Rachel hesitated a little too long before she protested, “I didn’t do that.”
Jasmine held up her hand. “Spare me. Just tell me what you want. And while you’re at it, tell me why I shouldn’t beat you down again for what you did to me and my daughter.”
Rachel took a step back as if she wasn’t about to let Jasmine land another surprise right hook. “Look,” she said, “I know you don’t like me—”
Jasmine laughed. “Can you spell ‘understatement’?”
“And I don’t like you either,” Rachel said, ignoring Jasmine’s sarcasm. “But you need to know that you and I have been played big-time. Cecelia set us up.”
The smirk faded from Jasmine’s face. “What are you talking about?”
Rachel looked toward the couch as if she wanted the two of them to sit down and talk, but when she glanced back at Jasmine, she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She was just going to have to bring Jasmine the facts standing up.
Rachel blew out a short breath. “I just overheard Cecelia talking to Coco Penn.”
Coco Penn? Reverend Penn’s porn-star wife? Why would Coco be talking to Cecelia?
Rachel continued, “Besides calling us psychopaths, she arranged this entire week. She set up everything so that we’d look bad and she’d come out smelling like the new president!”
Jasmine twisted her lips, absolutely sure that this was just another trick by this trick. But for what? What was Rachel really up to?
“Okay, you don’t believe me,” Rachel said. “Well, see if you think I made this up.” She recounted for Jasmine everything she heard, word for word.
Sometimes, Jasmine’s eyes narrowed, and then a moment later, they’d widen. Rachel just talked, not pausing, not even, it seemed, to take a breath.
“So, that’s it,” Rachel said, finishing up. “She knew we would fight it out, then split the vote. She planned it all.”
“And she planned for you to take my child?”
Not even a second passed and Rachel responded, “Did she plan for you to set me up for shoplifting?”
It was the “touché” that Rachel saw in Jasmine’s eyes that let her know that at least Jasmine had heard her, at least Jasmine believed her, but she wanted it to really sink in. “Think about it. Every time something jumped off between us, Cecelia was always there, right?”
Jasmine thought for a moment, then nodded.
Rachel said, “And really, when you look back, she never tried to smooth things over with us. She just kept jumping from your side to my side, then back to your side, adding fuel to the fire.” She paused, giving Jasmine more time to think about it. “She wanted us to fight.”
Jasmine shook her head slightly as if she was remembering it all. “Wow!”
“We’ve got to do something about this,” Rachel implored. “The two of us … we need to get her back.”
Slowly, Jasmine sauntered to the sofa. She sat down, and clasped her hands together—as if she was in deep thought or deep prayer. After a few moments, Rachel joined her on the couch.
“So, where did you overhear all of this?”
Rachel blinked. “I overheard, you know, them. Downstairs, you know, in the restaurant.”
Jasmine frowned; she’d told enough lies to know what Rachel’s stuttering meant. “You need to tell me what’s really going on or you can just walk right out that door.”
Rachel took a breath. “Okay, I was in her room … and then, she came in with Coco … and then, I hid in the closet, and then I dashed out when they went outside on the balcony.”
Jasmine shook her head, as if the thought of that was just ridiculous.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. As if you haven’t hidden in somebody’s closet before.”
The truth of those words jolted Jasmine a bit. How had this girl pegged her so right? Jasmine had found herself hiding in closets, underneath beds, behind couches … once, she’d even found herself in the trunk of some man’s car. That’s what happened when married men were your drug of choice. So she couldn’t look down on Rachel, and somehow, Rachel knew that.
I guess it takes one to know one.
“So,” Rachel began, “you can either sit here and judge me and Cecelia wins, or we can stop her from winning together.”
“All right,” Jasmine said, “though we don’t have a lot of time to stop her. The election is—”
“The day after tomorrow,” Rachel finished. “I know that, but I don’t care. I’m not about to let Cecelia get away with what she’s done to us.”
