Free Druid's Daughter by Jean Hart Stewart

thoughts drifting to her. She seemed to slither in any chink on his
concentration.
    He had not seen her, although he’d called on her twice. The
butler had informed Lance Miss Morgan was not at home. Still he couldn’t stop
her from invading his mind at all times of the day. Sometimes he would be
staring at his calendar, always crammed with routine tasks he should be
pursuing, when her image floated before him. Suddenly boring tasks. Morgan was
interfering in every aspect of his life.
    Her lovely face, her green eyes glowing, her lower lip
trembling as she listened to the melodic arias of La Traviata .
Unashamedly wiping her eyes, giving him back his handkerchief and smiling at
the same time. Her depth of emotion was just one more reason to make him
determined to understand her. He was sure no man had touched her deep reservoir
of passion.
    Her lack of experience both amazed and thrilled him. She was
virtually untouched. But did he really want to be the one to unleash the
emotion buried deep within her delectable body? If he succeeded he knew his
life would never be the same. His brain told him she was not a woman he could
pursue and then drop. His body didn’t seem to recognize the warning.
    He did not, did not, want a close relationship with any
woman. Certainly he could not afford to let an intuitive woman like Morgan near
enough to try to understand him. It would be disaster.
    He threw down the papers in his hand. To hell with dreary
duty and his dreary thoughts. Nothing was pressing enough it couldn’t wait an
hour or two. He’d head for Miss Morgan McAfee’s residence.
    He was shrugging into this coat when Sergeant Shriver burst
in. Lance gave one look at his white face and staring eyes and stopped and
turned back to his desk.
    “Daniels is here, Sir. I made him sit for a minute. There’s
been another one and he found her.”
    “Did he leave no one with the body?” Lance asked in a sharp
tone.
    “No Sir, a policeman was passing by the end of the alley and
Daniels called him in to stand watch. He wanted to come himself and tell you.
This one must have been horrible, Sir. He’s shaking like a wet dog.”
    Lance headed for the door. A warm-blooded man, he seldom
wore an overcoat. The days were still pleasant, so he merely grabbed his hat
and started off on a near run, motioning Daniels and Shriver to follow. Daniels
stopped his shaking enough to run after his chief. A driver was already waiting
and Lance jumped in his carriage, holding open the door for Daniels and
Shriver.
    “Give him the directions, Daniels. I want to see this one as
soon as possible.”
    Daniels stammered out the address, a street deep in the
Seven Dials stews and then shrank back again as the carriage set off.
    Lance was beginning to be seriously annoyed. Some loose
fiend was almost thumbing his nose at the police and Lance was beginning to
take it as a personal insult. He did not intend to have a maniac running around
killing people while he was the head detective in the C.I.D.
    Lance, Shriver and Daniels soon reached the alley where the
victim lay. The brutal killing method appeared to bear the same evil marks.
Again a young girl lay viciously murdered and again it seemed likely she’d been
a prostitute. She lay on her stomach, her hands now limp but on the edges of
her hiked-up skirts. Her throat had been slashed so violently part of the wound
could be seen at the side of her neck. There seemed to be a little more blood
this time. Her long brassy hair was oily and fell over her cheek and down into the
blood. On looking closer Lance saw the expected little slit in the back of her
red-and-white-checked blouse.
    “The bastard has to have studied anatomy,” ground out Lance.
“Whether in a medical school or reading by himself. If it’s the latter he’s
been very lucky to hit just the right spot to get to the heart. Or rather I
should say the victim’s lucky, since she was dead before he started carving her
up.”
    And carve her he