The Last Sunday (5 page)

“I killed him,” Percy blubbered. “I didn't mean to. It was an accident.”

“I know that, baby, and God knows that too.
You
didn't kill him.
They
killed him. With their greed and immoral behavior. The Cleavelands killed him. It's not your fault. You just have to listen to me, baby, from now on. I know what's best for you. I know what's best for us. Trust me and everything will be just fine,” she whispered as Percy wilted into the comfort of her gentle arms.

A wall of television monitors in Samantha's office presented a steady stream of “triumphant widow” news feeds. She studied her images on the screens and each report intently.

Her new office was situated high above the main entrance of the church. Sunlight turned into an aquamarine mist as it filtered through the intricately woven ten-foot-high glass panes that formed the walls that encased her lofty tomb. From this new perch Samantha could see her kingdom and all its inhabitants, sprawled at her feet, but they could not see her.

Each national and international report covering the opening of New Testament Cathedral vied for Samantha's attention from the wall of television monitors opposite her acrylic desk.

She wore a black-and-white, cropped tweed Oscar de la Renta bolero jacket, a layered-front sheer blouse, and a printed sateen skirt. Shimmering black hair cascaded like water around her cheeks and framed the face that the world had come to love. Were the cameras rolling? Was there a room filled to capacity, the audience hanging on her every word? No, but Samantha Cleaveland was still perfect.

“Only days to the grand opening of what many are saying is the most beautiful church in the world,” Diane Sawyer said while reporting on New Testament Cathedral during the news broadcast that had aired the evening before.

“Not only is she beautiful, but Samantha Cleaveland is one of the most courageous women I have ever met,” gushed Don Lemon from another screen.

The images continued in rapid succession, all funneled to her office by a legion of technical minions buried somewhere deep within the bowels of the new media center at the opposite end of the campus. From her desk, Samantha pointed the remote to select the feed she wanted to hear. She controlled their sound and their words with the simple wave of her manicured hand.

“I'm sorry to disturb you, Pastor Cleaveland,” said a disembodied voice from the phone on her desk. “David Shackelford is here to see you. I told him you didn't want to be disturbed, but he said it's urgent and you would want to speak with him.”

Samantha slowly spun her white leather chair away from the wall of monitors to the window behind her desk. She gazed over the campus and thought,
I'm going to have to do something about him.

“Send him in,” she replied, making no attempt at hiding her exasperation. “And, Chantal, hold all my calls.”

David Shackelford bolted into the room seconds later. His hulking frame and Ferragamo loafers hurled him across the expanse of the office toward Samantha, who was still seated behind the desk.

“I've been trying to reach you for two days. Why haven't you taken my calls?”

Samantha did not move. “I've been very busy, David,” she responded coldly. “What is it that you want?”

David paused when greeted with her coldness. “I . . . I want you, Samantha,” he stammered. “I need you. I've been going crazy without you.”

“Don't be ridiculous, David. I've told you, you belong with Scarlett, not me. I don't have time for a relationship. Besides, how would it look for me to been seen with someone only months after Hezekiah died? He's barely cold in his grave.”

“I don't give a fuck about what people think.” David rushed around the desk and lifted Samantha by her shoulders. “I love you, Samantha. I need you.”

“I don't like to be handled, David,” she said, pushing him away. “Please take your hands off me.”

“Please don't push me away, Samantha. I can't live without you. I'll do anything for you. You know that, don't you?”

The images of Samantha flashed on the television monitors as the two spoke. David tried again to reduce the distance between them.

“Please, Samantha,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck. “Make love to me again. I love you.”

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.