“Okay, genius, what do you propose?”
Rachel sucked her teeth. “Look, if you’re gonna be nasty about this, and keep calling me names, then we can just forget it and I’ll do this all by myself.” Rachel stood up. “I don’t even know why I came to you. I should’ve just brought you and Cecelia down. Lester is gonna win anyway and—”
Would you just shut up? is what Jasmine said in her mind. But aloud, she apologized. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you a genius. Forgive me.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” she said as if she was the one who was now in control. “So, if you want to work with me, I’m cool, but I’m not about to sit here and be insulted.”
Insulted? I just called you a genius, fool! Jasmine had no idea how she kept her laughter inside. “Whatever you say.”
“Good! So, this is what I was thinking,” Rachel began as she sat back down. “All we have to do is a little digging, find some stuff on Cecelia, and bring her down with it.”
“How do you know we’ll find anything?”
“Everybody has something that they don’t want anyone else to know,” Rachel said, as if she was remembering her own secrets about her family.
Jasmine nodded. “That’s true. So, we’re going to do this together, right?”
“Right!”
“To bring Cecelia down, right?”
“Right!”
“So that Hosea will win, right?”
“Hell, I mean, heck nah! I ain’t making no deal like that.”
So their feud hadn’t ended. Rachel still wanted her husband to win. Well, that was never going to happen.
“What I mean,” Jasmine started over, “is that we should just play it out … let whoever is going to win this, win it. We won’t interfere in that process—between Hosea and Lester—at all.”
Rachel shrugged. “That’s how I wanted it to be all along.”
Jasmine gave her a stop-lying sideways glance.
“What?” Rachel said. “You’re the one who started it—leaving me out of the first ladies’ meeting you had and then making me read that made-up bio …”
Jasmine chuckled. It was amazing to watch the brain of a goose at work. Rachel had totally forgotten how she’d canceled the limousine and the hotel room, and then had her daughter spill a cup of punch on Jacqueline so that Jasmine would have to leave the reception—and that was just the first day!
But Jasmine reminded Rachel of none of those things. They’d both taken shots, they’d both landed some great punches, though Jasmine knew that she was way ahead if points were to be given.
Still, if they were that good apart, how much damage could they do to Cecelia together? She would be the brains, Rachel would be her sidekick, they would make something happen.
“Okay, I’m in.” Jasmine stood and extended her hand.
Rachel left her hanging at first, studying Jasmine’s hand as if she wanted to make sure Jasmine wasn’t hiding a snake up her sleeve.
After a couple of seconds, Rachel stood up and shook Jasmine’s hand … right at the same moment as Hosea entered the suite.
“What’s going on here?” Hosea said slowly as he stared at Jasmine and Rachel standing in the exact spot where he and Pastor Griffith had called their truce just a couple of hours before.
“Nothing, baby.” Jasmine strutted to her husband and kissed his cheek. “Rachel just came by to—”
“To apologize,” Rachel
interjected. “I’m so sorry, Pastor Bush, for the misunderstanding with Jacqueline. Honestly, I would have never done anything to hurt her and she had a great time hanging out with Nia.”
He smiled—a little. “Jacquie told us that. But”—he looked at his wife as if he couldn’t believe this scene—“I’m glad you and Jasmine have worked it all out.”
“Yup, we have,” Jasmine said, and the two women pasted strained smiles on their faces.
Hosea looked from one to the other—as if he wasn’t sure what to believe. But then, as if he’d decided that he preferred peace, he nodded.
“Thank you for coming by.” Then, to Jasmine, he said, “I’m going into the bedroom to make a few calls.”
“Okay, we’re finishing up here.”
He smiled again at Rachel before he left the two women alone.
“Are you going to say anything to him?” Rachel whispered.
“No.” Jasmine shook her head. “Hosea believes that God should just work this whole thing out.”
