Forever a Hustler's Wife (22 page)

CHAPTER 30

Things Ain’t Ever What They Seem

O
nce Yarni was out of court, she called Des to tell him about her victory, but his phone went straight to voice mail again. She called her office as she navigated through traffic.

“Thanks for calling Taylor and Associates. How may I help you?”

“Hey, Unique,” Yarni said into the phone, “I thought you were supposed to get off at four-thirty, but you’ve been staying as late as I have. You know, you don’t have to do that, but we do appreciate you coming in and holding down the fort so that Layla is able to help me more.”

“Don’t mention it,” Unique told her boss. “You and Des did so much for me, so anything I can do, I’ll do. I’ve never had anyone to believe in me and love me with all my faults. I’ve done some grimy stuff, and for the first time I really feel I fit in. But besides, I don’t like going home because Khadijah has that big-butt white man that she creeps with in her room, and I hate the smell of those stanking-ass cigars he smokes. It brings back too many bad memories of when I was working in South America. I just try to go home when it’s late and she’s asleep, and her company is gone.”

“So, she’s really messing around on Ahmeen, huh?” Yarni asked, somewhat surprised by the revelation. She had always suspected that there was more to Sister Khadijah than she let on, but she thought the woman was faithful to her husband to a fault.

“Yes, and with a devil at that. Seems like she ain’t the perfect Muslim sister she pretends to be.”

“Well, you know we all have our faults. I just never thought she would mess around on Ahmeen. Hey, it’s hard when a man is behind prison walls, but she didn’t have to go with a white man and have him in the house.”

“Well, at first I used to see him like once every now and then, when she was letting him in late at night after she thought I was asleep, or when he was leaving early in the morning before I woke up, but he’s been there the last few nights. Please don’t say anything. You know I still have to live there.”

“I won’t. I do want you to know that you’ve come a long way since I met you in South America, and I am so very proud of you.”

“Thanks.” Unique was quiet for a second, then she changed the subject, “So how did the trial go?”

“Everything went well. We TKO’d, but Samuel still got five years on some contempt of court charges. Still, that’s better than the forty years to life he was facing.”

“Congrats,” Unique said. “You have a stack of messages, but the most pressing is that your mother-in-law called three times. Plus, I have to talk to you about something when you get here.”

Yarni sighed. Ever since she had decided to put Desi in day care, Joyce had been getting on her last nerve, treating her like she had put Desi in a girls’ home.

Just then the phone beeped, and Yarni looked on the cell phone’s caller ID. “Speak of the devil. It’s Joyce. Unique, let me take this call.”

“Okay.”

Yarni clicked over to the other line and greeted her mother-in-law. “Hello, Joyce.” Yarni rolled her eyes up in her head.

Joyce started right up. “I thought you wanted me to pick up Desi. Why’d you go and get her?”

“What?” Yarni said, surprised. “Joyce, I didn’t pick her up. Des must have gotten her.”

“No, they said you signed her out.” Joyce stressed the word
you.

“Joyce, I don’t have her!” Yarni yelled as she busted an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and sped to the day care.

“What you mean?” Joyce asked, alarm evident in her voice.

“I don’t have Desi, and I didn’t pick her up. I’ve been in court all day and just got out ten minutes ago. Let me call and see if Des got her,” Yarni said, her heart pounding.

“He ain’t answering either. I tried calling him right before I called you. His phone is going straight to the voice mail,” Joyce said.

“Look, let me call the day care.”

Yarni hung up, but not before Joyce demanded, “Yes, you do that.”

She called the day care, and the director said that Desi wasn’t there and that Yarni had signed her out. Before Yarni could cuss her out, she lost the call.

Yarni didn’t know what to do. Des wasn’t picking up, and neither was Bambi. She called her mother in Florida, frantic, as she ran every red light trying to get to the center. Gloria calmed Yarni down a little bit, and then called her brother, Stanka, and Yarni’s dad, Lloyd, to fill them in since they lived nearby and could get to Yarni quicker.

Yarni tried calling Bambi again and was relieved when her sister answered the phone.

“These motherfuckers done let my baby go with someone else,” she said the minute Bambi answered.

“What?” Bambi asked, sounding confused. “Yarni, what are you talking about?”

Yarni tried to calm down. She was only a few minutes from the center and knew she had to talk fast because all hell was going to break loose once she set foot through the doors, if they couldn’t produce her baby.

“Joyce called me and said Desi wasn’t at day care, so I called the center, and the director said I signed her out, but I don’t have her.” Yarni felt tears filling her eyes. “Bambi, they don’t know where the fuck my baby is.”

“I’m on my way,” Bambi said, as Yarni pulled into the day care center’s parking lot.

Yarni slammed the car into park and jumped out, rushing through the doors of the center.

“Where the hell is my baby?” she screamed at the first employee she saw.

The woman looked stunned. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Today is my first day. Who is your child?”

“Desi Taylor,” Yarni said.

The woman glanced around, unsure of what to do.

“You know what, fuck this. Where’s the director?” Yarni screamed, forgetting that she was indeed the first lady of Good Life Ministry. Parents who were picking up their children stopped to stare at her.

The director arrived a few seconds later, having heard Yarni yelling from her office.

“Please calm down,” the director said. “If you’ll follow me to my office, I’m sure we can straighten everything out.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Yarni said, planting her feet firmly on the ground. “Where is my baby?”

The director looked around nervously at the other parents who were waiting expectantly for her answer. “We don’t know where she is,” she said quietly. “I double-checked our records after you called, and they indicate you picked her up.” She went and grabbed the sign-out sheet from the new girl at the front desk. “Here’s your signature right here.”

