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He punched in the number and then put it on speaker.
“This is Carly Nolan,” a woman answered. Sometimes it could be hard to tell on the phone, but Raisa guessed she was older, maybe even postretirement age.
Kilkenny introduced both of them, reminding Carly of the case and giving the broad strokes of what they were working on.
“Oh, I know what day it is,” Carly said after Kilkenny finished. “I’ve had it marked on my calendar.”
“To celebrate?” Raisa couldn’t help but ask.
“No, dear,” Carly said. “I went to church to pray for Nate. He was such a sweet boy. I don’t know what happened to him.”
And wasn’t that the $64,000 question. “He said he had a rough time working his way through the system before he was placed with his adoptive family. Do you recall any reason that would be?”
“Oh, no,” Carly said, clearly distraught. “No. It was my job to shepherd him through the process and protect him as much as possible. I don’t know what could have happened that would have made him say that.”
“It was a smooth process?” Raisa asked.
“Yes, surprisingly smooth, given his history,” Carly said. “Usually children who go through such traumatic events need extensive help. But he was one of my easier cases.”
Raisa didn’t want to judge someone based on such little information. But she had only lost her adoptive parents in a car crash, and it had wrecked her to the point where she’d stopped talking for four years. Nathaniel barely escaped being poisoned by his father; likely saw the rest of his family die; and then was lost for several days—hungry, scared, and dehydrated. At ten years old.
In no world should Nathaniel Conrad have been one of Carly Nolan’s “easiest” cases.
“Did he see a psychologist?” Raisa asked, because that seemed like the bare minimum.
“No,” Carly continued, seeming unaware of Raisa’s tone change. “The poor dear was shaken up, but not so bad that he needed all that.”
Raisa inhaled sharply, and Kilkenny lightly tapped the table to get her attention. He shook his head and she exhaled, counting backward from one hundred. He was right—this wasn’t the time or place to litigate what actions were taken after Conrad had become a ward of the state.
But she was starting to understand why he’d said it wasn’t the best experience. At the very least, he’d been neglected, some fairly basic needs going unmet because he didn’t make a fuss. That stank of an old-school mentality that had led plenty of children down the wrong path.
A good psychologist also would have noticed that Conrad might not be reacting quite as expected. They might have realized he had a personality disorder that could have been managed. One good psychologist could have saved nearly thirty lives.
Maybe.
“Although,” Carly said, sounding like she’d just stumbled over a long-buried thought, “I did get an odd message one time about Nate.”
“An odd message?” Kilkenny prompted.
“Yes, I think ... I think it was from maybe a doctoral candidate doing research on traumatic life experiences in children,” Carly said, her voice gaining confidence the longer she went on.
Raisa met Kilkenny’s eyes. His were wide and alert, and they were both holding themselves incredibly still, as if any sound would spook Carly into forgetting whatever tidbit had surfaced.
“Yes, that’s right. I remember thinking how inappropriate it was,” Carly said. “I, of course, responded that I had no interest in letting them run experiments on a child who’d just been through what Nate had survived.”
“Is there any way they could have circumvented you to contact Nate directly?” Raisa asked.
“No, no,” Carly said. “Although ...”
Raisa was beginning to both love and hate that word in Carly’s mouth. “Yes?”
“Well, I, of course, wrote my follow-up reports,” Carly said. “And by the second year, Nate’s adoptive parents told me they had tried out a therapist for a few sessions. It didn’t work out.”
“That wasn’t in the report,” Kilkenny said, voice sharp.
“Well, it was only a few introductory sessions,” Carly said, going defensive. This time it was Raisa who tapped lightly on the table and shook her head.
“So the psychiatrist who contacted you might have been the same one Nate saw while with his adoptive parents?” Raisa asked.