“Lester believes the same thing, girl,” Rachel said, then snapped her mouth shut as she noticed her snafu. Did she just call Jasmine “girl,” as in friend?
Naw! they both said to themselves. The two of them would never be friends.
To make sure that Rachel understood that, as she opened the door, Jasmine said, “Well, it looks like we’re living proof that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Rachel frowned, as if Jasmine were speaking another language.
Jasmine just nodded her good-bye, not even thinking about explaining that old proverb to Rachel. As she closed the door behind the woman whose fingers she’d wanted to break when they’d shaken hands a minute ago, another cliché passed through her mind—keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
And that’s exactly what she was going to do. Keep Rachel close. Keep Rachel close enough and busy enough that she wouldn’t even realize what was going on.
Then, tomorrow night, she would make her move. She would bring Cecelia and Rachel down.
And Jasmine already knew exactly what she was going to do.
Chapter
THIRTY
Less than twenty-four hours ago, if someone had told Rachel Jackson Adams that she would be huddled at a table, in cahoots with her nemesis, she would’ve told them they were crazy.
That’s why you should never say never.
Because not only was she working with that highfalutin skeezer, it had been her idea. But the one thing Rachel hated more than a conniving tramp was a backstabbing, conniving tramp. And Cecelia King was queen of the backstabbers.
At the end of the day, Rachel knew Lester could beat Hosea. Cecelia, on the other hand, might be a challenge. So at this point, it was the lesser of two evils. That’s not to say Rachel wouldn’t continue to take Jasmine down, but she could do that on her own. Taking Cecelia down was going to require some help.
“So, how’d you dig up all this stuff so fast?” Jasmine asked, flipping through the papers Rachel had laid in front of her. They were meeting in Jasmine’s suite, something she’d been wary about, since it was right next to Cecelia’s. But Jasmine had insisted it was the best way to avoid any interruptions.
“You just found out about Cecelia yesterday,” Jasmine continued. She looked shocked at the sheer magnitude of what Rachel had dug up. There had to be at least two hundred pieces of paper.
“Let’s just say I’m pretty resourceful.” Rachel flashed a proud smile. “I know how to find out what I need.”
A beat passed, Jasmine, no doubt, recalling all the dirt Rachel had dug up on her.
“So, why didn’t you put those investigative talents to good use?” Jasmine asked snidely.
“I have,” Rachel said, defensively pointing to the stack.
Jasmine shook her head as she flipped a piece of paper and scanned the page. “No, I mean like college or something,” she said nonchalantly. “How someone can just be content with a high school diploma is beyond me.”
No, this chick wasn’t trying to take a dig at her. Rachel took a deep breath to keep herself from getting heated. She knew Jasmine had an MBA in finance but Rachel had a PhD in real life, so she wasn’t impressed.
“If you must know, I did go to community college for a semester, it just wasn’t for me. I had two kids, so it was hard to balance it, not to mention the fact that my family wasn’t wealthy.” She put her finger to her temple like she was thinking. “Oh, wait, neither was yours. That’s why you took to the pole—” The way Jasmine was glaring at her stopped her midsentence. Rachel paused, then said, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” She hated apologizing to this woman, but they didn’t have time to be fighting. So if that meant she’d have to be the bigger woman, she would be.
Rachel turned her attention back to the papers. “Let’s just stay focused on our mission.” She picked up a few sheets and started flipping. “I’m not even sure what all is here, but I pulled some stuff, then I had my private investigator, um, I mean my friend, pull up some stuff and fax it to me as well. I even had Melinda from the TV station run the Kings through this special database called LexisNexis, which compiles just about everything there is to know about someone. Government and investigative agencies use it a lot. I just figured we could go through everything and see if we can find anything we could use.”
Jasmine turned up her nose as she scanned the papers. “Ummph, it looks like just a bunch of articles singing the praises of the Kings and all they’ve done for the ABC. What is that supposed to do?”
