Heart to Heart

by Don Pendleton

  HEART TO HEART

  Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

  Don Pendleton

  Creator of

  The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series

  and

  Joe Copp Private Eye Thrillers

  Books by Don Pendleton

  Fiction

  The Executioner, Mack Bolan Series

  The Joe Copp Mystery Series: Copp for Hire; Copp on Fire; Copp in Deep; Copp in the Dark; Copp on Ice; Copp in Shock.

  The Ashton Ford Mystery Series: Ashes to Ashes; Eye to Eye; Mind to Mind; Life to Life; Heart to Heart; Time to Time.

  Fiction written with Linda Pendleton

  Roulette

  Comics by Don and Linda Pendleton

  The Executioner, War Against the Mafia

  Nonfiction Books by Don Pendleton

  A Search for Meaning From the Surface of a Small Planet

  Nonfiction Books by Don and Linda Pendleton

  To Dance With Angels

  Whispers From the Soul

  The Metaphysics of the Novel

  The Cosmic Breath

  HEART TO HEART: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

  Copyright © 1987 by Don Pendleton, All rights reserved. Published with permission of Linda Pendleton.

  Cover design by Linda Pendleton and Judy Bullard

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, groups, organizations, or events is not intended and is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of Linda Pendleton.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

  This edition is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work and rights of the author.

  For my children and my children's children; that they know me, and themselves.

  Author’s Note

  To My Readers:

  Ashton Ford will come as something of a surprise to those of you who have been with me over the years. This is not the same type of fiction that established my success as a novelist; Ford is not a gutbuster and he is not trying to save the world from anything but its own confusion. There are no grenade launchers or rockets to solve his problems and he is more of a lover than a fighter.

  Some have wondered why I was silent for so many years; some will now also wonder why I have returned in such altered form. The truth is that I had said all I had to say about that other aspect of life. I have grown, I hope, both as a person and as a writer, and I needed another vehicle to carry the creative quest. Ashton Ford is that vehicle. Through this character I attempt to understand more fully and to give better meaning to my perceptions of what is going on here on Planet Earth, and the greatest mystery of all the mysteries: the why of existence itself.

  Through Ford I use everything I can reach in the total knowledge of mankind to elaborate this mystery and to arm my characters for the quest. I try to entertain myself with their adventures, hoping that what entertains me may also entertain others—so these books, like life itself, are not all grim purpose and trembling truths. They are fun to write; for some they will be fun to read. To each of those I dedicate the work.

  ~Don Pendleton

  Love is the whole history of a woman's life;

  It is but an episode in a man's.

  —Madame de Staël

  I wept and I believed.

  —Francois René de Chateaubriand

  This is the last of earth!

  I am content

  —John Quincy Adams (last words)

  Foreword

  This is a story I never intended to tell, for various reasons. One reason is that it is basically a love story—which is not too bad in and of itself, but it is also a highly personal love story involving many tender depths of my own heart, depths that can be very painful to touch in retrospect.

  The chief reason, though, is that it seemed doubtful until very recently that I would ever penetrate the perplexing mysteries of this story—and one must understand his own story if he intends to tell it intelligently.

  Recent events, occurring long after I'd thought the story over and done, have focused my understanding of its phenomenal aspects. With that understanding came also the realization that this story must be shared with others. It's going to hurt here and there, in the sharing, but I now know that this is a story that must be told.

  Turn the page.

  I am about to meet an angel, I think.

  And a soul mate, maybe.

  But don't blame me if the going gets a bit wild from time to time. It is a wild story. Which is another reason why I never thought I'd tell it—but I give it to you now, straight from the heart. And I hope that you receive it in the same place.

  My heart to yours then. And away we go.

  HEART TO HEART

  Chapter One: The Summons

  I didn't know where the guy came from. I just looked up, and there he was. I live on the beach, at Malibu. In California the beaches belong to the people. Private property lines end at the mean high-tide mark. So I get a lot of people walking by; sometimes, some very interesting people.

  So maybe you forget to lock a door. And someone just wanders in. Wrong house, maybe. You don't want to act the ass, get all indignant, toss the guy out.

  I was at the computer in my study, manipulating some data I'd developed at Big Sur. Pretty intense concentration, you know. But I felt this guy's presence. I looked up. There he stood, gazing at me from the open doorway into the living room. Total stranger. But I said, "Just a minute," and started the program execution before I left the computer.

  He'd stepped back into the living room. The front wall

  is all glass, sliding doors onto the beach, closed and locked. Main entry is at the opposite side of the house, rarely used, almost always locked. I checked it out later. It was locked.

