Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series) Read Free Page B

Beautiful mouth. Nice
hands—expressive, without exaggerated movements—delicate and artful but also
entirely capable. A soft fabric handbag with a silkrope draw was slung casually
from one shoulder.
    I
also liked her no-nonsense manner, which still managed to be conveyed
graciously.
    "Thank
you for calling, Mr. Ford. May I see her now?"
    "Wait
a minute," I said. Guess I was still hung up on my Ted Bransen defenses.
"Don't you want to know why she's here?"
    "If
that is important, I'm sure she'll tell me. She is all right?"
    I
rubbed my temple as I replied, "Far as I can tell, physically, yeah, she's
fine. But she was totally disoriented when I found her, and we've had
absolutely no conversation. Sleeping like a baby for the past hour."
    "Then
maybe we shouldn't disturb her." That voice fit the rest of
her—understated strength, properly concerned, but unemotional, coolly
modulated.
    I
said, "She's, uh, in my bed. It's the only bed in the house." I
glanced at my watch. "It's three o'clock. I have a big day coming
up."
    My
shrinking sense of hospitality gave her no pause. "Could you go to a hotel
for the rest of the night? Of course we would cover your expenses."
    I
said, "No dice. My bed is not for rent. Speaking of which, why didn't
Bransen come? Or has this sort of thing become too routine for him?"
    She
showed me a briefly disappointed look, then replied, "That could be highly
confrontational, couldn't it? Why should he want to embarrass either of
you?"
    I
shrugged and said, "Well, maybe I've misread the guy. I expected him to
come in here breathing fire and screaming accusations."
    She
smiled, barely, as she told me, "I can understand your position. Rest
assured that there are no suspicions of... romantic indiscretion."
    I
asked her, "Do you always talk like that?"
    "Like
what?"
    "The
perfect executive secretary."
    She
laughed lightly, said, "Thank you," and broke eye contact.
    I
showed her to the bedroom. I'd left a small bedside lamp on and the lighting in
there was sort of mellow. Penny was lying just as I'd left her—flat on her
back, head straight on the pillow—but she looked different somehow, almost
ghastly pale in the muted light. Totally still, no signs of breathing, she
looked like a corpse.
    I
had halted just inside the bedroom door. Julie went on to the foot of the bed
and spoke a single word so softly that I could not be sure what it was, but I
assumed she'd called Penny's name because she responded immediately in an
equally soft voice, though without opening her eyes.
    Julie
turned to me and said, "We'll be right out."
    I
suddenly felt like an ass. I told her, "Hey, I can sleep on the couch
if..."
    "No,
no," she replied, "it will be fine now. Just give us a minute
please."
    "She
lost her clothes somewhere," I said.
    "No
problem."
    No
problem, okay. But can you understand how very strange I was feeling about all
this? Forgetting the saucers, even—forget I even mentioned them—does the
strangeness translate here? I had chanced upon a Hollywood superstar staggering
naked along a deserted road in a remote area in the middle of the night. Other than
that bare fact, there was no evidence of foul play or physical harm of any
kind—except that the lady was confused and disoriented. So I take her to my
home and put her to bed and call her husband, who a short time earlier had
evinced a strong concern for her well-being.
    So
does the husband come tearing in to collect her naked body from my bed? Hell
no. The lady's secretary comes, and then the whole thing is just cool business
as usual with "no problem."
    Well
it was a hell of a problem for me.
    I
skulked around the kitchen for about ten minutes, expecting each moment to
bring Julie back out with a semiconscious superstar staggering along beside her
draped in a sheet or some such.
    Instead
I got two very lively and cheerful—not to mention beautiful—women dressed
identically in workout suits. So I guess you can easily conceal one of those
things in a