Rachel bit her bottom lip. She wanted to slap all of this negativity out of this woman. They didn’t have time for her to be shooting down everything Rachel was doing. She was such a hater, she couldn’t even give Rachel props for all that she’d done so quickly.
“Yes, there are articles,” Rachel said calmly, “but we don’t know what all is in them. No one is that squeaky-clean, so there has to be something there. Plus, there’s some background info on the Kings and a bunch of other stuff.”
Jasmine looked like she wanted to say something sarcastic. Instead, she just said, “I still don’t understand what we’re supposed to do with all of this stuff. And even if we find anything, how are we gonna confirm it, then let everyone know by the election tomorrow?”
Rachel threw her papers down. This heffa was working her nerves. “Do you have a better idea? Because seems like to me you walked into this meeting empty-handed.”
“Well, I … I made some calls, too,” Jasmine stuttered.
Rachel leaned back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. “Okay. What did you find out?”
“Well,” she said slowly, “I’m waiting on some people to call me back.”
Rachel let out a small laugh. The way Jasmine cut her eyes, Rachel could tell she didn’t appreciate the humor of the moment. Rachel almost told this bootleg Barbara Bush about herself. She was trying to act like she was all that, but when it came down to it, she was as fake as that Yaki 1B ponytail on her head.
Still, with only one day left before the election, Rachel needed Jasmine, so she kept her thoughts to herself.
“Well, until your people call you back, this is all we have to go on,” Rachel said, not bothering to hide the edge in her voice. She jabbed the papers. “My point in bringing all of this was so that we could go through it and hopefully find something we could use.”
“Fine,” Jasmine huffed, and started studying the paper in front of her.
They sat in silence, reading the documents for more than twenty minutes. Then Rachel found something that struck her. She read it again and her mouth fell open.
“What?” Jasmine asked, noticing her expression.
“Look at this,” Rachel said, turning a paper around for Jasmine to see. “The Kings quietly settled a civil lawsuit against an unnamed woman who charged that Cecelia had her beat up for having an affair with Rev. King.”
“What?” Jasmine exclaimed.
“Dang,” Rachel said, t
urning the page over, “it doesn’t give any more details.”
“I don’t believe Cecelia would have someone beat up,” Jasmine said.
“Did you believe she would smile in your face and stab you in your back?”
Jasmine looked pensive as Rachel continued, “Does Cecelia look like someone who would let you have an affair with her man and get away with it?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. This is the ammunition we need.” She waved the paper. “If Cecelia wasn’t guilty, why in the world would she settle out of court? I know I’ve only known her a few days, but I do know she wouldn’t take this all the way to court if there wasn’t some truth to it. We just let everybody know about this, and bam, she can hang up her chances.”
“No,” Jasmine protested. “First of all, they can say they settled to avoid a costly trial or something like that, and they end up looking like the victim. Secondly … The. Election. Is. Tomorrow.”
Rachel let out a frustrated sigh. She hated to admit that Jasmine was right. The lawsuit wasn’t an angle they had time to explore and there were so many ways the Kings could wiggle out of that one. Plus, revealing this would just seem like more dirt-digging, and that could backfire on them.
“So what do you suggest?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know,” Jasmine replied. “But I’m starting to wonder if there’s even anything to be found.”
This was getting ridiculous. Rachel leaned forward on the table. “Jasmine, let’s keep it real, we don’t particularly care for each other.”
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Jasmine mumbled.
Rachel ignored her and continued talking. “But think of the things you did to try and sabotage me.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, the things we did to sabotage each other,” Rachel admitted. “But if we’ll go to such lengths for a position we want, imagine what Cecelia would do to hang on to something she has.”
Jasmine looked doubtful. “Okay, I’ll give you that because I don’t really trust any woman,” she said, emphasizing “any.” Rachel wanted to tell her that the feeling was mutual but she let Jasmine continue talking.
Sinners & Saints Page 22
