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The breath of air against her bare flesh was erotic The whisper of it seeainst the winter, like a blaze stoked within her soul

Oh, God, oh, God, she was far too fanciful

She turned, wanting to scream

But no sound left her lips

For he touched her, drew her to him, seduced; and the warmth of her life’s blood flowed between thehteen sixty-one ca, and Louisiana seceded froh the front door in a fury Her household servants scattered, silently disappearing They were alone on the beautiful broad staircase of Montgo fire, and Meg felt amoney, he‘d formed a cavalry unit with himself as captain It hadn’t ht, or that the South could win a war

This was his ho called to war, and he’d be riding away "I have to go, and damn you, damn you I love you Marry me"

"I can’t!" she whispered, heartbroken

He shook his head, his frustration and fury greater He strode the three steps to reach her, and swept her into his ar herher, touching hertore away, lay scattered across the stairs His er over her flesh until she was shivering and shaking and in a tempest to match his own She kissed hi his back She very nearly bit into his shoulder

She felt the Persian stairway runner against her back, the hardness of the wood beneath it He made love with a reckless, desperate passion, and when he was done, she found that she was sobbing, clinging to hi that she loved him but that she could not marry him Puzzled, he demanded to knohy And at last she told him that if they both survived the war, she‘d explain But , and she‘d love hih

It wasn’t enough, he told her, but it was all that he had And he ently, and yet with the saht and reason from her

Then he rode away

CHAPTER 5

Sean read and reread the police reports taken by the officers who had thus far worked the ho with the task force assigned to the murders, and he wanted to make sure he hadn’t ation

A tourist couple had first come upon the body of Jane Doe in the cemetery The husband’s rueful statement read: "Okay, so arned that the cehborhood, but eren’t expecting anything like this I’d even heard that there were bones sticking out of the graves now and then, but, oh, God, nothing like this Nothing like this" Pierre hadcomment in his medical report: Jane Doe, laid out on a tomb as if on a bed, had been left in a very similar position and appearance to Jack the Ripper’s fifth victim, Mary Kelly

Jane Doe’s head had been coh Mary Kelly’s hadn’t, the body mutilations were incredibly sied around the body

The photos were enough to make even the most street-hardened cop sick for a week Luckily, the discovery of the body had been early and the young couple in the cemetery had been so shocked and horrified that they hadn’t looked long before hysterically hailing a police car on the street No one but cops-- and the murderer (murderers?)--had seen the body The police had been honest with the press regarding the fact that she had been decapitated and uarded details of thatcouple had returned to their hoht The wife had been sedated, and both she and her husband begged not to be identified to the press She was hysterical, anxious not to be associated with the murder in any way Soto New Orleans Still, it had been a break for the cops Too many people wanted the sensationalis couple from Alaska had been far too afraid of the murderer

Sean picked up Pierre’s forensic report The list of trauood seemed to be that most of the wounds were postmortem He didn’t need the medical report to remember the autopsy He’d stood by Pierre while thehis findings to the microphone suspended above the body in an even, enunciated voice It wasn’t soed his fingers through his hair Jane Doe, decapitated, destroyed A pimp out on Bourbon Street Decapitated, not mutilated Did the killer only mutilate women? Was it even the same killer, or did they have a pair ofthe streets It wouldn’t be the first ti in New Orleans

He looked over at the computer screen on his desk, then pushed the exit button with an aggravated sigh

It wasn’t that he couldn’t find similar homicides across the country The problem was that he could find far too s He’d described their recent murders for the computer, and it had seemed that the information returned to hi keys, he told himself morosely Crimes, solved and unsolved, from more than a century past had appeared Jack the Ripper appeared on the screen, along with the New Orleans Axeain, entering--for the ti--

only the past few years’ worth of unsolved cri by the side of his desk and plopping down a stack of books

Sean looked up at hied "Under the circumstances, I think the press has been kind Did I tell you that you had to corinned "I knew you’d be in"

"Ah Well, you’re a good kid, Jack"

"I’ve been trying a few angles Doing a lot of reading What do you think of voodoo?" Sean leaned back, arching a brow "What do I think of voodoo? Let ed ion with them here For instance, a snake is important in reat Zoainst theirbusiness She worked as a hairdresser and used the gossip she heard to make the populace believe she knew the deep, dark secrets and desires of her clients, and had the power to ‘see’ Today, voodoo is still a major source of incole" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>