Page 2 of Headcase
Thomas’s stomach sank. “And how did they go from living in suburbia to living in a group home?”
She hesitated, but he wasn’t sure if it was because it was something truly awful or just because she was having second thoughts about inviting him in. What they were doing was highly illegal. Handing over these boys to Thomas essentially meant making them disappear from this life and reappear a few months later as two entirely new people. It meant acknowledging that these children would become research subjects, even though that came with the perks of being raised by a billionaire.
Thomas was good to his sons. And they were his sons. For all of his grand plans to train these children to do what was in their very nature to do, he still loved his children. He wanted them to succeed, wanted them to exceed all expectations and limitations society often placed on people like them.
Dr. Rice finally spoke. “They tried to separate them. It didn’t…go well.”
“Separate them?” Thomas echoed.
Dr. Rice’s lip curled in disgust. “Yes. The parents got divorced, blamed the stress of trying to raise two boys with severe mental issues—their words, not mine. Said before the adoption, they were a perfect couple. When they divorced, they decided they would each take a twin and move far away from each other like it was the fuckingParent Trap.” She must have realized what she said because she darted her gaze to him. “Sorry.”
Thomas shook his head, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t be sorry. That’s a terrible thing to do to children, twins or not.”
Dr. Rice made a derisive sound. “She called it an equal division of assets.”
“Christ,” Thomas muttered. Maybe the mother was the psychopath? “What happened once they separated the boys?”
Dr. Rice tilted her head, leaning in closer to the window. “They…went feral.”
“Feral?” Thomas parroted.
Dr. Rice nodded again, watching the two boys lying together, still occasionally laughing or making funny faces like any typical six-year-old might. “Within an hour or two, the boys became inconsolable. After around twenty-four hours, they grew violent.”
“How violent?” Thomas asked, also leaning in.
“Biting, kicking, scratching. Within two days, they’d stopped speaking, stopped eating. They would scream for hours, urinate on the floors, kick holes in the walls, scratch at their parents. Often at the same time their sibling was engaging in the same behavior.”
Thomas processed that information. “I’m assuming the state intervened in one or both cases?”
Dr. Rice frowned. “The parents decided to put each of them on a seventy-two hour psych hold. When that hold was up, the state—for whatever reason—said they weren’t a danger to themselves or others and ordered they be released.”
Thomas frowned. “Yet, they’re here.”
“The parents refused to take them back.”
Refused? “An adoption is a legally binding contract. You cannot simply refuse to take custody of your children.”
“You can when you’re an attorney, it seems. The woman claimed she was given fraudulent information regarding the children’s pasts. Said the adoption agency failed to disclose that the children had been terribly neglected for the first six months of their lives, leading to a severe attachment disorder. She had the adoption overturned.”
Thomas took a deep breath and let it out. Children weren’t disposable. They weren’t props to be moved around on a set. He knew his outrage smacked of hypocrisy. It wasn’t like he was some saint, taking in the needy. He also had an agenda, an ulterior motive, but that didn’t mean he’d treat these boys as such. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t love and care for them, even if they were incapable of returning that affection.
“The acting out only started when they were separated?”
“Before that, they were still distant, but the parents were workaholics who left them to be raised primarily by a nanny. There’s no way of truly knowing whether they could have grown to have some attachment to the family eventually. But while the boys were being held on their psych hold, the mother found out she was pregnant, and she and her husband decided to give their relationship another try…without the boys. She thought they might be a danger to the baby.”
Thomas arched a brow. “Was there any validity to the theory?”
Dr. Rice shrugged. “They have been perfectly polite here. They do as they’re asked. They share their toys, pick up after themselves. They are both incredibly gifted, though in completely opposite ways. As long as we make no attempt to separate them, they appear perfectly content. They just aren’t particularly affectionate.”
Dr. Rice’s implication was clear. She wouldn’t allow Thomas to take one without the other. Not that he ever would. That would simply be cruel, and Thomas was many things but not cruel.
“Why am I here, Dr. Rice? I’m sure you understand what I’m looking for. You clearly have powerful connections if you know what I do, if you’ve been told of my research.”
Dr. Rice turned to Thomas, giving a heavy sigh. “While they are intelligent, polite, and respectful, they are also most definitely…void.”
“Void?”
She glanced back at them. “There’s nothing there. When you look at them, they study you. They profile you. And more than that…they do it as a team. They can communicate telepathically. I never really believed that was something twins could truly do, not until them. But there’s no doubt they’re speaking to each other.”
