Forever a Hustler's Wife by Nikki Turner Read Free Book Online Page A

thirty seconds he fell over in the sauna and was dead. Des picked up the water bottle, stood, and walked out.
    He checked out of his hotel room and headed back down I-95 to go be with his daughter and wife. When he stopped to get gas in Maryland, he called Yarni to let her know he was on his way. As he heard their daughter cry in the background, he became even more anxious to see her. Looking at the line of cars the gas station clerk was dealing with, he decided he wanted to get back to his family as soon as possible, so he paid at the pump with his credit card and continued his conversation with his wife. He talked to her on and off the entire drive home, even asking her to put the phone up to the baby’s ear so that Desi could hear her daddy tell her how much he loved her.
    Once Des read the WELCOME TO VIRGINIA sign, he was overcome with emotion. It was a feeling that had been foreign to him for quite some time. He had been in the game for as long as he could remember. Hell, even a jail sentence doesn’t truly remove you from it. Sometimes in the game lives were lost; sometimes they had to be taken. But it wasn’t until that moment that Des confronted the act he had just committed.
    He was less than an hour away from his family, a family he was bound and determined to do right by. He had always considered Yarni his wife, even before it was on paper. Even then she was his wife in his heart. But something was different now that it was by God’s will and not man’s flesh. And now there was another life involved, that of little Desi. Des did something he had never done before, probably because he had never before had to acknowledge that he was responsible for the precious lives of others. He made a covenant with himself that things were going to change…and for the better.

    As Des pulled into the gated community where he lived with his wife, he waited for the gate to open, but for some reason it stalled. Before he knew it, police swarmed him and the car. They had him surrounded, with their guns drawn.
    “Step out of the car,” he heard an officer yell through a bullhorn.
    Des was shocked and confused. He knew that he had planned Jarbo’s murder down to the last minor detail and had been very meticulous about it. He had taken the water bottle with the poison in it and thrown it over the bridge, and had wiped the other water bottle off. He destroyed and burned all of the evidence, down to the newspaper he shared with Jarbo. There was absolutely nothing that could have led the police back to him.
    “Out of the car with both hands up, now,” the voice shouted through the bullhorn again, angrier and louder this time. Des had no choice but to step out of the car with both of his hands raised.
    Knowing good and well that they had Des cornered, Detective Columbo did the honors. He limped over toward Des’s car, swaying his huge butt. He slapped the cuffs on Des’s wrists. With a big smile, he looked in Des’s eyes and said, “Desmond Lamont Taylor, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”
    Desmond glared back into Detective Columbo’s eyes, and replied, “Anything you say can and will be held against you. You have the right to an attorney…”
    Des smiled as Detective Columbo finished reciting the rest of his Miranda rights on his own, and then asked, “For what?” Des refused to believe that he had left a trail that connected him to Jarbo.
    “For murder,” Columbo replied. “The murder of Mike Richards.”
    “Who?”
    “Mr. Richards. Don’t play stupid. He was your attorney.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. Why the fuck would I waste my time with that clown?” Des exclaimed.
    After Des had gotten out of jail, he wasn’t salty at all against his old attorney. He knew that Richards would have his day at some point, but Des wouldn’t be the one to give it to him.
    Detective Columbo put Des in the backseat of a police cruiser and then climbed in after him. “Desmond, I haven’t seen you