A Fatal Debt Read Online Free

flecks distributed throughout: even those were carefully delineated. His shirt and suit were always clean and pressed, as if dirt and crumbs slid off them. It beats me how he kept pin-sharp creases in his pants despite being seated for most of the day. When not on York East, he had a lucrative private practice into which he gathered quite a few of his Episcopal patients.
He probably wants to shift Harry over there
, I thought,
and doesn’t want me in the way
.
    Despite Jim’s mood and the difficulties I feared it could cause me, the news that Harry had asked for me gave me a thrill that I tried to keep out of my voice. I’d thought of Harry a few times that weekend and had even let myself fantasize briefly about him becoming mypatient—hadn’t Nora hinted she wanted that? Despite his temper, Harry had many attractive qualities. He was wealthy and well known, and having the whole wing named after him made him a trophy asset that other doctors would covet. Besides that, he was intriguing. There was another story there, behind the headlines, which I wanted to hear. Best of all, I was confident that I could help him, since middle-aged depression is highly treatable. My fantasy was coming true.
    I left the Twelve South residents to get on with running things and made my way out of the ward, unlocking and relocking the secure double doors with the jangling bunch of keys that hung at my belt. We referred to patients slipping out as “elopement” rather than “escape,” as if it were a romantic adventure, but I felt like a jailer. York East was one floor up, with a view over the river toward a new condominium block in Long Island City topped by a sign that said FOR RENT . I found Jim in his office by the ward, reading notes on the clipboard he always carried with him. I walked in and sat in front of his desk.
    “Mr. Shapiro?” I said.
    Jim carefully finished what he was doing before looking up, signaling that he wasn’t going to be distracted by the affair. “Mr. Shapiro,” he said before waiting silently, as if his job were to listen and mine were to explain.
    “I don’t know very much about the case, I’m afraid. I admitted him from the ER on Friday. Danger to self. It was the first time I’d seen him, so I’m surprised he’s asked for me. Has he been assessed?”
    Jim furrowed his brow, which was as close as he got to an open display of annoyance.
    “Not for want of trying,” he said. “I was told of his admission on Friday night and I came by on Saturday morning so we could start treatment immediately. It sounded as if he was in distress.”
    So Jim came in on a Saturday
, I thought. Not many patients got that treatment. Harry had been unhappy, but so were most of those who got admitted to the ER on Friday night—just as the psychs were leaving for the weekend. With the nurses watching them, there was no need to hurry, so they had to sit it out on the wards until Mondaywith tranquilizers to soothe them. Yet Jim had taken the time to see Harry the morning after his admission. Either Sarah Duncan had made him give our new inpatient the VIP treatment or he’d spotted the potential in Harry himself.
    “He wasn’t cooperative?”
    “When I arrived, his wife was with him and they wanted privacy. I came back yesterday, but Mrs. Shapiro said he’d wait to see you today. She apologized, but said it was typical. He always puts his trust in a small circle of people, and he’s taken a liking to you, it seems.”
    “Interesting,” I said, trying to portray Harry’s rejection of Jim as an insight into his personality we could examine together. But Jim still looked irked. Harry was used to others being at his beck and call, I imagined. He probably hadn’t noticed the significance of Jim’s arrival to see him on the weekend.
    “There we are,” Jim said, looking at his watch. “I’m due in Westchester early this afternoon. I’ll leave him in your hands.”
    We had a facility in the New York suburbs for the