Cupid: A Dark Erotic Romance Part 2

At ten, she'd discovered a body in her back yard.

That dirty s.p.a.ce behind her house had always been her favorite place to dig around. People dropped quarters there. She found other treasures too-a pretty earring, a wrinkled page from p.o.r.n magazine, and two turquoise rocks that glinted under the sun.

That day, she'd dug and shoveled like any other afternoon-break the soil, lift it up, sling it to the side, and repeat.

Yet, an odd energy filled the air. It buzzed around, all electric and hot as fire.

Things changed even more at the appearance of a graying hand right in the area where she shoveled. Unmoving fingers sat in the ground. Stiff and pale. The whole hand was embedded in the backyard's soil and standing up like a flower. And even worse, three copper rings covered three fingers, just like her babysitter Gabby's hand.

"Gabby?" Diana whispered.

A normal girl would have jumped up and screamed.

A normal girl probably wouldn't have been shoveling in the back yard in the first place.

But, Diana kept digging, searching, and pus.h.i.+ng away the dirt.

More of the dead body appeared. It caused terror to jump inside of Diana's rib cage. She found it hard to breath, yet she dug some more, that intense, electric sensation sparkling along her skin.

"Gabby." Her fingers shook as she stopped the shoveling and peered forward.

Diana's babysitter, Gabby had pink hair. That day, those colorful strands didn't s.h.i.+ne bright and appear so cool. Dirt clumped to knots and on some parts of Gabby's head, worms slithered along maggot-infested grooves along her opened skull. Violent, purple lines circled Gabby's neck like an extravagant necklace. The dead girl only wore a red bra and panties with one high-heeled shoe half-way off of her right foot.

"Gabby." Diana's bottom lip quivered. "What happened?"

The babysitter gave Diana no answer, as she'd done many times before, always providing Diana with funny, nonsensical answers that seemed to test the laws of reality.

"I'm so sorry, Gabby," Diana whispered.

Gabby's eyes stared up at the sky and mirrored the cloudy image in front of them.

In no time, Diana rushed into the house, bypa.s.sed her parents, and called the police.

Her mother and father had been arguing that morning anyway. They'd been doing that a lot lately. Fighting about her dad's lack of work. She paid them no mind and focused on helping Gabby.

Perhaps, Diana should've stopped them and explained what she found, before calling the police. Maybe things would've turned out different for them all.

But she didn't do things like normal children.

Diana had been the one to find the dead body, so she'd been the one to call the police.

And through tear-blurred eyes, she'd been the one to watch her father get arrested for Gabby's murder. She'd been the one to hold her mother as she fell to the ground and cried.

One thing Diana had not realized was that a dead young white girl in a poor, black man's yard, didn't trigger court-approved justice in the eyes of society.

Her father died that night in jail. No one knew who sliced his neck. A week later, the police found Gabby's actual killer three houses down from hers.

Back in her husband Neil's extra apartment, she remained frozen in the kitchen's doorway.

Something is different. It's that same feeling like before. Why?

Just like when discovering Gabby's body that same electric sensation p.r.i.c.kled at her skin. Diana couldn't figure out what to do next, part of her urged to investigate, the rest screamed to race away.

Is Neil okay or is this one of his games? I bet he's in here. Watching me as I stand here, shaking. He's probably naked and stroking himself.

She thought back to all of Neil's many games-inviting women to their table on date night and outrageously flirting with them, emailing her videos of his s.e.xual exploits, intentionally screaming out other women's names right before he came inside of her, and the worst of all, telling her how much he loved her, declaring how much he cared, and then laughing out loud and denying it all with disgust.

With Neil it was a constant struggle to stay within reality. He was a question she was always trying to decode. One of the many demons on her back that she'd earned for accidentally killing her father.

"Neil?" she asked in the darkness.

Neil had become more predictable with age and marriage, yet there were still secrets he locked up tight enough to keep Diana curious. His kitchen message was certainly enough to make her wonder about his intentions.

Neil: Come to my apartment on d.i.c.kens Road. I want to show you something.

Diana: What is it?

Neil: I want to show you how much I care about you. Come to the kitchen.

Diana: It's New Year's Eve. We should be out celebrating.

Neil: Stop arguing. Just come.

Diana: You better not be messing with me.

Neil: Hurry. I can't wait to show you what I have planned.

Diana sighed.

Maybe he wanted to feel the same thrill as Diana did? Did he concoct a series of elaborate clues that would end in a romantic candle-lit dinner?

Probably not. That isn't Neil's style, and why am I feeling that same electric feeling?

Gabby's frail, cold body flashed in her mind. All her nightmares, no matter how different or complex, always ended with that image of Gabby's corpse.

Cold chills ran up Diana's spine.

"I'm done playing your games, Neil," she said, just in case he was there in the kitchen.

She ran her fingers through her hair and stepped back. "You couldn't even give me tonight. Could you? What's the point of being your wife, if I see you less than all of your mistresses, and get absolutely no respect?"