Yarni briefly glanced at it, knowing she hadn’t signed Desi out. “That doesn’t look anything like my signature!” she screamed. “Where is my baby?” Tears filled her eyes, and Yarni suddenly found it hard to breathe.

“Would you like a drink of water?” the director asked, touching her arm.

Yarni swatted her hand away. “I want my baby!” she yelled.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where she is. I called the police right before I came out here. They should be here any second.”

“Why would you wait until I arrived? I told you on the phone I didn’t sign my daughter out. What is wrong with you? How can a person just walk up in here and take my baby? Didn’t you check their identification?”

The new receptionist looked at the floor, and Yarni reached out and slapped her, stunning the woman. As she reached back to swing again, someone grabbed her hand midair.

“Calm down,” Bambi said. “Let me handle this.”

Before Yarni could respond, the police arrived—followed shortly by Joyce, Uncle Stanka, and Lloyd—and locked down the center, not allowing anyone else to exit until everyone had been questioned. Three hours later, there was still no sign of Desi. It was as though she had disappeared into thin air.

Yarni watched the center’s security video of the few minutes leading up to the kidnapping. The woman who had taken Desi had kept her back to the camera, but there was something familiar about her. Desi hadn’t seemed frightened at all by the woman—in fact, she had reached for her and laughed, which in a strange way offered Yarni a little comfort.

Bambi drove her home, and it wasn’t until they were pulling out of the day care’s parking lot that Yarni realized she still hadn’t heard from Des.

Yarni’s house became the headquarters for family and friends during the crisis. Joyce, Lava, and Uncle Stanka were there. Bambi’s husband, Lynx, had his ear to the streets to see if there was anything circulating, but there was nothing. They didn’t know if Des was dead or alive, because he wasn’t answering his phone. The church members got wind of the abduction and organized a prayer vigil and search squad as Yarni waited for news to come in.

Yarni prayed like never before.
Lord, surround my sweet child with angels to protect her. Please lead me to my beautiful daughter and let my husband be safe and sound.

Yarni paced the floor.
Maybe this is somehow related to that motherfucking bitch who tried to set Des up,
she thought. “Get that crackhead who helped clear Des up here. She’s gotta try harder to describe that woman who paid her,” she said when she finally got in touch with Unique, who had left for the day. A thought occurred to Yarni, and she turned and asked no one in particular, “Did she make up the woman with the tattoo? I swear to God, if she’s behind this, I’m going to kill that bitch myself!” Yarni screamed.

Lava and a few others had dashed over to meet Unique at the office to get Yarni’s files on the mystery woman who had paid the crackhead to finger Des. Unique insisted on heading back to the house in case Yarni needed her, so Layla and Slim stayed at the office to answer the phone in case a ransom call came that way.

After Unique gave the files to Lava, she got in her car and was heading to Yarni’s house when she decided to pick up some food and coffee for the family. She felt bad about Little Desi. For a split second she thought it was Lootchee who may have taken her to get back at the family, but she wouldn’t dare point the finger at him. She knew better. She decided to call and report in to let him know what had happened and see if he would tell her anything. She got him on the phone

“Things are so crazy here. All hell has broken loose,” Unique said.

“What?” Lootchee replied.

“Yarni and Des’s baby has been kidnapped.”

“For real?” Lootchee said, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Yup.”

“That’s fucked up. It should have been Bambi’s and Lynx’s baby. That would have made my shit easier.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with it?” Unique boldly asked, knowing she shouldn’t question her master.

“Fuck no, I didn’t do that shit, but it sounds like a good idea to snatch that bitch Bambi’s baby from her, and take all my frustrations that I have for Bambi out on the baby.”

His words let Unique know he was the most treacherous man she had ever come across in her life. “Oh, okay, just wanted to check in and let you know the latest on this end, that’s all,” she said, trying to hurry off the phone so he wouldn’t hear the fear in her voice.

“Good job. Stay focused.”

“I will.”

Unique hung up and wondered for a second what she had gotten herself into, but, more important, how she was ever going to get out of it.

Once Unique arrived with the food, she saw Bambi’s little girl running around and felt sorry for her because she knew that Lootchee would not have any mercy on her.

She thought about all the things men had done to her in her past and didn’t want the little innocent girl to be exploited like she had been time and time again. If Lootchee got his hands on her, God only knew what he would do.

Bambi rolled her eyes at Unique because she thought that Unique wanted Lynx. Back in the day, Unique had made a play for him. Unique humbly sucked up the cattiness that Bambi sent her way.

The phone rang, and everyone became quiet. Yarni ran down from her home office, where she had been praying, just as Bambi answered. “Hello. Taylor residence.”

“Yarnise, this Sam. I really need to talk to you,” he said.

“This is not Yarni; this is Bambi, her sister.”

“How you doing? I need to speak to Yarnise, please. It’s very important.”

“She can’t talk right now, Sam.”

“What about Des, her husband? Where’s he?”

“He’s not here either.”

“Look, it’s an emergency. I need to speak to one of them.”

“Now is not a good time,” Bambi snapped. “We actually have an emergency going on here.”

“I might be able to help. I need to speak to Yarnise.”

Bambi turned to her sister, who looked at her expectantly. Steeling herself for bad news, Yarni asked, “What is it?”

“This is Sam. He said he could help.” Bambi told Yarni.

Yarni snatched the cordless phone out of Bambi’s hands. “Samuel—”

“I need you to listen to me carefully, and hear me out. I heard that the bitch that works for your husband came down here yesterday, to see her husband, and that she went crazy in the visiting room, and they put her out.”

“What does that have to do with me? I can’t be a marriage counselor right now,” she said, pacing the room. Several people looked at her for a second, but when they realized it wasn’t a ransom call, they went back to talking.