Keith Ablow - Compulsion

"Did you think so?" I asked.

He shook his head. "If that was an act, she deserves an Academy Award. You know me, I'm no bleeding heart. For me to call in a psych consult, twice, you have to be in pretty bad shape."

"Well, thanks for letting me know Hallissey's take on things, anyhow," I said. "The more information I have, the better." I paused. "And thanks for helping Tess."

"Don't thank me. Sue the hospital and cut me in." He smiled in a way that made it clear he was pulling my leg. Then he leaned closer and dropped his voice. "Get some rest," he said. "You look like you're about to collapse. And we really can't afford to lose you around here."

I took the stairs up to Telemetry, a unit that looks a lot like any other inpatient ward, with private rooms off a central corridor. I stopped at the nurses' station, found Tess Bishop's room number, and walked to the doorway. Julia was seated by Tess's bedside, watching her intently, just as she had been in the PICU. I monitored my internal reaction to seeing her. The expected anxiety was there, along with a flash of anger, but those negative emotions were eclipsed by another feeling, which I hadn't anticipated-an edgy sort of comfort. It was something you might experience arriving home in the midst of a family tragedy, when you know things have gone bad, but you also know they are your things, together. Owning a share of trouble can be an oddly warm and centering experience.

As for Tess, she looked more like a normal infant than before, with fewer leads and lines emerging from her extremities. Her sleep seemed substantially more restful than in the PICU. Her respirations were less labored and more regular, centered in her chest rather than her abdomen. And her color had moved toward pink from ash.

Julia turned and saw me in the doorway. She stood up, took her own deep breath, and smiled. "How long have you been standing there?" she asked.

"I just got here." I walked into the room. I nodded at Tess. "Dr. Karlstein told me she's doing well," I said.

"He was remarkable," she said. "I couldn't have asked for anything more." She looked down at the ground, then back at me. " Darwin came to the hospital. Luckily, we were the second item on his agenda, as usual. He called before he went into a board meeting at some company headquartered here in Boston. That gave me time to go to court and get a restraining order."

"Karlstein told me about that, too," I said. "Good for you."

She started to smile, catching her lower lip between her teeth. "There's no way I would have had the strength to do anything like that if it weren't for you."

I wanted to believe her, which told me how hard I had fallen for her. I was fresh from learning of at least one other romance of hers, with North Anderson. And there was probably a third man in the mix, assuming the letter Claire Buckley had shown us was intended for someone other than North. Yet I still felt like her relationship with me was of a different order and exponentially more important to her. "Didn't you ever see The Wizard of Oz?” I said. "No one can give you courage-or a heart or a brain. You must have had it all along."

"Hold me?" she said.

I walked closer, coming within a few feet of her, then stopped and just stood there.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"We need to talk," I said.

She tilted her head. "What about?"

" North Anderson," I said. "For starters."

She nodded, as if she had known we would eventually arrive at this moment. "He told you we spent some time together," she said.

"Yes," I said. I held off mentioning the photograph.

"And I hope he told you that nothing happened," she said. "Because it didn't. I mean, we didn't…"

"But you got close, emotionally," I said. "And maybe you still are. I don't know."

"No," she said. "We're not. Not the way you're thinking. I still care for him, but not in a romantic way."

I shrugged, unconvinced. "All right," I said.

"Can we sit down, please?" she said.

I took one of the armchairs by Tess's bed. Julia took the other.

"You know how difficult my life has been with Win," she started. "I mean, you believe what I've told you-what I've been through?"

"Yes," I said. "I do." And I did. But I also found myself thinking about Caroline Hallissey's assessment of Julia as someone who manufactured emotions.

"I met North at a fund-raiser for the Pine Street Inn in Boston," Julia went on. "I thought he might be able to help me with a project I wanted to start-reaching out to kids who were into drugs. There are more of them on the island than anyone will admit, and I thought, with North having come from Baltimore, he would be a lot less naive than his predecessor."

I noticed how little I liked hearing Julia use North's first name, not much more than I liked her referring to Darwin as her husband. "There's nothing naive about him," I said. "He's seen it all, at least twice." I gestured for her to continue.

"We started meeting about the drug issue, and I started feeling drawn to him," she said. "But we never connected in anything like the way you and I do." She leaned closer. "You have to believe me. I felt safer with North in my life, and I admired him, but I wasn't in love with him."

Meaning, she was in love with me. I heard that loud and clear. And I still liked hearing it. "I saw a photograph of the two of you on the beach," I said.

"On the beach?" she said.

"You were holding one another," I said. "Kissing." I cringed at my own tone of voice, which reminded me of a jealous high school kid hassling his girl about going parking with someone else.

She looked at me in disbelief. "Win actually gave you that photograph?" she asked.

I stayed silent. I wanted to hear Julia's version of where the photograph might have come from, without any prompting from me.

"I can't believe he'd do that," she said. "He's so sick."

"Tell me what you mean," I said.

"One of Darwin 's security guards took that photograph," she said. "Win was having me followed. He actually used it to try to force me to have an abortion."

"What?"

"He said if I didn't terminate my pregnancy, he'd turn the photo over to the newspapers and let them have a field day with it," Julia said. "That scared me. Obviously, I didn't want to be embarrassed myself, but I was also worried North would lose his job or his marriage or both. So I booked an appointment at a family planning center."

I felt relieved that Julia's story sounded at least remotely credible. "Did Darwin talk about divorce once he knew you had spent time with North?" I asked.

"Never. I think he actually liked the fact that he had something to hold over my head. It gave him even more control over me," she said. "He feeds on that."

"And he never turned the photograph over to the press," I said.

"I should have known that was a bluff," she said. "Advertising my infidelity would have hurt his ego more than it would have fed his need for revenge." Her eyes filled up. "I guess he just waited to get back at me-through Brooke and Tess."

I hesitated to push Julia further when she was close to tears, but I needed to ask her about the letter Claire had given North and me. "There's something else," I said.

She wiped her eyes. "What? I'll tell you anything you want."

That was a disconcerting turn of phrase. Was Julia, I wondered, just telling me what I wanted to hear? "A page of a letter you wrote surfaced," I said.

"Surfaced?" she said.

"Maybe when the police searched the house," I lied.

"Really," she said.

I didn't feel right lying to her. And I figured turning up the heat between Julia and Claire might not be such a bad idea. "Actually, we got it from Claire Buckley," I said. "She found it-in your closet."