The door closed behind her new patient.
Ellen tried not to make snap judgments, but at the same time, she liked to stay receptive to her initial gut impressions. This time, her impressions started before she'd even met Quinn in person.
Quinn's parents had both gotten in touch with her, separately.
When she called to make the appointment, Katherine Wells had made it clear that she thought it had to have been some sort of unlikely accident while Quinn and her boyfriend were together. "My daughter and I are very close," Katherine had explained, "so I'd definitely know if something traumatic had happened to her. No question. And she'd tell me if she'd had consensual sex. I've always been very sex positive with her. There's no reason she'd lie."
Gabe Cutler had left a message on Ellen's voicemail:
"A couple of points to cover here. First, I want to make sure you don't keep notes about patients online that could be compromised. Our medical records were part of that recent HealthOne leak, so we've already had trouble with that. For Quinn's sake, I want to make absolutely sure this will all be completely confidential. Also, this is probably unrelated, but I wanted to mention that my daughter had ... an active imagination when she was younger. If she says anything now that seems upsetting or unusual, please let me know. I'm concerned about how ... disconnected she seems. So ... thank you, and please call me at this number if you need to discuss anything, not on the house or office lines."
Ellen's impression here was strong: Quinn wasn't the only one in the family who was, as Gabe had said, disconnected. It seemed that all three of them were—from one another, and perhaps from some aspects of reality.
