Page 3 of Headcase
As if on cue, the two boys began to laugh, like one had told a funny joke. They paid no attention to Thomas and Dr. Rice behind the glass, but it felt as if that laugh was for their benefit, like they could hear their conversation and found them amusing. It was unsettling to say the least.
Thomas watched them carefully. “No violent outbursts towards the staff? No bedwetting? Arson? Cruelty towards small children or animals?”
She shrugged, then shook her head. “Not that we’ve witnessed. But I do have to warn you. There’s something else.”
A trickle of unease shivered along Thomas’s spine. “Something else?”
She nodded. “They don’t seem to have any interest in harming the staff or other children…but they do seem to enjoy harming each other. But only each other.”
Thomas startled. “What?”
Dr. Rice stared at the two boys for a long moment before dragging her gaze back to Thomas. “You see the splint on the one boy’s finger?”
Thomas followed her eyes. “You’re saying the other did that.”
She nodded, swallowing audibly.
“CIPA?” he asked.
Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis was rare and came with a handful of issues that would make even the most attentive parent paranoid that their child was going to jump from a roof or sit on a hot stove. A child who can’t feel pain literally has zero sense of self-preservation.
“No,” Dr. Rice said, shaking her head emphatically. “You’re not understanding me. They do feel pain…” She shivered. “They just really enjoy it.”
“Are you at the office? Why’s it so quiet?”
Zane huffed out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Zane Scott didn’t have an office. He didn’t even have a cubicle. Because he didn’t have a job. Not a real one, anyway. Not that his mother knew that. “No, Ma. I’m working from home today.”
And every day.
“Do they have you working on any exciting stories? I told all the ladies in my bridge club about my reporter son. They’re very excited to read your first story.”
So was Zane. He just had to come up with one. “Ma, please stop telling people about my job. Being an investigative journalist requires a lot of research. It’ll be a while before my first major story hits the papers.”
His mother sniffed. Then there was the sound of her taking a big gulp of something. Gin, no doubt. It was noon, after all. “I’m allowed to brag about my son. We weren’t sure you’d ever make something of yourself. Poor grades. Skipping school. Your brother had sports and debate team and a 5.3 GPA, but you… We thought we’d end up supporting you forever.”
Zane knew that. Anybody who knew his mother knew that, too. This wasn’t a new conversation.
“Thanks, Ma,” Zane said with an eye roll.
She made a disgusted noise. “A writer. Ugh. Might as well be a fitness instructor. At least they have a shot at working with celebrities.”
Zane did work with celebrities. Just not in a way his mother would want to brag about.
“Yeah, Ma. I know,” he said, seeing the bend in the conversation coming but unable to hit the brakes before it derailed.
“Don’t ‘I know’ me,” his mother said. “When we lost your brother, we thought we’d lost any chance…”
No matter how much Zane tried to steel himself for this point in their conversations, it hurt no less. His brother, Gage, had been the heir, and Zane was most definitely the spare. The one they’d tucked into the closet and ignored on the assumption that their original was just too fucking perfect to die. Guess Gage showed them. All of them.
Zane stared down at the pic of a movie star sneaking out of a famous singer’s apartment, glancing up at the clock. “Yeah, I know, Ma. I’m just saying, I’m up to my eyeballs in research and I’m on company time. I’ll call you and dad this weekend, okay?”
“Okay, doll. But don’t call on Friday. We’re having dinner at the Silvers. And on Sunday, we’re having dinner at the Country Club. You know what? I’ll call you. Okay?”
Zane sighed internally. “Yeah, sure, Ma. Love you.”
His mother blew kisses into the phone. “Talk soon.”
Zane didn’t know why he said ‘love you’ every time they ended a call. His mother had never once said it back. Not when he was five, not when he was eleven, not when he was twenty-one, standing beside his brother’s casket. And not now.
