Mind to Mind: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Read Online Free PDF Page B

with me?"
    She did not directly reply
to that but immediately twisted about and began a timid exploration
of my torso with her lips.
    We both became quite
"comfortable" very soon after that. And, to tell the truth, I did
not have another lucid thought for quite a long time. It was
totally a right-brain experience, enacted beyond space and outside
of time. So much so that I was a bit disoriented as to time and
space when I came down from that, had difficulty extracting myself
from the soft tangle of limbs, not sure as to exactly who I was or
where I had been.
    But I came out of that
right-brain domination with a much better handle on who Jane Doe
was and where she had been.
    And I came out, I believed, with an "image"
of her killer—an image formed of symbols, nightmarish shapes, and
shadows.
    I mentioned none of that to Alison. I let
her sleep while I prepared a light dinner.
    The ocean breezes were a
bit cool, but she wanted to eat on the deck overlooking the surf in
the moonlight, so we did. And without a lot of conversation. She
was pensive, almost withdrawn. I was sort of in the same shape. I
guess we each gladly respected the mood of the other.
    She helped me clean up the
mess in the kitchen, then quietly told me, "I have to work
tomorrow. Guess I should get going."
    So I took her home. We talked a bit on the
way, but it was all small talk. I walked her to the security door
of her apartment complex, and she told me good night there.
    "I hope this is not good-bye," she said
wistfully.
    I smiled and told her, "We've hardly said
hello."
    Then I returned to the Maserati and sent her
on a beeline for Cochran's place, in Hollywood.
    I'd hardly said hello to Jane Doe,
either.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six: Pick of the
Litter
     
    The police had no leads at all in this case.
And actually there had not been a lot of push toward developing
any. She's a big city, Los Angeles is, with undoubtedly one of the
finest police departments in the world but also beset by a criminal
population that exceeds the total population of most American
cities. The cops in this town are virtually under siege—to the
extent, at least, that there is always considerably more crime
than there are time and resources to respond to it. So Cochran's
"Jane Doe" case—which only very lately had become a homicide—had
not received a lot of attention.
    What they had, until now, was an assault
victim and a weapon. They did not know the victim's name or place
of residence. No one had been pressuring for a quick solution here.
No one had come forward to identify the victim or her assailant. It
had been, therefore, one of those "backwater" cases that a guy like
Cochran was expected to work on only when there were not more
pressing matters at hand.
    But this one had gotten
under Cochran's skin. He'd been working it on his own time, for the
most part. He had distributed her photograph around the country.
He'd kept up with missing-persons reports from every region. He'd
put the arm on every informant on his list, several times around,
and he'd even taken to hounding the lockups and questioning
suspects in other assaults.
    Cochran was a good cop, and he had done all
the right things with all the time at his disposal. He'd come to me
as a last resort, and I suspect that he'd intended to pay my fee
out of his own pocket. He was that kind of cop. He didn't even mind
that I punched his door bell at midnight, though I suspect that
his wife did, and even she plugged in the coffeepot and tried to
put the best face possible on that midnight invasion of their
privacy.
    I had not met Georgia Cochran before that
visit to her home. Jim had spoken of her, and of their two kids,
but he was not the type to say a lot about his personal life. From
what he had said, it was my impression that he had a happy marriage
and a satisfying home life. I liked her instantly. And I liked the
sleepy-eyed ten-year-old who came to the kitchen to investigate the
late-night sounds in there. She