  So here stands a guy in my locked house. He's about forty years old, give or take a couple, apparently in vigorous good health, nice looking. Southern European—Italian maybe, or Spanish—dark, very well dressed by a European tailor, makes you think of blood lines, aristocratic lineage. You couldn't call his speech accented. Just the opposite, it was very precise but nicely flowing, not exactly Empire English and not exactly American English, just sort of...neutral.

  "I hope you will pardon the intrusion," he says to me in that almost but not quite stiff manner of speaking.

  I say, "It's okay. Who were you looking for?" I go to the glass door, unlock it, slide it open.

  Meanwhile he is telling me, "I am not here by error, Ashton. You are the man for me."

  I reply to that, "Has to work both ways. Maybe you are not the man for me."

  This guy wears his hair in a curious, old-world fashion—almost like eighteenth century. It is jet black, full at the sides and back and sort of flipped up at the ends in soft waves. You can't see his ears. He has a thin mustache. Stands very erect, almost stiff; feet almost touching, hands behind the back.

  He tells me, "Let me assure you that you shall enjoy the assignment. A very beautiful woman is involved. And, of course, the pay is good. I understand that your usual fee is five hundred dollars per day. I offer you this, for ten days' services maximum."

  He produces his hands for my inspection. Each is holding a packet of currency, crisp new bills with bank bands marke
d at $5,000 per packet. He thrusts the money at me. I do not take it. Instead I tell him, "We need to define the job first."

  "It defines itself," he says, and drops the money onto a table. "Laguna Beach. Her name is Francesca Amalie. You shall find her at Pointe House."

  I move to the table and pick up the money to examine it. Looks like the real stuff, hundred dollar notes.

  He is telling me, "You must go today. The crisis is now. Help her to resolve it. Ten days maximum, or all is lost."

  I am still checking the money. I ask, without looking up, "What crisis? Who is Francesca Amalie? Who are you?"

  The guy is not responding.

  I look up.

  The guy is not there. He is not on the porch, not on the beach, not surfing, not in the driveway nor speeding away in a car; the guy is nowhere.

  But the money is there, and the money is real.

  My name is Ashton Ford. I am a psychic investigator, counselor, semiscientist, semicop, semi lots of things. What I am not is a semifool, not usually.

  So I downloaded my computer, climbed into my Maserati, and took off for Laguna Beach—roughly an hour and a half south, traffic willing.

  A wise man does not, after all, defy the angels.

  Chapter Two: The Point

  Laguna Beach is something of an anachronism in today's booming metropolitan sprawl that is Southern California. You get a sensing of that during the early approach when you realize that there are but two ways in—which is contrast enough with the rest of the region, where the cities are jumbled together like the patches on a quilt and you can move from one to the other at virtually any compass heading without realizing that you have done so.

  This little beach town stands quietly remote from all that, sharing her borders with only the blue Pacific and the verdant hills of the coastal mountains. Approaching from Los Angeles, you leave the urban sprawl behind at Costa Mesa where you have the option of continuing on along the San Diego Freeway to the Laguna Hills and then angling via two-lane highway through the twisting canyons to the sea and entering the town through its backside, or you can take the shorter jump from Costa Mesa to the coast highway at Corona Del Mar and roller-coaster on down to Laguna Beach through several miles of seaside splendor, with an endless postcard view of crescent beaches, soaring cliffs, and the Pacific flinging itself onto house-size rocks far below. I usually opt for the latter approach because it makes me think of the Mediterranean coasts of Italy and France, the Riviera—and I guess that is the best way to describe this particular section of California, especially the Laguna area with its riotous flora, hillside homes, and sparkling beaches.

  But there is a human flavor to Laguna Beach that is uniquely its own—and there is something else too: there is charm. Think of that. In Southern California. Charm. It's a resort area, sure. Items with visitors throughout the year, depends on those visitors for its livelihood, but here is a town that has remained true to itself, and you pick up on that very quickly. There are no Hiltons here, no Sheratons or Holiday Inns or Ramadas. The hotels and motels are smallish, intimate, colorful. There are no McDonald's or Wendy's either; some casual dining, sure, sidewalk finger-foods and courtyard cafes, but there are also many fine restaurants and most are quite cheap, with graciousness the keynote whatever the scale. You'll never go hungry in this town.

  With all that, the heart of Laguna Beach is her creative community. This is an art center, a craft center, a fashion center, a music center. Charm center, yeah. She's a town that knows herself and loves herself, and she's fighting like hell to be herself. The resident population stabilized some years back at about 18,000. But the big developers have been hungrily eyeing her flanks. They want to run freeways through her pristine hills and extend the urban sprawl to engulf this lovely little anachronism and bring her into the late twentieth-century reality of gridlock and greedlock. I have to bet with the money. By the time you are reading this, greed may have already won the battle and what I am telling you about Laguna could already be no more than a fond memory of things gone by.

