Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Read Online Free PDF

calling on Miss
Highland. He relayed my name by intercom to the house or somewhere
and I was passed right on through with maybe a ten-second delay,
all told.
    Which gave me a funny feeling. Had I been
expected to show up here? Who was behind the cadre of bodyguards or
whatever that had invaded my home that morning with such damned
arrogance—waving guns, yet—and what the hell was I walking into
here.
    Hey—I've seen the same movies you've seen
about the poor dear heiress dominated and manipulated by greedy
scoundrels trying to do her out of her megabucks. Stuff like that,
fiction or not, sticks in the mind—maybe because we all at least
subconsciously recognize the fact that art imitates life, that
there is some basis in reality for fictional drama.
    So I was a bit uneasy,
sure, I don't mind saying so, but that feeling was very quickly
overpowered by another. My initial, outside impression of that
palace could not match the inside reality. My Maserati felt right
at home amid all that splendor as it tooled along the wide, curving
drive toward the house, past seas of flowers and immaculate
flagstone pathways, over tumbling brooks with waterfalls and living
swans, exotic flowering trees dotting acres of rolling lawn—but
that Maserati had always seemed smugly superior to me, as though
she knew I really could not afford her, and frankly I felt a bit
out of place, definitely uncomfortable, perhaps smarting just a bit
from the memory of my protective instincts toward the mistress of
such a joint. In short, the reality of Highlandville put me in my
place, reminding me that, after all, a movie is just a movie, but
life is a bowl of cherries.
    I almost turned around and went right back
out, but I resisted the impulse, set my jaw, and sallied on.
    Glad I did.
    Something was going on there. Twenty or so
cars were parked beyond the portico and a uniformed attendant was
standing ready to receive mine. I told the guy, no, thanks, nobody
drives the Maserati but me, and I took her on through and placed
her carefully beside a Rolls.
    A guy in a waiter's uniform looked me over
as I quit the Maserati, apparently deciding that my tennis shorts
and polo shirt qualified me as a guest, in contrast to a service
person, because he gave me a friendly smile as I approached and
directed me toward an area behind the house.
    A party was in progress
back there—several couples of the beautiful set lounging beside the
pool in skimpy swimwear and chatting amiably, several others
hoisting drinks at an island bar, two couples playing cards at a
poolside table—all in swimsuits or otherwise scantily clad. The
only guy there wearing long pants and shoes was bare from the waist
up; this one saw me coming and trotted over to intercept me at the
edge of the lawn.
    "You're Ford?" he asked casually, with a
smile. Before I could confirm that, he went on to say, "Toby told
me he was sending you on up. Glad you could make it. We all want to
thank you for taking such good care of Karen last night. Kid had us
worried to death."
    He stuck out a hand and I shook it
courteously as he kept right on talking without a pause, but I
would have liked to tell him that the guys with the guns had
already conveyed the gratitude of the kingdom. This guy looked
about forty-five or maybe a young fifty, it would be hard to say,
very smooth veneer covering a tough-as-nails personality, kind of
guy you'd expect to see at the head of the table at a board meeting
of some megabuck corporation—all self-assured, a touch superior and
more than a touch condescending behind that facade of chatty
amiability.
    "I'm Terry Kalinsky," as
though I should immediately know what that meant. "That's my wife,
Marcia—" He was indicating a tall, blond woman of roughly his own
age, still very pretty and sexy in a one-half-ounce bikini, seated
on the diving board with a cocktail. "—and I'll let you make your
own introductions to the others, we don't stand on formalities
here. Karen should be along in