Heart to Heart: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

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
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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 marked 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.