Are You Afraid Of The Dark   ::   Sheldon Sidney

In a few minutes, she fellsound asleep.

* * *



AT THREE O'CLOCK in the morning, she woke up screaming.



CHAPTER 2

IT WAS DAWN before Diane could stop trembling. The chill she felt was bone deep.

Richard was dead. She would never see him again, hear his voice, feel him hold her close.

And it's my fault. I should never have gone into that courtroom. Oh, Richard, forgive me… please forgive me… I don't think I can go on without you. You were my life, my reason to live, and now I have none.

She wanted to curl up into a tiny ball.

She wanted to disappear.

She wanted to die.

She lay there, desolate, thinking about the past, how Richard had transformed her life…

* * *



DIANE WEST HAD grown up in Sands Point, New York, an area of quiet affluence.

Her father was a surgeon and her mother was an artist, and Diane had begun to draw when she was three. She attended St. Paul's boarding school, and when she was a freshman in college, she had a brief relationship with her charismatic mathematics teacher. He told her he wanted to marry her because she was the only woman in the world for him. When Diane learned that he had a wife and three children, she decided that either his math or his memory was defective, and transferred to Wellesley College.

She was obsessed with art and spent every spare moment painting. By the time Diane graduated, she had begun selling her paintings and was acquiring a reputation as an artist of promise.

That fall, a prominent Fifth Avenue art gallery gave Diane her own art show, and it was a huge success. The owner of the gallery, Paul Deacon, was a wealthy, erudite African-American who had helped nurture Diane's career.

Opening night, the salon was crowded. Deacon hurried up to Diane, a big smile on his face. "Congratulations! We've already sold most of the paintings! I'm going to set up another exhibition in a few months, as soon as you're ready." Diane was thrilled. "That's wonderful, Paul." "You deserve it." He patted her on the shoulder and bustled off.

Diane was signing an autograph when a man came up behind her and said, "I like your curves." Diane stiffened. Furious, she spun around and opened her mouth to make a sharp retort, when he went on:

"They have the delicacy of a Rossetti or a Manet." He was studying one of her paintings on the wall.

Diane caught herself just in time. "Oh." She took a closer look at the man. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties.