Keith Ablow - Compulsion

"Thanks for the advice," he said. "Will you do life with me?"

"They have to prove you're guilty," I said.

"I need money," he said. "That's all I need right now."

"Where can I meet you?"

"Like I said, you can't. There's a safe place where you can leave it for me. I have somebody who can grab it and bring it to me."

"Where are you?" I pushed.

"Can I have the money?" he asked. "You know I didn't kill Brooke. You know it."

He was starting to sound desperate. I gambled he was desperate enough to trust me. "Not unless we can meet face-to-face," I said.

"Impossible," he said.

"That's the deal, Billy. Take it or leave it."

He was silent a few seconds. "I'm at the end of my rope," he said finally. "You've got to come through here, Doc. I'm counting on you."

I closed my eyes, imagining how terrifying it would feel to be sixteen years old, all alone, facing life in prison. "I'm just asking you to meet me halfway. You get the money when I get to see you."

"That's it. Your final answer?"

"That's it."

"Then you're as much to blame for what happens as anyone else," he said bitterly.

"To blame-for what?"

"Read about it in the papers." He hung up.

"Billy!" I yelled into the receiver. I dialed *69, trying to be reconnected, but got the standard computer message telling me the callback feature wouldn't work. I slammed the receiver down. The phone crashed to the floor.

The end of my rope. I stared at the phone cord looped around one leg of the table. I could almost hear the call I had gotten years before from Anne Sacon, a social worker with the Department of Youth Services, after Billy Fisk had been found hanging from a noose in his parents' garage. Days earlier Fisk had reached out to me for what proved to be the last time, telling me how unhappy he was at home and asking whether he could come live with me. It hadn't seemed even remotely possible at the time. Patients don't move in with their psychiatrists, after all. But had I known how close he was to the edge, I would have agreed.

Was history repeating itself? Was God testing me to see whether I had learned to go all the way out on a limb for someone about to fall?

I flicked through the handful of numbers that had registered on my message machine. They were all in the 508 area code, which included Cape Cod and Nantucket. The only number I recognized was North Anderson 's. I figured the others probably belonged to Billy, that he had run closer to home, rather than further away.

I listened to North's message. No emergency, but he wanted me to call him. I dialed his number at work. His secretary put me through.

"Billy's come up for air," I told him.

"How so?" he asked.

"He called me for a loan."

"I hope he's looking to buy a one-way airplane ticket to Russia instead of a stolen gun," he said. "I wouldn't give him any dough."

"He wanted the money dropped off so a buddy could run it to him. I told him no deal."

"Good. The last thing I want to do is tail sixteen-year-olds across two states-or two continents," Anderson said. "He'll circle back to you."

"He got pretty threatening at the end," I admitted. "He told me to watch the papers."

"All the more reason to keep him running on empty. Without a full wallet, he'll turn up sooner."

That made me feel better about my decision to withhold the cash, but not a whole lot better. "I got your message on my machine," I said. "What's up?"

"Nothing urgent. I just wanted you to know I'm starting to feel some political pressure from good old Darwin. We must be getting to him."

"What sort of political pressure?" I asked him.

"I serve at the pleasure of the mayor," Anderson said. "And the mayor serves all kinds of masters, including Darwin Bishop. He called to let me know he isn't pleased I have you on board. He doesn't see why we need a forensic psychiatrist involved in the case when there's an identified lead suspect and a clear path to prosecution once that suspect is apprehended."

"Translation: Leave the billionaire alone and close the case down," I said.

"You speak Nantucket very well."

"So what does that mean for us, in the short term?" I asked.

"It doesn't mean anything, short or long term, until they fire me, run me off the island, and set up a blockade to keep me away."

I had relied on North Anderson 's loyalty before, but I didn't want to take it for granted. "You could cut me loose, and I could keep working on my own time," I said.

"Wow," he said. "You've come a long way. You didn't even want this gig, let alone wanting it pro bono."

"Things change," I said.

"Not everything," Anderson said. "If they want to shake you off the case, they'll have to get me off the case. And that's not happening."

"Understood." I let myself linger a couple seconds on the good feeling that Anderson 's camaraderie inspired in me. "I got my own message from Darwin Bishop today," I said. "He had me followed when I took Julia to lunch. Some gorilla in one of his Range Rovers was parked outside the restaurant."

Anderson was silent for a bit. "I think you ought to come down here for a few days," he said.

"You want to watch my back for me?"

"Why not? You've watched mine enough."

I had already started to feel myself being pulled back to the island, especially since Billy's calls seemed to place him a lot closer to Nantucket than Chelsea. "Any chance I could interview Darwin Bishop once more?"

"I can try to set it up," Anderson said. "He's already having you followed. He might actually like the chance to check in face-to-face."

"I'll take a ferry over tonight, provided they have space. If you get me that interview, I'll have a pretty full dance card. I'm attending Brooke Bishop's funeral tomorrow."

"At Julia's invitation?" he said.

"Yes."

There was a little longer silence this time. "Look, we go back a long way, right?"

I knew where he was headed. "You don't have to say it."

"I'm just going to tell you the way it is: You can't touch her."

"I haven't," I said.

"You haven't and you won't?"

I hesitated.

"Listen to me," Anderson said. "Whether you mess around with married women is your own business. I'm not about to give you any lectures on morality."

"Good."

"You can't touch her because it contaminates the case. You can't see clearly from the inside of anything, if you know what I mean."

I knew exactly what he meant. Crossing personal boundaries in professional relationships is always ill-advised. As a psychiatrist, it's especially unethical. But my attraction to Julia was blurring all those lines. I didn't feel I could honestly make any promises or predictions about where my relationship with her was headed. "You're right," was all I told Anderson.

"And…"

"And I'll try to be on that ferry I mentioned."

"You're playing with fire, Frank."

"I hear you."

He let out a heavy sigh. "Call me when you hit the island."

"Will do."

I packed light, but then realized I was traveling a little too light, given the special attention Darwin Bishop was paying me. I walked over to the bed, reached down to the bed frame, and grabbed my Browning Baby pistol. I tucked it in my front pocket. It had been a long time since I'd needed to carry, but it was that time again.

I walked to the kitchen next. I looked up at the double doors of the cabinet over the refrigerator. I hadn't opened those doors for more than two years. But I hadn't emptied the cabinet, either. A collection of single malt scotches stood inside, waiting for a moment like this one, when some sort of trouble in the world would become my trouble again. There was a flask in the cabinet, too-a well-worn, sterling silver one with "FGC" engraved, front and center. Frank Galvin Clevenger. I was never one for monograms, but Galvin had been my father's first name, and it had seemed fitting that I include the "G" on a vessel that contained the spore of the illness we shared.