Read Online Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective by Don Pendleton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Don Pendleton
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she feel
it important to lay one around me?
Did she let it slip that big changes were
arriving in the coming week, or had it been her intention all along
to drop that information on me?
Had she really been trying
to drive me away—or had she merely been manipulating me into a
challenge to stay?
What was the personal relationship with her
husband—and was the sexplay just another smoke screen of some
type, or was she really all that contemptuous of her marriage?
What, exactly, was "sick" about Karen—and,
to whatever extent she may be so, how much of that was being
deliberately engineered into her by this very strange
household?
Why had a shrink been brought aboard? Out of
genuine concern for an ailing heiress?—or as part of an elaborate
plan to certify her as mentally incompetent and thus forestall a
turnover of power?
And, if I could take Marcia at face value,
exactly what was I being "set up" for?
I haul all of this out for inspection here
so that you may consider the same puzzles that I had to consider at
that moment and so that you may understand the frame of my mind
while I was getting into a tuxedo that had been tailored for me
during the hour or so before that moment, upon the orders of a man
whom I had first met maybe two hours earlier and who, ironically
enough, was married to a lady who had just metaphorically invited
me to screw her brains out immediately after dinner.
I also give it to you here lest it all be
lost sight of in the rapidly cascading developments of that evening
at the Highland estate.
It was only about twenty
minutes past seven, but I dressed early to check the fit. I was
standing at the mirror inspecting same when I suddenly became aware
of eyes upon me. My gaze went straight to the French doors. The sun
had set and the balcony outside was cloaked in deep shadows, but I
saw her as clearly as if she had been dipped in luminous
paint.
It was Karen's ethereal companion and the
expression on that tormented face was clearly pleading with me for
something.
The apparition turned, showing itself in
clear three-dimensional profile, to gaze down upon the patio, back
to me, then once again onto the patio, as though summoning my
attention to something there.
I did not give it a second thought nor a
moment's hesitation but moved quickly to the balcony. The
apparition had winked out with my first step forward, but I could
still sense presence out there.
That particular presence, however, was not
now the focus of my attention.
The focus was immediately below. Two men
stood at the patio bar in twilight, a woman in an evening dress was
walking toward the pool—and in the pool, submerged in deep water, a
nude female figure floated facedown.
There are moments in the stream when the
thinking mind stands aside and something deeply human yet more
than human takes over the motor nerves to send a living creature
sprawling into personal peril with no thought whatever for the
self. I believe that such moments explain those singular, selfless
acts of human heroism.
Of course I was thinking
no such thoughts at that moment, and I am laying no claim to
heroism. Quite the reverse, I am merely explaining a really stupid
action. I have never been big on watersports, naval experience
notwithstanding, and had never shown any particular form as a
diver. I do not recall gauging the distance or extrapolating angle
for depth; I remember only pushing with all the leg I had against
the railing of that second-story balcony and launching myself
headlong toward that floating body, the initial shock of
penetration and a weird wandering apology to God knows who for
immersing the tux, then the warm-cold naked flesh of Marcia
Kalinsky as I fought the limp form toward a living
environment.
Chapter Nine: Mirror
Image
A woman was screaming and the patio area was
filling rapidly with excited people in formal attire.
The guys in dinner jackets were standing by
at poolside with hands outstretched
it important to lay one around me?
Did she let it slip that big changes were
arriving in the coming week, or had it been her intention all along
to drop that information on me?
Had she really been trying
to drive me away—or had she merely been manipulating me into a
challenge to stay?
What was the personal relationship with her
husband—and was the sexplay just another smoke screen of some
type, or was she really all that contemptuous of her marriage?
What, exactly, was "sick" about Karen—and,
to whatever extent she may be so, how much of that was being
deliberately engineered into her by this very strange
household?
Why had a shrink been brought aboard? Out of
genuine concern for an ailing heiress?—or as part of an elaborate
plan to certify her as mentally incompetent and thus forestall a
turnover of power?
And, if I could take Marcia at face value,
exactly what was I being "set up" for?
I haul all of this out for inspection here
so that you may consider the same puzzles that I had to consider at
that moment and so that you may understand the frame of my mind
while I was getting into a tuxedo that had been tailored for me
during the hour or so before that moment, upon the orders of a man
whom I had first met maybe two hours earlier and who, ironically
enough, was married to a lady who had just metaphorically invited
me to screw her brains out immediately after dinner.
I also give it to you here lest it all be
lost sight of in the rapidly cascading developments of that evening
at the Highland estate.
It was only about twenty
minutes past seven, but I dressed early to check the fit. I was
standing at the mirror inspecting same when I suddenly became aware
of eyes upon me. My gaze went straight to the French doors. The sun
had set and the balcony outside was cloaked in deep shadows, but I
saw her as clearly as if she had been dipped in luminous
paint.
It was Karen's ethereal companion and the
expression on that tormented face was clearly pleading with me for
something.
The apparition turned, showing itself in
clear three-dimensional profile, to gaze down upon the patio, back
to me, then once again onto the patio, as though summoning my
attention to something there.
I did not give it a second thought nor a
moment's hesitation but moved quickly to the balcony. The
apparition had winked out with my first step forward, but I could
still sense presence out there.
That particular presence, however, was not
now the focus of my attention.
The focus was immediately below. Two men
stood at the patio bar in twilight, a woman in an evening dress was
walking toward the pool—and in the pool, submerged in deep water, a
nude female figure floated facedown.
There are moments in the stream when the
thinking mind stands aside and something deeply human yet more
than human takes over the motor nerves to send a living creature
sprawling into personal peril with no thought whatever for the
self. I believe that such moments explain those singular, selfless
acts of human heroism.
Of course I was thinking
no such thoughts at that moment, and I am laying no claim to
heroism. Quite the reverse, I am merely explaining a really stupid
action. I have never been big on watersports, naval experience
notwithstanding, and had never shown any particular form as a
diver. I do not recall gauging the distance or extrapolating angle
for depth; I remember only pushing with all the leg I had against
the railing of that second-story balcony and launching myself
headlong toward that floating body, the initial shock of
penetration and a weird wandering apology to God knows who for
immersing the tux, then the warm-cold naked flesh of Marcia
Kalinsky as I fought the limp form toward a living
environment.
Chapter Nine: Mirror
Image
A woman was screaming and the patio area was
filling rapidly with excited people in formal attire.
The guys in dinner jackets were standing by
at poolside with hands outstretched
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