Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective by Don Pendleton

kept
murmuring over and over, "She should have told you."
    The dream was so vivid
that I had trouble making the transition to the waking state. I was
lying on a hospital bed in a brightly sunlit room, Laura was
bending over me in a white smock, and I had her hair in both my
hands. She laughed softly and asked me, "Are you awake? Do you know
where you are?"
    I replied, with a mouth full of mush, "Hell,
I'm sorry, kid, but I just can't find it."
    She laughed again, freed her hair from my
grasp, and told me, "Well whatever you're looking for, you won't
find it in there. I'll have you know I brush my hair a hundred
strokes every morning and every night."
    It all came back to me,
then. I shoved her away from me, I guess a bit too forcefully, and
sat bolt upright on the bed. She sort of hit the wall and gave a
little shriek. Two guys came running in from somewhere and gave me
a hard but somewhat undecided look.
    "It's okay, it's okay," Laura assured them.
"He just awoke with a bit of confusion. Let's get some food in
here, now. And coffee, right away."
    "No ambrosia," I added thickly.
    The guys grinned and went back out.
    Laura stood at the wall, arms folded across
that magnificent chest, and said, "You'll have to forgive my
bedside manner. I do have an M.D. but I haven't really practiced
it."
    "Don't worry about it," I growled. "You'll
probably grow up to be a pretty good doctor some day." My head was
booming, hangover style. I held it in both hands to keep it from
falling off my shoulders and asked her, "What did you people give
me? How'd you get this jackhammer in here between my ears?"
    She said, "Sorry about the headache. It will
pass soon, once we get some food into you. You're going to be just
fine."
    I said, "I was just fine
last night when I walked in here."
    "That wasn't last night," she informed
me.
    I glanced at my bare wrist, cast about for
my watch, located it on the bedside table, succeeded in focusing
one eye on the tiny day/date display. Damn. It was Monday
already.
    "What happened to Sunday?" I asked her.
    "Sorry, we had to check
you out thoroughly. That's what happened to Sunday."
    An Indian woman came in
with a tray, placed it beside me and withdrew without looking
directly at me. I realized only then that I was totally naked. The
tray had coffee, two cups, cream and sugar—silver service. I
repositioned the sheet about me and swung my legs over the side of
the bed. That was a mistake. I hung onto the bed for dear life
while Laura poured the coffee. She held the cup to my lips for a
couple of sips.
    "Bathroom," I croaked.
    "Are you nauseous?" she
inquired, properly concerned about that, as she helped me to my
feet.
    "Piss call," I replied.
    She laughed softly and
steered me into the proper direction, suggested, "A shower could
help."
    I reached back for the
coffee and carried it with me to the bathroom, gaining stability as
I went and not the least embarrassed about my nakedness, hard-on
and all.
    And, yeah, the shower did help—but not the
hard-on, the piss call took care of that, but five minutes beneath
a near-scalding spray unkinked the brain and rekindled the
circulation. I came out of it beet-red all over and feeling almost
human again, pardon the expression. The coffee had cooled so I
gulped it down, cinched a towel at the waist and stepped out for a
refill. Laura was seated beside the bed, cup poised at pouted lips
but nothing happening there, engrossed in some dark mental
study.
    She looked up as I filled
my cup, said, lightly, "Well thank God you've found your
modesty."
    I clucked my tongue at her and replied, "And
you a medical doctor."
    'Told you I haven't really practiced," she
said soberly. "Truly, Ashton, you're a hell of a turn-on."
    I gave no response to that, verbally or
otherwise, but returned to the bathroom with my coffee, for a
shave. Had to wonder, though, about her obviously mismatched
marriage and the possible stresses therefrom; wondered, also, how
much of my dream had been pure