  I knew all that before I'd heard of Francesca Amalie or Pointe House. I'd been to Laguna many times, loved to prowl the art galleries and browse the funky little shops, take in some jazz, or just stand on the corner and watch the cars go by. Great car town—if you like cars, and I do. Rolls, Bentley, Excalibur, Ferrari, Maserati—I'm talking cars, as artform instead of mpg, and you'll see all the car art on any afternoon in Laguna Beach.

  So, yeah, it was no great sacrifice for me to tear myself away from the affluent ghetto that is Malibu for a quick trek to the charm center of California. I was between cases anyway and getting restless with my research studies. So I was primed and ready for Laguna, even without an angel on the shoulder, and even before I met Francesca.

  Think of Gina Lollobrigida at about twenty-five, give her Bergman's haunting eyes and Bacall's quick humor, MacLaine's introspective smile, Monroe's vulnerable sensuality. Package it with a unique feminine awareness, call the vision Francesca, and you've got her in sight as I did that afternoon at Pointe House.

  It should have been called Pointe Mansion, and even that is understatement unless you think of a sprawling seaside estate perched atop the sheer rock face of a narrow promontory. The point juts out maybe two hundred yards into the Pacific at an elevation of several hundred feet. The house and grounds occupy the whole thing, which is about a hundred yards wide at the base and triangles out to a width of maybe twenty feet at the point. The main house is built at the extreme tip; part of it even hangs out over the cliff, and that part has glass walls on three sides for spectacular views. The whole thing is cleverly designed to fit the land, has many levels, and—I am told—thirty-four rooms.

  The grounds look like a Japanese park—gardens everywhere, artificial stream with waterfalls and footbridges, exotic trees and flowering bushes, several acres of that. All in all quite a package, and I would not hazard a guess as to its fair market value. But I can tell you that beachfront property in this area can go as high as a million bucks for just an ordinary cottage-size lot.

  The gates were open so I drove right in and followed a winding country lane through the gardens for what seemed a couple of minutes before I reached the house. A young Oriental woman in black silk pajamas who seemed to recognize the sound of my name greeted me at the door and graciously ushered me inside. She put me in a holding area and offered me tea, which I declined, then gracefully withdrew. The room was larger than my whole house at Malibu. The walls were paneled in teak I think, and the floor was something like marble tile with heavy Oriental carpets scattered about in an eye-pleasing arrangement. There were lots of flowers and tables and sofas, some statuary, heavily framed paintings tastefully displayed on the walls, a breathtaking view of Laguna Beach through the only window.

  I was still interestedly checking it out when Francesca appeared. She wore an artist's smock over blue jeans; barefoot; dark hair pulled carelessly back in a loose ponytail—an expectant, quizzical smile.

  I'd never put much stock in the idea of love at first sight. Lust, maybe; sure, many times, but this was different—a sort of quiet excitement wriggling up from somewhere deep in the mind, something bordering on recognition or remembrance, an almost déjà vu feeling coupled with a lifting of the heart.

  I just stood there staring at her for a long moment, probably with a very stupid look on my face. She must have been feeling something too though, because her smile was frozen in place and she was staring right back at me. We stood like that for maybe half a minute and a room apart, then she caught her breath and laughed softly, came on into the room, told me in a very pleasantly modulated voice: "Forgive me for staring at you like that. I thought at first I knew you, and I was trying to place you."

  I handed her a business card as I replied, "Guess we both made the same mistake."

  She dropped the card into a pocket of the smock without looking at it. "I was told to expect you," she said quietly. "Please make yourself completely at home. Ha
i Tsu went on to double-check your suite. She will be back down in just a minute, and I'm sure she would be very happy to show you where everything is. My only request is that you do not disturb me while I am in my studio. I'm afraid I'm terribly behind in my work, and I'm trying to prepare for a show next week."

  She was moving out, backpedaling as she spoke, but I was moving right with her. I said, "Uh, I think there's been some...I don't understand what...what the hell am I doing here?"

  She gave me a blank look; replied, "Don't you know?"

  I tried to mimic that look as I spread my hands and told her, "All I know is that I was virtually ordered to show up here with all possible haste."

  She showed me a soft smile, touched the back of her neck with exploring fingers as she said, "Yes, that seems to be the way it works."

  "The way what works?" I inquired.

  "That's the way I got here."

  "When was that?"

  Her eyes searched me bare before she replied, "Nearly a year ago. Look, you get the run of the house, nobody bothers you, you come and go as you please, the staff takes care of all the work—what's to complain about? Just relax and enjoy it."

  I was beginning to get the lay of it now. I asked her, "This isn't your place?"

  She treated me again to that soft laughter. "My place? Last year at this time I was sharing a loft over a store with three other girls, and we were just barely paying the rent between us. I'm here the same way you're here probably, as the guest of a very generous man, and—"