Diana slammed the front door on the way out of the condo. She would check their other condo first before heading to her newspaper's office. Although she didn't need the job's money, she craved all of the other things that came with it-the clicking of keyboard keys as she typed away her findings on something she'd exhausted days in research on, her co-workers conversation that stimulated her mind and sometimes shook the walls deep within her heart, and just the plain old freedom of being away from Neil's evil games.

I guess I'm spending New Year's Eve in the office, like last year.

Her office never disappointed her as Neil did. It never told her lies. Never expected things from her that she didn't want to give. It never drug her down so low that she found it difficult to crawl to safety.

Besides the night is still young, and I have plenty of work that needs to be done before Gregory returns from his vacation in Cancun and starts hammering away questions on my article deadlines.

If Neil wasn't going to make an effort to keep her around, well then he would find out just how much fun she could have without him. Diana was determined to take back what she'd lost in her marriage with Neil.

Adventure, excitement, and herself.

The latter was the most important. Somehow she'd lost the things that made her, Diana. Neil's harsh games had chipped away at her very soul. At times she blinked her eyes, and yearned for an escape, unsure of the view that lay right in front of her.

She knew she should've left Neil long ago, knew it deep down within her core.

Still, she stayed.

Maybe, that's my New Year's resolution. Get away from Neil.

As she pulled out of the parking spot below the condo, she swore she saw something pa.s.s by the kitchen window. The shadow of a figure creeping away, someone tall and holding something on their back.

See. I knew you were in the apartment, Neil. What were you going to do if I came all the way into the kitchen?

"Go f.u.c.k yourself, Neil." Blinking, she shook her head and put her foot on the brake. No other images went by any of the windows in the apartment, which was strange.

Wait a minute. Did I really see something or not? You know what? Who cares?

She sped off.

The time had finally come-Neil had driven her crazy enough to lose her mind. Shadow people and all. He was going to be sorry when she finally found him. She would make d.a.m.n sure of that.

Diana's office was more a home than either of her condos.

She lived, breathed and slept in the place she was pa.s.sionate about. Ink and paper and stale coffee engulfed her senses, but she craved it like a junkie does a fix. She'd never tire of the smells and atmosphere of a newsroom. Of keyboard clacks underneath her fingertips. Not even the piles of papers scattered around the floor bothered her.

She did it because it was in her blood.

Reporting.

Hunting down the truth.

She was no longer that little girl that made a huge mistake that cost her father his life.

Things had changed.

Someone could try to hide from Diana Carson, but they never got far.

She found them.

Always.

Literary awards stacked her shelves at home. They awarded Diana for her addiction to curiosity, her constant yearning to know it all.

At one am, Diana sat with the Mirabelli file in her lap. She'd gone to the other condo, and as expected, Neil was nowhere to be found. She called his cell phone only to get his voicemail. She left him a nasty message and went straight to the office.

Have fun playing your games by yourself.

She'd much rather be with the case file of a murdered man than sitting at home alone with a bottle of wine.

At least she could be productive at the office.

At least she could pretend there wasn't a part of her that throbbed with pain at all the things Neil had done to her. She could pretend to be strong, independent and victorious.

She forced herself back to the file in her hands.

Jackson Mirabell, the charming, crack-addicted son of Richard Mirabelli the second who was the creator and CEO of Mirabelli Technologies. Diana had met Jackson at a party once. He was just like every other man who came from wealthy inheritances. Arrogant, attractive as h.e.l.l with a s.h.i.+t ton of addictions he mostly kept well hidden.

Is that what got him killed?

She couldn't decide which was the ultimate cause, his penchant for expensive white powder in clear baggies or his affliction for hurting the hookers he hired. Either way, Jackson had been found two days ago in his first floor apartment, a hole in his chest, blood dripping out the sides of his puckered lips.

The hole.

It was a point of contention between the police and the medical examiner. Not a bullet hole. Too large. No one could explain it and Diana was perplexed as to how Jackson Mirabelli really died.

The concierge told police he went up to his room with a pet.i.te blonde in stilettos, but she never came back down. Police found no sign of the woman. Either the concierge was lying or this girl simply... disappeared. Diana's best guess was that the woman got a lucky break, escaped when she could, before things got bad.

I have to figure out who she is, and talk to her. I bet one of the madams on the island would know who she was. Someone will point me in the right direction, whether they know it or not. I have to find out why the girl never came back down and her body wasn't found. She has to be a live, right?

At least, that was what Diana intended to find out. And when she did, she'd be able to piece everything else together.

Who was Jackson Mirabelli in trouble with? How did he get that gaping hole in his chest? And more importantly-how did this girl manage to get away from it all?

Diana glanced at her watch and realized two whole hours had pa.s.sed. It was almost three in the morning and she still hadn't heard from Neil.

Tingles shook through her. Neil wasn't a good husband, but he was attached to his phone as if it were a synthetic limb. He would have called back by now.

Something is wrong.

Three.