’s Mommy.”

  “Come in,” came the exasperated reply.

  Samantha entered with a smile and outstretched arms. “Welcome home, honey. I missed you,” she said while hugging her rigid daughter. “How was it? Are you feeling any better?”

  “It was horrible. Why did you send me there?”

  Samantha released her from the embrace. “Because you almost died. I had just lost your father, and I didn’t want to lose you too.”

  “Would you have even noticed?” she asked coldly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I would notice. What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Jasmine busied herself with emptying the contents of a Louis Vuitton overnight bag onto the bed.

  “No, I don’t. Please explain yourself, young lady.”

  Jasmine turned sharply to Samantha. “Daddy and I were just props to you. Pieces you trot out when the cameras are rolling or you need to impress some large donor. The perfect Cleaveland family. Well, look at us now. Not so perfect, are we? My daddy is dead, and I wish I was too. But you look great. You must be very happy now. Daddy is out of the way, and now everything belongs to you.”

  Jasmine’s last words were greeted with a stinging slap across her cheek from Samantha.

  “Just because your father is no longer with us does not mean you can speak to me like that,” Samantha said, causing the stinging on Jasmine’s cheek to intensify. “I will not be spoken to in that tone. Do you understand me?”

  A look of terror crept across Jasmine’s face as her mother loomed, ready to strike again. For the first time she saw evil on her mother’s hardened face. She saw a gleam in her eye that was unfamiliar. Menacing, almost dangerous. Her beloved father was no longer there to serve as a buffer between the two of them. She was suddenly afraid to be alone in a room with her mother.

  “You hated him, didn’t you?” Jasmine finally said, holding her burning cheek. “And you hate me too.”

  Samantha softened her stance and smiled warmly. “You know that’s not true, don’t you, honey? I love you. You are all I have in the world.” As she spoke, she took a step closer to Jasmine.

  Jasmine moved quickly backward. “Stay away from me,” she said with a slight tremble in her voice. “Don’t come near me. I hate you.”

  “I know you don’t mean that, darling,” Samantha said with a smile. “You’re just tired. I’ll let you rest now. We can talk more later.”

  Samantha turned toward the door and walked the expanse of lush rose carpet. She then spun around on her heels and said, “Your father is gone now, Jasmine. I won’t tolerate any more of your nonsense. It’s just you and me now. Understand?”

  Tour buses rolled through the grounds of New Testament Cathedral, filled with tourists who gawked at fountains at every turn, crosses hewn from Italian marble, amphitheaters, and at the center, the glass cathedral. It was an ecclesiastical Disneyland. The eyes of the world were focused on the ten-acre plot of heaven in downtown Los Angeles. News vans dotted the compound, chronicling for the world the week of activities before the grand opening of what was now the most famous building in the world.

  The week’s agenda included dinners at the Cleaveland Estate with the mayor, governor, and other assorted dignitaries and a prayer breakfast with clergy from every faith. Samantha was center stage every second of the week. She had outfits laid out for every event and a cadre of staff to assure that each went off without a hitch.

  Samantha sat at the head of the table in a glass conference room with twenty religious leaders from around the world, who had assembled for the highly publicized prayer breakfast. They each had been flown in on private jets, courtesy of New Testament Cathedral, and accommodated in hotel suites around the city. The conference room had been transformed into a formal dining room, complete with imported linens, vases with elaborate floral arrangements, silver, and an army of servers.

  Chatter in the room was interrupted by a gentle tapping of a fork on a crystal water goblet. “Thank you all for joining us on this historic occasion,” Samantha said, standing to her feet. “I am honored to be surrounded by some of the most powerful spiritual leaders of our great country and the world.”

  Seated to her right was Rabbi Sherman Gottlieb from Temple Shalom in New York. To her left was the Reverend Joseph Bentley, president of the National Baptist Convention. Next to him was Reverend Henry Phillips, pastor to the last three presidents of the United States. Each of the twenty prominent people around the table was the head of his or her faith, and together they represented millions of dollars of free publicity.

  “God has called me to serve as the head of this great ministry,” she continued. “It’s not a position I sought or ever wanted. I was very happy serving and supporting my husband, the late Reverend Dr. Hezekiah Cleaveland. I thought I would be doing that until the day I died. But God had a different plan for my life.”

  As she spoke, waiters dressed in black waist-length jackets filled water glasses and poured coffee into waiting Wedgwood cups.

  ”Many of you knew my husband. He spoke very highly of everyone at this table. He would be pleased that you each have come to share this occasion with us. He was a great man, and I miss him deeply, but as everyone at this table knows, we are all presented with challenges on a daily b
asis that we have no control over. They are tests designed to prove ourselves as worthy servants to an almighty and all-knowing God.

  “It is my mission in life to prove myself worthy of the tasks God has laid before me. With your prayers and God’s guidance, I am confident that we will succeed in building New Testament Cathedral into one of the greatest ministries the world has ever known, one that serves as a messenger of God’s word and as a place of refuge for those in need of God’s love and direction.”

  Samantha went on, recounting the early days of the church with a nostalgic smile. “Fifteen years ago Hezekiah and I started this ministry in a little storefront on Imperial Highway, only blocks from where we are now sitting. There were twelve members at the first church service we held. We rented the nine-hundred-square-foot space from the owner, who ran a neighborhood grocery store next door.

  “We never imagined back then that the ministry would grow to include millions of supporters and viewers worldwide, a twenty-five-thousand-seat glass cathedral, and broadcasts in thirty-four countries, and that it would be ranked as one of the fastest-growing churches in the world. Please, if you will, stand and join me in a toast to my husband, the late great Hezekiah Cleaveland.”

  Everyone at the table reached for the nearest glass and stood to their feet.

  “To Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland,” Samantha said, hoisting her glass. “This is for you, my darling. We did it. May your soul find peace and rest cradled in the loving arms of our Lord.”

  As she spoke, a glimmering tear could be seen on her perfect cheek. Everyone at the table was moved by her undying devotion to the man she apparently loved so deeply.

  “To Hezekiah!” everyone chorused in response to her heartfelt toast. “To Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland!” Glasses were raised around the room in honor of the man whose life had been cut short by the beautiful widow standing at the head of the table.

  Danny was asleep in the guest room. His wound had been attended to by Gideon, who had cradled him in his arms until he drifted into sleep. Gideon now paced the floor of his study. With each thought he had of Samantha, his anger increased and his steps grew more rapid.